An unusual wedding has been standing still for millions of years near Kardzhali. Rock formations in white, light pink and light green rise not far from the city center, near the village of Zimzelen and tell legends of love and sinful thoughts.
According to legend, the Stone Wedding near Kardzhali (or the Petrified Wedding, the Kardzhali Pyramids) was formed during the wedding of a boy from the village of Zimzelen and his beloved. As the wedding party moved solemnly, a wind blew and lifted the bride’s veil. The father-in-law saw her unearthly beauty and impure thoughts filled his head. At that moment, Mother Nature intervened and petrified all the wedding guests, except for the groom. He wept uncontrollably and begged that he too be stoned to death. Nature took pity and turned him into a stone, standing close to his beloved. To this day there is a puddle next to his figure, said to be the boy’s tears.
Legends often have variants, and this one is no exception:
…The boy had a very old grandmother who raised him from a young age. She was not invited to the wedding, but watched the procession, hidden among the trees in the opposite grove. She found out about her father-in-law’s evil intentions and asked Mother Nature to prevent this misfortune for her grandson. Shortly after that, she also turned into a stone, which to this day is silently present in the opposite forest, as if watching over the wedding procession.
Besides being a place of beautiful legend, the figure hill is also an open-air textbook on Earth’s past. According to geologists, the rock formations were formed tens of millions of years ago as a result of volcanic activity, and even before that there was a seabed here.
One must take a walk among the figures of the newlyweds, let the imagination run free to discover the wedding guests, animals and birds and feel like part of the legend. At sunset the colors are the softest.
