Shiroka Laka

The village takes its name from the Old Bulgarian word lǫka, meaning a bend or curve; it lies in the valley of the Shirokolashka River, between the Perelik section of the Rhodopes and the Chernatitsa ridge. Shiroka Laka was an Orthodox Christian village under Ottoman rule. Local master builders designed its two-storey houses in the characteristic style of the Rhodopes, and in 1834 the villagers raised the Church of the Holy Mother of God, built, according to legend, in only 38 days. A year later the whole village helped to build the St Panteleimon cell school in the church yard; it taught pupils until 1936.

Stefan I, born here in 1878 as Stoyan Shokov, became Metropolitan of Sofia and, from 1945, Exarch of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church; he worked to save the Bulgarian Jews in the Second World War, and a bust of him was unveiled in the village in 2003. In October 1899 a society of the Macedonian Organisation was founded in Shiroka Laka, taking in the villages of Stoykite, Mahmutitsa, Solishta and Gela, and the house of the revolutionary Captain Petko Voivode served as his headquarters after the Liberation. The area was taken by Bulgaria in 1912, during the First Balkan War.

The village has since been proclaimed an architectural and folklore reserve, and in 1972 a secondary school for folk songs and instruments opened here, today the National School for Folklore Arts.

Shiroka Laka is one of the villages where Rhodope song was born and still develops, and many of the best-known singers and bagpipers of the region were born here. The Kushlevi Sisters come from the village, and Radka Kushleva, remembered as the first Rhodope singer and nicknamed the Rhodope nightingale, is among its best-known names. The songs are accompanied by the kaba gaida, the deep-voiced bagpipe of the central Rhodopes, lower-pitched than the ordinary gaida and usually with a larger bag. It is played at weddings and celebrations, and a central Rhodope song, "Izlel e Delyo Haydutin", sung by Valya Balkanska, was included on the Voyager Golden Record.

The folk school founded in 1972 trains young singers and instrumentalists from across Bulgaria. Among its graduates are Neli Andreeva, a soloist with the Filip Kutev Folklore Ensemble, and the composer Georgi Andreev.

On the first Sunday of March the village holds Pesponedelnik, one of the best-known kukeri carnivals in the country. People dressed as folk monsters, painted red and carrying wooden swords, wear belts hung with Rhodope bells and costumes decorated with garlic, beans and peppers, and dance through the streets to drive evil spirits out of homes and souls. The village is Orthodox, with two churches, and the village is among the Hundred National Tourist Sites of the Bulgarian Tourist Union.

Shiroka Laka is small: about 570 people lived here at the last count given, in 2005. It lies 23 km north-west of Smolyan and 22 km south-east of Devin. The village belongs to Smolyan Municipality and lies at roughly 1,000 to 1,200 metres in the valley of the Shirokolashka River, surrounded by the smaller villages of Gela, Stikal, Solishta and Stoykite.

Across Smolyan Province the economy rests on tourism, mining, timber and machine industries and livestock raising, and in the village the folk school and the guesthouses are prominent. Until 2012 the village also had a state home for children, which has since closed.

Daily life follows the slow rhythm of a mountain village, with Smolyan the nearest town for larger shops and services. Visitors come in the largest numbers for the March carnival and in summer, when walkers and families stay in the guesthouses and the cool of the mountains draws people from the hot plain around Plovdiv.

Food in Shiroka Laka is Rhodope mountain cooking, served mostly in guesthouses and a few mehanas, tavern-style restaurants. Patatnik is the dish most associated with the Rhodopes: grated potatoes, onions, salt and gyosum, a very mild mint, mixed together and cooked on a slow fire, in one method turned over once the bottom is well cooked. Smilyanski fasul is a stew of the beans of Smilyan, a village in Smolyan Municipality known for its premium beans.

For weddings and celebrations a whole animal, traditionally a pig but also a lamb, may be roasted as cheverme, turned by hand on a wooden spit over an open fire for four to seven hours. Everyday tables carry the national staples: shopska salad under grated sirene cheese, grilled kebapche and kyufte, banitsa pastry and clay-pot gyuvech.

Rakia, the fruit brandy, is the usual spirit. Guesthouse dinners of home cooking are one reason to stay overnight rather than pass through.