The season of balls
May 25th, 2007 by tsveti
Bulgarians are famous of being hot-blooded and party-type people. A less known way of expressing these features is the way we celebrate our graduation from high school.
Most students graduate from school in the 12th grade (high school is from 8th till 12th grade). The graduation is celebrated in two days.
The first day celebration consists of an official send-off by the school. Most often it includes music, prizes, long speeches, etc.
The second day of celebration is in fact the real one. It is held at one date usually between the 20th and 31st of May. It first starts with a huge gathering of relatives and closest friends at a restaurant or at home. Then the graduate goes either to the school or directly to the class teacher’s place by car decorated with as many baloons as possible. That’s when the real fun starts.
From the class teacher’s place (where everyone drinks as much alchohol as possible, of course) the whole delegation of graduates and friends heads to the place where the ball will be held. Usually it’s held at big restaurants or halls.
After the ball (which ends at about midnight, when usually the drinks included in the cover are over) graduates go to clubs, dance all night (and continue drinking, of course), have breakfast in the morning at one of the 24-hour opened restaurants and then go to the school to say “hi” to the teachers, to boast in front of the not-yet-graduating students and finally at about noon go back home to sleep.
The whole event is a total madness for parents and ordinary people in the city streets. This event has few but very simple rules:
* The more expensive the car is, the better;
* The more cars that escort the graduate, the better;
* The louder the graduate and his or her friends shout “1, 2, 3, 4,…, 12″, the better;
* The more often the cars’ claxons sound, the better;
* The more expensive the graduate’s dress/suit and accessories are, the better, etc., etc…
The worst case is the capital Sofia where there are about 100 high schools so one can only imagine what the noise is. Here more parents can afford luxurious cars, clothes, accessories and celebrations for their children. And children make their best to get this noticed by as many people as possible. That’s why they would sit on the window frame, having no safety concerns at all.
I have no idea when this tradition started and why. I can only notice that each year it gets more and more lavish and extreme and at the same time roots deeper and deeper in the Bularian culture.
