Today is 'Sirni Zagovezni' in Bulgaria. It comes on a Sunday some seven weeks before Easter and it is a time of celebrating the beginning of spring and the longest fasting period in the Orthodox tradition.

It means abstaining from meat, dairy products, no traditional dancing and no marriages to take place until Easter.
Many villages and towns have the traditional ritual of building of large. The fires have to be built in higher areas with the belief that this would prevent hailstorms striking in the areas they are lit.

The Sirni Sunday is rich of rituals, but it is also a day of forgiveness. Young members of the family their parents and grandparents for forgiveness, nowadays it has turned into a day for everyone to ask their closest people to forgive them for anything they might have done wrong during the past year.