How are the weddings of Bulgarian Muslim mountaineers

This strange photo shows the wedding of Fatma Ulanova and Jamal Sirakov from the village of Rybnovo. The inhabitants of this Bulgarian mountain village, who belong to the Muslim ethnic group of the Pomaks, are famous for unique wedding ceremonies held exclusively in winter.

Pomak girls get married according to the centuries-old traditions of their village: with their eyes closed, their face decorated with paints and sequins, in a bright outfit and with a wreath of paper flowers on their head.  Local weddings play such an important role for the villagers that even those men who work abroad come to watch the ceremony.

1. For people from Rybnovo, their religion is much more important than their nationality. And they identify themselves not so much with some ethnic group as with representatives of their religion. The village has ten priests and two temples for 3,500 inhabitants.

2. The family of the future bride is saving up a dowry from the girl's birthday. Most of the dowry is handmade knitwear, quilts, books, socks and carpets. In the morning before the wedding, family members install a wooden platform 50 meters long and 3 meters high and hang the dowry on it.

3. Almost all the villagers come to see this exhibition, small courtyards on wedding days turn into a kind of showrooms.

4. Then the bride and groom perform a traditional dance in the central square, joined by most of the young villagers.

5. But the most important part of the ceremony — decorating the bride's face — is carried out on the second day after the wedding. Relatives of the young woman cover her face with a thick layer of white paint and decorate it with multicolored sequins. The bride puts a long red veil on her head. No one drinks alcoholic beverages at the wedding, and sex before the wedding is taboo.

6. The groom, the bride's mother and her grandmother lead a young woman dressed in a bright corset and baggy pants to the waiting guests. The bride is forbidden to open her eyes until the priest blesses the young couple. It is difficult to say exactly when this tradition appeared. The villagers face more difficulties than most Muslims in Bulgaria.

7. "In 1960, Islamic music was banned at weddings, then traditional costumes, and in the 1980s, all traditional wedding ceremonies were banned," says Mayor Ahmed Bashev, born in Rybnovo.

8. Villagers earn their living from agriculture, but the low level of income in the poorest EU country forces men to look for work in large cities in Bulgaria or in Western Europe, not least in order to earn money for a wedding. Men from the settlement rarely marry anyone other than the inhabitants of Rybnovo.

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