I love this song! For the beauty of the Bulgarian melody and its charming singers, for the joyful rhythm, for the promise of a more beautiful future. The song received two awards at the prestigious festival of children songs Zecchino d’Oro held annually in Bologna, Italy — it was voted number one by the children and the jury in the TV studio on the first day of the televised competition, and won the TV viewer’s award, Telezecchino.

But beyond the awards, what truly touched me was seeing the sincere joy and beautiful innocence of these talented young singers. In a world where most things are scripted for the media, this home video of the song is truly touching:

Now, since most of my readers are not Bulgarian, I would like to explain what is so special about this song. It is in fact a very clever mix of three very beautiful Bulgarian folk songs — one from the Rhodope Mountain and two from the Pirin Mountain regions of Bulgaria.

The first one is in fact a very sad songs, “Rufinka Bolna Legnala” — the story of a young woman Rufinka who is sick and talks to her mother about the sadness of dying at a time when the spring is about to bring everything in nature into bloom:

Transforming sadness into joy is one of the brilliant touches of those who produced the children song “La Danza di Rosinka”.

The other two songs are very traditional sang at any family celebration in the southwest of Bulgaria where I come from — “Kitchitse” about a no-none-sense young woman who pokes fun at the young men of her village, and “Ai Da Idem Yano” about a young woman who is invited by her future husband to shop for her wedding gift.

Here is a video of very typical performance of “Kitchitse” on the town square of Melnik:

And here is a video of “Ay Da Idem Yano”, the song my father used to sing every time he was trying to put my firstborn to bed when she was a baby:

And to complete this post rich of videos and memories, here is a throwback to the first time Bulgarian singers performed a Bulgarian song “Rainbow” (in a very typical for Bulgarian traditional music 7/8 measure) translated in Italian “Arcobaleno” at Zecchino d’Oro, back in 1984: