After my first (and rather sad) post from this morning, I decided to write about something more cheerful – the passing of the famous Compagnie Malabar via Sofia:-)

Now I realise, it’s a pity we didn’t know anything about it before. Here’s the story:

January 1st, 2007, was a very calm day. A few hours ago Bulgaria was officially accepted as a member of the EU. A special lightshow at exactly 12:00 am this day was visible all over the capital. So, after New Year’s eve which came with lots of noise & light, me and my wife took a good sleep till noon, and then deciced to walk around the city a little.

At around 5 p.m., we were on Vitosha street, when suddenly we felt some unusual animation in front of us. There were lots of people coming and going and reaching for their digital cameras. The trams around stopped.

As we continued to walk and draw closer to the possible center of the event, the crowd densed. And then… Some strange people in white and with scary masks on their faces appeared before our eyes.

The light of the day was dimming away already, but anyway I tried to take some reporter shots with our trusty old Pentax Optio S40. Here they are (clicking on the thumbnail will reveal the picture in real size):

---

What impressed me the most was he incredible nimbleness with which the men on long stilts, all clad in white and black (I called them ghosts for myself;-) were moving along the street – some of them making gigantic strides and others jumping and even moving on four long “legs” (using their arms and legs simultaneously) – unfortunately my small camera was unable to catch this – on image number two, though, you can see a “ghost” moving so fast that it looks more like a white cloud than a real figure:-)

All curious that we were, what is this all about, who are these people, and where they go on their ship singing and playing and jumping and running around and bringing some strange red and white lights with them, we decided to continue our walk and soon returned to our home. It was cold, so going home appeared as the best option.

We didn’t hear anything about Malabar till this day. I have learned a little more from their official website – but unfotunately, it appears that we missed quite a show this evening – this French troupe gave a performance near NDK a little after their noisy appearance on Vitosha street.

No official media, apparently, has covered their performance in full this day, so I wanted to contribute a little and tell you about how we met them for the first time (and I hope, not the last!) and show you a couple of imperfect images:-)

I guess, next time I’ll be more careful when reading posters on the street:-/