A pretty snow-white village recently emerged among the hillsides near Chakar Voyvoda Chalet in Rila Mountain. This happened during the 14th "Igloomania" contest, held annually in the middle of March at the same place. As temperatures are rising, the igloos will gradually disappear.

The contest brings together cheerful mountaineers and the event is organized through the social networks. We have learned more about Igloomania from three members of the jury – Nia Stoyanova, Tanya Yakova and Stoyan Mutafov, who are not only judges, but also if necessary, warm up the participants with personally prepared aromatic brandy, made according to an old recipe that includes 51 herbs collected in the Central Balkan.

Every year the number of participants is growing, Nia told us and added:

“This year there were 8 teams. According to the rules, each team is composed of five people. It happened that one of the teams consisted of just two people but placed 6^th and this was the first time they were building an igloo. There were participants from previous years, too.”

Building an igloo is not only fun but also a very useful skill in the mountain during winter. “Everyone can get lost in the winter mountain. This is the safest way to survive far away from a shelter or hut, even in bad weather,” Stoyan says. He recalls a tragic event from December 1994, when a group of 50 tourists headed to Mount Ambaritsa in Stara Planina. Fog fell and they lost orientation. The group was falling apart and some of the people decided to dig in a snow shelter and wait. Other decided to keep going and 12 of them perished. The people in the igloo survived unharmed.

To build an igloo, you need a shovel and a saw for cutting snow bricks. The center of the house is defined at the beginning. A pole is placed and with a rope tied to it a perfect circle is drawn, Tanya says. The teams themselves choose the size of the igloo. The bigger it is, the bigger the risk. One lays the snow blocks in a spiral and the final snow slab is the most difficult to place. Two people – one on the outside and another inside the igloo are needed for the task. The entrance to the igloo is cut last.

The jury strictly monitors the work of the participants. This year winner became “The Big Bombs” team, who built a perfect 8.50-square-meter igloo and even placed a snowman (snow-girl) in front of it. Some of the braver participants even spent the night in their igloos. Stoyan told us more about the rules:

“We borrowed the rules from a similar contest in the Russian city of Omsk, where they hold the contest at the city stadium. The area of the igloo is measured but there are penalty points for lack of a girl in the team or for holes between the blocks. Building time is 2 hours and if a team is not ready by that time they receive a penalty point for every 10 minutes of delay. Penalty points are subtracted from the area of ​​the igloo and sometimes there are cases when the igloo score is negative.”

Nia told us that this year all the teams did great job and winners have received hats, water bottles, and other things needed in the mountains.

A month before the event a children's "Igloomania" was organized on Mount Vitosha. And children performed just as good as the adults. Sometimes they even surpass them with skill and imagination!

English: Alexander Markov