Last Sunday (April 16) you probably noticed that most people walking around town had branches or flowers about their person. This is because Sunday April 16 this year, Easter Sunday for Western Christians, was Vrubnitsa (Palm Sunday) for the Othodox church, marking the start of Holy week. This coincides with Flower Day, on which all those with names derived from flowers trees or bushes  celebrate their Name Days. The Bulgarian tradition of Name days is pretty self-explanatory: various days of the year are associated with saints or themes and people named after these, or bearing names deriving from them, celebrate on these days. Flower Day is one of the biggest name days as there are alot of Bulgarian names deriving from flowers (for example: Violeta, Tsvetelina, Lillia, Yavor, Yassen, Roza, Iglika, Latinka, Temenuga, Karamfila, Zdravko, Kameila). Hence the flowers, given as Name Day gifts. The branches, traditionally willow, are distributed by churches and are carried, or worn as crowns by girls and women, as part Vrubnitsa which refers to the idea of  resurrection and cycles of rebirth in nature. It is also the day on which people traditionally feast on fish, breaking from their fast in which meat is forbidden.

The Thursday of Holy week (April 20 this year) commemorates the Last Supper. It is traditional for families in Bulgaria to boil and dye eggs, the symbol of rebirth and resurrection, on this day. Traditionally, the eggs should be dyed before sunrise on Friday, the day of Crucifixion. The first egg is dyed red as a symbol of Christ's blood shed on the cross. These red eggs are rubbed on children's cheeks to bring health.

After the egg dyeing, comes the egg smashing. Similar to the British game of conkers, opponents smash their eggs onto one another. The player whose egg remains intact is proclaimed the winner, or Borak. The winning egg is kept until easter the following year.

Kozonak is Bulgarian Easter sweetbread. Those familiar with hot cross buns will not find the two that dissimilar. Both are saffrony in colour and flavour, often containing raisins. Kozonak, however, usually comes in the form of a plaited loaf. These can be bought from street vendours, and in most bakers and supermarkets for about a lev. These are consumed throughout the easter period, but traditionally on Easter Sunday. This year, Easter Sunday for the Orthodox Church falls on April 23, when people will attend church and light candles. You are likely to hear the greeting: "Hristos Vozkrese", meaning "He is Risen". Easter, Velikden in Bulgarian, is also the Name Day for those named Valichka, Velina, Velika and Velichko.

However, as a walk down any Sofia's main streets will demonstrate, it is not only the Orthodox traditions that are present in the celebration of easter in Bulgaria. Among the painted eggs nestle easter bunnies. These bizarre egg-laying rabbits are a western hybrid, born probably out of the coupling of the ancient symbol of rebirth - the egg - with a pre-Christian fertility symbol - the rabbit or hare. And of course, nowadays the eggs that the rabbit delivers to children are more often than not of the chocolate variety. Thus we find the ancient and the modern, Pagan and Christian, Eastern and Western existing alongside one another and often intertwined in the Easter traditions.