Once again in September this year, the pretty town of Nedelino in the Rhodope Mountain is welcoming folklore fans from near and far. From September 5 to the 7 the town is hosting a Balkan competitive festival that will bring music and dancing to Nedelino. More about the event from Stoyan Beshirov, Mayor of Nedelino Municipality:

“This is the second time we are organizing the Balkan Folklore Festival. This year there will be some 180 groups competing in the square of Nedelino – nine from Greece, two from Romania, groups from Serbia, Moldova, Macedonia, Turkey. For the first time we have performers from Iran. We are doing our best to give our guests a warm Rhodope-style welcome. Actually, the festival goes back 12 years, but until 2013 it was national. For the first time there will be a separate dance contest. The performers will be evaluated by a special panel of judges and there will be a cash award for the winners. Of course, the hosts will be presenting their own folklore. Here we have a style of singing that is unique to the Rhodopes – the Nedelino polyphony which is part of the National Intangible Cultural Heritage Register. This year we are expecting more than 30,000 participants and guests to the festival. We shall also be marking two anniversaries – 80 years since the village of Uzun Dere was renamed Nedelino and 40 years since it was declared a town.”

The one-time village Uzun Dere (meaning Long Gully in Turkish) is now a beautiful town, Nedelino. Its name is derived from the St. Nedelya peak, in whose foothills it lies. But more famous than the town itself is the Nedelino polyphony or two-voice singing (a singing style at an interval of a fourth and a second, with one voice “leading” and the other “following”). The region has been studied by prominent folklore expert academician Nikolay Kaufman, who calls Nedelino “a two-voiced isle in the one-voice sea of Rhodope folklore”. The reason may in fact be rooted in the settlers coming here from the region of Rdzlog some 6 centuries ago.

English version: Milena Daynova