St Athanasius Day (Atanasovden)
18 January 2026 — Off comes the fur coat – wherever I look, I see summer!
Atanasovden is celebrated on 18 January in honour of Saint Athanasius the Great, the fourth-century Archbishop of Alexandria. In the Bulgarian folk calendar it is also called Sredi Zima, “Mid-Winter”: people believed that winter had reached its halfway point and was slowly turning towards summer. Old sayings tell that on this day winter “breaks its horns”, and that the cold which follows will be shorter. Some snow was welcome, since it promised a fertile year, and housewives watched the weather to predict the seasons ahead. People named Atanas or Atanaska receive greetings and gather friends around a simple festive table. The day belongs to the farming calendar and to the watching of the sun: after the winter solstice the daylight grows a little longer each day. The feast also appears in the church calendar, where it falls on 18 January in the revised style used in Bulgaria.
Flying across the sky: An ethereal, bluish-silver figure of an old bearded man made of luminous dots and fine connecting lines, like a constellation drifting across the night sky
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