Revival of Bessarabian traditions: chamur

Chamur,

Toloka and lampach,

Kalilu, chushmeliyka, horo …

Don’t worry, I’m fine 😂

These unfamiliar words came with me from Bessarabia and dance in my head to the groovy Bulgarian folk music. By the way, have you tried standing still when it is playing? A person who is capable of this has not yet been born, seriously! And it’s not about wine, which they drink here instead of water and not about company, but about some incredibly cheerful sounds that at the moment make you forget about everything and start an unrestrained wild dance 🙂

But let me tell you everything in order. And we’ll start with the dawns. It doesn’t matter when you went to bed yesterday, you need to wake up today before the roosters do it, go out to where the view of the flat huge mirror of lake Yalpug takes your breath away and watch the birth of a new day. Listen to the wind, watch how the gray sky turns pink, and pink into vanilla-blue … The way the sun first floods the vineyards around the lake with gold and only then begins to tickle the village with its rays. The way roosters are waking up sheep, and sheep wake up housewives, the way buckets ringing, dogs barking and children laughing, and only cats do not get up to the very last minute and squint slyly while warming fluffy bodies under the sun.

Now you can go for bread. Warm, fresh with a crispy crust from a small old bread booth on the main street of the village. And at seven in the morning all the villagers gather for chamur. A new ethnographic museum will be built in the village. For its construction, lampaches are needed, bricks made of clay with an admixture of straw. It is customary in the local area to help each other, make decisions and do hard work together. The tables have already been set and after reading a prayer, everyone sits down to have breakfast together. In the meantime, the hardest part of the work is done by the horses – in the center of the huge field, they have laid out clay and straw, poured water over them and drive around the three horses, indignant by the trajectory of their movement.

Nearby, the local chef Sasha, pretty warmed up and very cheerful, having thrown twenty yellow roosters, potatoes, onions, and carrots into giant vats, conjures over a tomato dressing for “byala chorba”, chicken soup. It’s no joke to feed 200 people first with lunch, and then also with dinner. The vats are on fire, and there are wooden oars nearby, well, to mix the soup if anything. Sasha is an important and responsible person; the cook is respected here and is called “gotuvach”. Near him there is a whole supply of wine for chamur in old glass bottles, incredibly beautiful. I asked for one for my book. On the bottom there is written 83 kopecks, but it seems to me that there is no price for it 🙂 Everyone had a quick breakfast, turned on the music and got to work, we need to be in time before it gets really hot. Krynichne is the warmest point on the map of the Odessa region, pomegranates and figs ripen here, and how much lavender likes it here … Kneading clay is a dirty job and not as easy as it seems at first sight. I thought I would just look from aside, but no way! I have never been so dirty and so happy!