This is 14 February so the roses come from Valentine’s Day. While it’s always fun to see Bulgarians carrying flowers and nice that the reds on the traffic lights at the bottom of Vitoshka change into little hearts, Valentine’s is an imported festival. In Bulgaria, 14 February is traditionally about wine. This is the day when people begin trimming back last year’s vines in preparation for the coming season and, as well as being a name day for any girl called Grozdana (Grozdi is Bulgarian for grapes) it’s also the day of ‘Trifon the Pruner’, the patron saint of vineyards.
