Podcast in English
Text size
Bulgarian National Radio © 2024 All Rights Reserved

Celebrating Todorovden with horse races

Photo: BGNES

Today is Todorovden, also called Horse Easter. As is the tradition, on this day horses are fed, after which horse races are organized. What is known as Todorov bread is baked, adorned with the figure of a stylized horseshoe and horse head.

Photo: BGNES

In iconography and in the folk calendar, St. Theodore Tyrone is depicted as a dragon-slayer on horseback, a symbol of victory against paganism. “There is a connection with the proto-Bulgarian ethnic element in the formation of a unified Bulgarian identity. Proto-Bulgarians were a horse-riding, warring people, hence the connection between Todorovden and the horse – a celestial intermediary between the lower and the higher realm,” says Iliya Valev from the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Ethnology and Folklore Studies.



Последвайте ни и в Google News Showcase, за да научите най-важното от деня!
Listen to the daily news from Bulgaria presented in "Bulgaria Today" podcast, available in Spotify.

More from category

GERB party say they will return the first mandate as soon as they receive it

Boyko Boris s ov, leader of the GERB-SDS coalition that won the parliamentary elections on October 27, announced he is withdrawing his candidacy for prime minister. At a briefing at the party headquarters he urged the PP-DB to..

published on 11/26/24 1:43 PM
Borislav Sarafov

Borislav Sarafov has the qualities to be elected Prosecutor General

Borislav Sarafov meets all the requirements and has the qualities to be elected Prosecutor General. This position was taken by the committees on attestation and competitions and on professional ethics at the Prosecutors College of the..

published on 11/26/24 1:18 PM

The first statue found at Heraclea Sintica probably depicts the grandson of Emperor Octavian Augustus

The first marble statue discovered in the ancient city of Heraclea Sintica on 3 July,  is probably of Lucius – grandson of Roman Emperor Octavian Augustus, announced Prof. Lyudmil Vagalinski who is in charge of the excavations...

published on 11/26/24 10:30 AM