Over the decade between 1997 and 2007, I carried out intermittent research in Bulgaria examining ritual activity, specifically winter masquerade rituals referred to generically as kukeri and suvakari (Creed 2011). This research, unlike a prior decade of work in the village of Zamfirovo in the northwestern part of Bulgaria (Creed 1998), required me to visit numerous villages in different parts of the country, in some cases more than once. In all, counting a few villages I visited for other reasons, I visited over fifty villages, and passed through multiple towns to get there. I also collected material from a few of those towns, although I spent much less time in urban locations because — with the exception of festivals in which the targeted rituals are performed for an urban audience, and some neighbourhood-based masquerade traditions in towns mostly in the southwestern part of the country — the rituals are more vital in the countryside.

In these travels I became almost as fascinated by the diversity of rural conditions I encountered as by the ritual activity I was going to observe. For a relatively small country the variety of conditions in the Bulgarian countryside is amazing, suggesting that it is distorting to even speak generically of a rural condition without noting the axes and extent of variation. This is certainly not a novel perception.