Vampires and Vampire Hunters
The ugly, industrial town of Devnya, 30km west of Varna, is now known only for its highly noxious chemical industry, but during the last century its reputation was widespread as Bulgaria's vampire capital. Reports brought back from the Black Sea region by nineteenth-century travellers reveal that belief in vampires was widespread among the Bulgarian peasantry of the time. Travelling in the 1880s, the Czech Balkanologist Konstantin Jirecek found a wealth of vampire lore in the isolated rural communities west of Varna, with inexplicable illnesses among humans, and particularly sheep - the region's main source of income - being attributed to a visitation by some bloodthirsty demon, and local wise men (known as vampirdzhiya or dzhadzhiya) being paid handsomely by villagers to drive the fiends away. According to Jirecek, the vampire hunters of Devnya were considered the best in eastern Bulgaria. The belief was that people became vampires if proper burial customs were not observed or if certain portentous events happened before their death: for example, a shadow passing across their body, or a dog or cat jumping across their path. After burial, an invisible spirit would rise up from the grave each night, feeding off local flocks and bringing listlessness and ill health to the human population. Vampires could also assume solid form, often living among humans for many years, getting married and having children before being detected. To chase the vampires away, a dzhadzhiya would be summoned to walk among the flocks, holding an icon aloft. The icon also came in handy when trying to identify the resting place of the vampire. If it began to tremble when held above a particular grave, it meant that the culprit had been found. The best way to deal with a vampire was to exhume the body, stab it through the heart with a hawthorn branch, then burn it with kindling taken from the same shrub. If the vampire was in spirit form, it could be driven into a bottle which was then thrown onto a fire. The beliefs noted by Jirecek were by no means isolated cases. The British travellers St Clair and Brophy, who lived in a village south of Varna in the 1860s, wrote of a boy forbidden from marrying his sweetheart because locals earnestly believed that he was of vampire descent. They also relate how peasants in a neighbouring village burned a man alive for vampirism, because he was fond of nocturnal walks and was "found to have only one nostril". According to Jirecek, the best vampire hunters were thought to be descended from valkodlatsi, literally werewolves, who resulted from the sexual union of a vampire and a young maiden, and were the only living beings who could see vampire spirits. The valkodlatsi's vampire-hunting descendants were also thought to have another supernatural power: the ability to detect buried treasure. In an area full of ancient Thracian, Roman and Byzantine remains, it's not difficult to see why the idea of hidden hordes of goblets and coins - all waiting to be unearthed by the lucky peasant - exerted such a hold on the popular imagination. Another associated piece of local lore concerns the Lake of Varna (a fjord-like inlet stretching west from the city), which used to be known as Vampire Lake. According to popular belief, the lake required an annual human sacrifice, the last recorded instance of which was in 1933, when one Ana Konstantinova went swimming there despite warnings, and was duly sucked underwater
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