Galichnik Wedding Festival
Galichnik Wedding Festival takes place every year on St. Peter’s Day (“Petrovden”) – 12th July and is a cultural event rich in many genuine, unique and unrepeatable wedding customs and rituals. During the days of the wedding, the zurlas shriek and the drums roll “from Galichnik to Reka”, with the entire underground and aboveground echo against the rock of Bistra and the sky. As accompaniment to the migrant workers of this region of Macedonia, they always announce the Galichnik Wedding Festival which has the largest number of wedding guests. The Galichnik Wedding Festival in its existence has contributed to cherishing the unique wedding customs and rituals of the population of this region, preserving the original songs, folk dances, and the far and wide known traditional costumes of Galichnik – made with filigree precision and accuracy of the tailors. Each year, the special committee selects a young couple that will get married at the Galichnik Wedding Festival. One of the prerequisites is that at least one of them to originate from a Galichnik family.
Every year, during the Galichnik Wedding Festival, there are a lot of customs that are respected as characteristics of this wedding: waiting for the drums, folk dance of the mother-in-law, taking the bride to fetch water, placing the wedding flag, inviting the deceased ancestors, shaving the groom, taking the bride, kneading the bread dough, wedding ceremony in the church of Ss. Peter and Paul, and other customs which are slowly dying out, but still hold in themselves many details from the life of the people from Galichnik in the past times. There are only two inhabitants living in Galichnik now, but on 12th July there are more than 5,000 people coming to see the Galichnik Wedding Festival.
You can read more about this event on:
http://www.galicnik.110mb.com/prvo.html
Art Colony of Galichnik
The Art Colony in Galichnik is organized every year in August. The first colony of this kind was organized in 1990, thanks to the efforts of the painter Nove Frangovski. The colony is traditionally held in the “Neda” Hotel, and it is financially supported by the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Macedonia.
In the past colonies, there have been artists from Macedonia, Serbia, Bulgaria, Greece, Albania, Romania, Great Britain, Japan, Italy, Hungary, Germany, etc. The works of art, paintings and sculptures are displayed biennially at particular exhibitions.
Shepherds’ Gatherings – “Day of the Sheep and Goat Breeders”
Every year, one or two days before “Petrovden” (St. Peter’s Day) or the Galichnik Wedding Festival, on the location called “Smrdlivi Vodi” there is a festival called “Day of the sheep and goat breeders”. As part of this festival, there are competitions in shearing and milking of sheep, cheese tasting and its evaluation, “pelivan” wrestling, promotion of the dog breed “Sharplaninec”, etc. The festival is accompanied with a rich folk program.
Cultural Summer Festival of Reka
The festival is organized by initiative of the local nongovernmental organization “MEC Rekanski Biser”, in order to present and promote the cultural values, ethnology, traditional cuisine, and traditional crafts for which this region and the local population are recognized. The main event for which the Cultural Summer Festival of Reka is becoming famous is the day of the traditional pie of Reka – “Pitijada”, on which women from all local settlements present their cooking skills by preparing various specialties from the region of Reka.
In addition to its program, the festival includes organizing exhibitions of paintings, photos and ethnological exhibits, film projections – village cinemas, theater plays, music events, sports competitions, etc.
