Q: Could you say a few words about yourself, please!

A: My name is Ivailo Ayanski. I come from the town of Smolyan. Having been brought up by my grandmother, I am a bearer of the indigenous Bulgarian culture. She is a medicine-woman, applying the methods of the traditional Bulgarian medicine for an eighth generation in a row. After graduation, I have been working in the field of my university specialty - ethnology. I am also a bearer of the nestinar ritualism and charisma. Few people know that Nestinarstvo is charisma - it chooses the person, not the other way about. One is born to be a nestinar… Some day the "door" leading to the "castle" simply opens in him, and the way is waiting, straight ahead. One enters the "castle", everything seems familiar to him though he has never been there before. Why is it that? Because Nestinarstvo belongs to those ritual systems whose roots were deeply implanted in the very origin of Man's concept of secular and sacred. If we start with the ancient times' nestinar in his position of priest, who was the mediator between the world, God and the world of afterlife, and finish with the modern psychoanalyst, we would conclude that human society has always needed its mediators. Fortunately, the ritual system of Nestinarstvo has remained intact throughout the centuries, in terms of its philosophical and notional aspects; and it has kept its thorough meaningfulness.

Q; You have started with the phenomenon called Nestinarstvo, so is there a relation between it and your prophetic gift?

A: No doubt. To my regret, it is still unknown that the very essence of Nestinarstvo does not lie in its visual representation. The mere dancing on embers does not meet the need for a miracle. I have in mind another need, felt when the nestinar transcends the physical dimensions and finally receives information of the Past, Present and Future. The embers could be treated as the "door", I mentioned in the beginning. In fact, they are the intersection-point of the time and space axes. They remain somewhere between heavens and earth, change the nestinar's body, and present it to the community completely transfigured. In other words, the particular living matter does not react in the usual way to the temperature change, and the nestinar reaches the state of trance; the so called "fit" or "obsession". That "fit" leads the him to an "information field", which is the source of his visions. Unfortunately no records have been made and kept, except some partial ones in Michail Arnaoudov's researches; but many of the local people still remember the famous prophecies made by some nestinars - Granny Dobra, Granny Zlata Daskalova. They predicted the disaster that befell Bulgaria under the reign of Czar Boris III, the onset of the communist system, and many other things that are facts today. They are not susceptible to any type of interpretation, except reading. They are simply facts.

Q: Could you be more specific about the way one feels during the dance?

A: I may sound disappointing, but while dancing, one has no sensation of reality; the only sensation is that of flying, of fluttering wings…It is worth mentioning that the state changes in the nestinar's body precede the act of dancing. I mean the "fit" that one has in the "konak", the "fit" on the way to the embers; when one feels feverish, his sight is blurred, and his sense of orientation is lost, together with his auditory perception. The only sounds the nestinar can hear, are the tune of the bagpipe and the beat of the drum. At that moment, his body is controlled by a power belonging and coming from another world. So, it is deprived of its conscious processes and reaches the level of subconscious contacts, in which mind does not participate.

Q: How many true nestinars do you know at present?

A; Very few. Vesselina Ilieva, who is a bearer of the traditional culture of the Strandzha Region, is a true nestinar for me. She practises the kind of Nestinarstvo I like and respect. I do not want to qualify the rest; some of them can cross the embers and dance, but that by no means represents Nestinarstvo in its complexity and depth. The thing they do is only a form of attraction.

Q: Can we speak of "commercialization of the dance"?

A: When answering such a question, one should rely on one's own experience only. The dances, I have seen in the Black Sea resorts, have purely entertainment character and purposes.

Q: Does a special technique of walking on embers exist?

A: No, it doesn't. All the things, I have just mentioned, prove that when one is "obsessed", he certainly cannot rely on a technique. For example, Vesselina Ilieva usually treads on embers that reach the calves of her legs. In my trances I rake up the dying fire with my legs, then squatting, I strew my face with embers. So the idea of the existence of a technique is out of the question.

Q: I am already aware that Nestinarstvo is a whole complex, a phenomenon of long standing. How do you see its future?

A: Definitely, Nestinarstvo will not disappear. But we should follow all the traditions and ritualism described in Michail Arnaoudov's works and those written by the number of specialists who devoted their lives to the thorough research of the phenomenon. Nestinarstvo follows its own path of development. Perhaps new elements will appear but its essence will remain unchanged.