The article analyzes the transformation of linguistic and cultural traditions and their perception by actors in the framework of the international project «(Dis-) entangling traditions on the Central Balkans: Performance and Perception» (TraCeBa), now in progress by a consortium of researchers from Switzerland, Serbia and Russia (2018–2020). Initial field material was collected during the elaboration of the project «Fieldwork research of Timok vernaculars» (2015–2017), in Serbia, using questionnaire aimed at elicitation of narratives (oral history, biographical stories, traditional culture and folklore). This «Timok» field questionnaire was supplemented and adapted at the beginning of the TraCeBa project (done by the Russian part of the consortium), and during July 2018, it was applied in fieldwork in several Torlak settlements in Bulgaria. The research team was mixed, with researchers from Sankt-Petersburg, Belgrade and Sofia. In addition to ethno-linguistic differences in traditional culture, this article will pay attention to the differences in the linguistic landscape that are the result of a different historical experience of socialism in two countries, still visible today: first, the inscriptions referring to libraries (Bulg. читалище) as cultural institutions that still actively work in Bulgaria with the symbolic presence of the Serbian language in their interior spaces, on diplomas and prospects brought from Serbia which testify to the intensive border cooperation; next, the inscriptions on some rural households as «exemplary» (Bulg. образцов дом), as well as the Bulgarian tradition of personalized obituaries, as opposed to template obituaries in contemporary Serbia.