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Festivities on St Lazar's Day, devoted to young girls, pastures, fields and woods are one of the best-loved and known spring traditions in Bulgaria.

The holiday is marked each year on the last Saturday before Easter.

Lazarovden was quite an event in the life of every young girl, for then she could demonstrate to the village community that she has grown up to be an "accomplished maiden".

Traditions had it that a girl, who did not participate in the so-called lazarouvane could not have a loved one and was likely to be carried off by a dragon.

The girls (lazarki) would gather in groups of about ten at the house of the prettiest one and start from there with their songs to make a round of the village.

The songs sung on St Lazar's Day praise the beauty of the maiden and her lover, the industriousness of the farmer, the purity of maternal love and express wishes for happiness and prosperity. Legend has it that health, wealth and love will reign in the house that the girls visit.