The festival is traditional, this year was held for the sixth time.
Over 190 people participated in more than 500 meals – soups, main dishes, desserts, bread.
We – members of the NGO “Nothing is impossible – 3N” invited partners from the Community centers in Silistra region, where live people from different ethnic groups – Armenians, Turks, Gypsies, Tatars. Our partners were also representatives of “Russian Club” in Silistra, as well as teachers from the School “Carol I” in Ostrov, Romania and guests from another Romanian city – Slobozia. We took part with the idea topresent the variety of bread and bakery products of Dobrudja. To present bread in traditions and life of Dobrudja ethnicities, to show how bread connects us.
We and our partners participated in the festival with 63 dishes, prepared by 61 participants, 19 of them children.
The participants from Romania had prepared 20 breads of different decorations and ornaments that are typical of their traditions and holidays. The rest of the participants had prepared typical breads of their ethnicities – corn bread, bread with spelled, Armenian bread – lavas, gypsy banitsa, several kinds of Bulgarian banitsa, banitsa with pumpkin, bread with pumpkin, Turkish baklava and Russian dumplings. The children had prepared pancakes, cakes, home-made bread, and the bread of friendship, again with messages and wishes.
All the dishes in the festival participate in a competition and are appreciated by a jury, attended by an ethnographer and very good cooks. An unexpected situation happened to us – not all of us knew the regulation of the contest and it turned out that the crowd was attracted by our beautiful dishes and attractive traditional costumes, everyone wanted to taste the dishes arranged at our tables. The jury came last to us after having tasted the dishes of all the other participants in the festival, and when they came to us, our plates were empty. So, none of our dishes participated in the contest. But we think the highest rating is that of the audience and the empty plates have shown it.
During the festival, we arranged a corner with objects of the ethnicities, where we put the logo of the project “The Bread Connects” and our logo. Next to this corner we arranged two exhibitions – with books about bread and children’s drawings from both schools – in Silistra and Ostov.
At the end of festival we took charter for a multitudinous participant’s organization.