When I asked the men and women from this album where they were born, each of them in their own turn would answer: “In Rila”, “Vitosha” or “Stara Planina”. All those names do not stand for towns or villages, but for Bulgarian mountains. None of them was born in a house but somewhere high in the mountains of Bulgaria. Their father’s flocks were all about, horses grazed freely on the hills nearby, from time to time dogs from a breed almost extinct today would give a bark... (Boyan Papazov)

„Nowadays these people live in houses and flats like all of us... My characters here are the last survivors of the Karakachans who, until the middle of the century, had lead semi-nomadic life. A whole tradition and cultural layer will leave the world along with them.“ (Boyan Papazov)

„For more than 10 years Christina has been kneading the prosphora for the Christians from Samokov and the villages in the vicinity. This wheat bread is “a gift of bloodless sacrifice” and is not for anybody’s hands. The prosphora is not made by just anybody. The prosphora is kneaded by righteous hands for righteous souls.“ (Boyan Papazov)

“When the Karakachans come to an end, the world will come to an end too”. (NIKOLA)

“After they took our sheep away, there was nothing to do with the horses, we didn’t need them anymore. It’s because we used the horses for carrying forage, going to places, when we sold the cheese… then people bought them cheap, almost for free…” (KOSTA)

“Wherever you go, no matter what troubles you have, it’s never too difficult to say, “God, have mercy on me”. (CHRISTINA)

„The last generation of nomads will carry away with themselves the strictly observed wedding, child-birth, burial and calendar rituals. Perhaps the same future awaits the food and medicine recipes and the whole complex of aesthetic principles, notions, skills and practices, connected with the specific production of home-made textile.“ (Aleksei Kalionski)

„The souls don’t stay in the graveyards! They just wait there for the dead man to come. Same as we do, don’t we go to see who’s coming? My grandfather when dying was talking to the dead. And God was listening.” (MARIA)

“The spiritual kinship of the Karakachans with a number of ancient nomadic people, old-testament Judaic tribes included, has been pointed out by the best authorities on their religion, magic rites, mythology and demonology.” (Alexey Kalionsky)

“Granddad used to say that there are hundred year old trees, but there’s no such thing as a hundred year old power! And he was right.” (IVAN)

The dogs did not know that in July, 1958, a congress of the Communist party was supposed to take place. According to plans this congress was to receive the report that the collectivization of the Bulgarian farms is 100% accomplished. The dogs, being ignorant creatures, did not know about the forthcoming congress and continued to follow the ancient ways of the flocks... (Boyan Papazov)

MARIA

“The autumn of 1957 was blocked by militia troops and trucks, gathered to take away the sheep flocks of the Karakachans from all over Rila mountain.” (Boyan Papazov)

MARIA

“When I die, even if the beasts might eat me, I want to be in the mountain.” (YANNI)

"He came here to the peak of Kom, to our mountain, the Lord God, Jesus Christ! And gazed all the way down here by the Danube River. And that's what He said: "Blessed be this place around, but… from Petrochan on it's the best! I've never set foot here and I never will. Until I set my foot here, this is the best there is on Earth!" I've heard old folks say so.” (MARIA)

“I saw with my own eyes how they slaughtered them, fed chickens, pigs with them…It was so hard, so tragic... to look at those animals, you'd raised from that small, to be slaughtered, to be given to chickens...What happened to the horses was even worse than what happened to the sheep. The sheep were just taken away and most of us stayed with them, at least for some time, as shepherds…But the horses were done in like that… It was such a sad story… Although our horses they were a specific sort of breed, short, stout, beasts of burden… They were very tough horses… That's how they met their fate…” (KOSTA)

„The dogs remembered! They remembered the way, the places we moved through! The way I remember the mountains now, the places I’ve passed through, that’s how the dog remembers them too, the places it passed through and where to return…” (IVAN)

CHRISTINA

KOSTA'S SONG OF 1958
The Black Sea's crying, softly asking Burgas:
"Where are the Karakachans?
What's happened to them?
Them who had black flocks
with sweet-voiced bells,
which made the Balkan beautiful
and filled the beech groves with life.

A beautiful Karakachan woman,
dressed up in tinsel and braid,
she cried and wept bitterly
and thus she spoke to her sons:
"Let's leave these lands, my boys,
let's go somewhere else now,
where I won't hear them shaggy dogs
howling without flocks in the mountain!"

“There is no word for “girl” in the Karakachan dialect. They say “pedaya, pedi” which means “boy” only. No female gender here.” (NICOLA)

IVAN

“I wish to God our children, grandchildren and great grandchildren would never see those things. That's what communist regime for me was…Oh, I don't know how to tell you… It was dreadful, it was so horrible…” (YANNI)

Somehow the people, belonging to this group, cannot accept the fact that they can disappear. After they had gone through all the stages of the socio-economical development all other peoples go through. And they carry this sort of inner conviction that they really are the oldest people of Europe. One of the oldest, if not the oldest one. Although they have a stone-hard philosophy of their own, that whatever happens, it happens so because God wants it that way. (NIKOLA)

“When one specifies that the child’s a boy, they say “agore”. The one who stands firmly on his feet, who continues the family, that’s the boy, that’s the apple of your eye, that’s everything…” (NIKOLA)

KOSTANDA WITH GRANDDAUGHTERS

“Today we do not live in the age of Aquarius but in the years of the devil. However next year the God’s years are coming…” (GEORGY)

The Bulgarian and the international academic communities missed the opportunity to study in suitable, almost reservation-like conditions, some ancient language forms, as well as to appraise the accumulations during the centuries after, in order to create a realistic and accurate picture of this ancient population.” (Dr. Georgi Neshev)

KOSTANDA

PANAYA, it means God’s mother in Greek.

CHRISTINA

"You are filming me and I will never die" (GEORGY), Where the souls rest, 2001

“Maria… was a treasure to me, for she has turned her mind into a real storehouse for ancient beliefs, religious practices and demonology.” (Boyan Papzov)

IVAN