photo: © Nikolay Vukov, 2013
The so-called "visoko" multipart folk singing from the villages of Dolen and Satovcha, Blagoevgrad region, South-western Bulgaria, has been listed by UNESCO as part of the world's intangible cultural heritage.
The decision was made at the 16th session of the Intergovernmental Committee for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage. The application was presented by the Institute of Ethnology and Folklore of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences.
The so-called "visoko" (high) singing from the region is a unique four-part singing which received international recognition for the first time in 1988, when the singers from the villages of Dolen and Satovcha were awarded the Herder Prize.
For the 6th time, UNESCO puts Bulgaria on this list, which already includes the Bistritsa grandmothers, firedancing (nestinari), Chiprovtsi carpet weaving, the Surva holiday from Pernik region and the martenitsas which it presented together with Romania, Moldova and North Macedonia.
The film about the presentation to UNESCO is in Bulgarian with English subtitles: