50 Godishninata na Dvorets na Kulturata!!

Happy Anniversary to my workplace, the Palace of Culture!! On May 11th, 1957 Bulgaria welcomed the first Palace of Culture (or as I like to call it, the POC) right here in Pernik. To help celebrate our holiday, we had a huge party! Before the party we held a concert that included all the musical and artistic groups which are part of the complex. Here they are!

In front of the building, the current folk dancers perform one of many, many dances. Later on, "alumni" of the dancing group join the stage so that there are as many as 120 dancers!

One of the biggest crowd pleasers was the "sport dancing" group. Dancing to "Grease Lightning" from the famed movie "Grease," these dancers showed a great deal of professionalism.

Kiril (playing the accordian) is one of the nicest guys in our building. He is always so thankful for the smallest things. He's also an amazing singer, but tonight gave the priviledges to a former soloist from the POC's professional folk orchestra, "Graovska Mladost" (www.myspace.com/graovskamladost)

The less famous but equally entertaining wind orchestra played "The song for the Palace" and another piece which the director wrote himself. Off to the side, girls dressed in the style of cheerleaders are dancing with hand-made pom-poms. The conductor of this orchestra is 75 years old, and can quote 100s of recipies from memory, can tell you about the origin of the sandwich, and also claims to be my grandfather...

Its me with my coworkers! So while we aren't exactly part of "musical or artistic" acts, we did put together the whole night!! And by "we," I mean "they!!" All I did was take pictures. :)

Here we are inside at the party! On the left I am with my counterpart, Desi, and are often crazy coworker Sasho. Seriously, sometimes he calls me a rabbit and asks if i want a carrot! On the right is Ventzi who leads the folk orchestra. He has a bazillion friends all over the Balkans and in North America. He keeps promising me that he'll take me on one of their tours!

The End!