Of bears, Balkans and decorated twigs

A contact in Sofia sent me the website of Sofia's "TimeOut" equivalent. It's absolutely excellent, thorough, snappy.

But my favorite page lists the city's Exhibitions.

From which comes these two jewels, now topping our to-do's when R and I visit at month's end.

At the National Gallery of Fine Arts:
Art objects caught at the bulgarian customs
from 6 December (fri) until 31 May (wed)

And over at the National Museum of Natural History, just below the usual suspects of the permanent collection (minerals, rare crystals, insects, birds, amphibians, mammals, corals, herbs), this highlight:

Stuffed Brown Carpathian Bear
from 1 January (sat) until 31 January (tue)

The Bulgarian word for today requires two definitions:

Survakar: Boy who goes from house to house
wishing people a happy new year
by hitting them on the back with a survaknitsa.

Suvaknitsa: Decorated twig borne by a survakar.

Of course.

Bulgaria's won my heart.

C