Куkerски фестивал, Песпонеделник, Широка лъка (Kukeri Festival Pesponedelnik, Shiroka Laka)
Against a backdrop of century-old Rhodope stone houses, kukeri monsters in towering fur-and-bell costumes from across Bulgaria descend on this small village each first Sunday of March to stomp, roar, and re-enact wedding and harvest rituals in one of the country's most authentic mummers' gatherings.
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"In this UNESCO-listed Rhodope architectural reserve, local kukeri known as pessyatsi parade through cobbled streets wearing bells, garlic and peppers, enacting ritual wedding and harvest scenes before the whole village on the first Sunday of March."
Pesponedelnik, Kukeri na Shiroka Laka (Песпонеделник, Кукери на Широка Лъка)
"Every August, bagpipers gather on the open mountain meadows above this tiny Rhodope village to compete and play kaba gaida from dusk till late at night, with lambs on revolving spits and the sound carrying for miles across the peaks."
Mezhdunaroden sabor na gaidarite, Gela (Международен събор на гайдарите, Гела)
"Dozens of kaba gaida masters gather each August on the Ilinden meadows above this tiny Rhodope village to compete and play together in one of Bulgaria's most atmospheric and genuinely ancient music gatherings."
Gaidarsko nadsvirvane v Gela (Гайдарско надсвирване в Гела)
"On the meadows near the Rhodope village of Rozhen, the legendary hundred-bagpipe orchestra Sto Kaba Gaydi leads a vast gathering of folk singers, dancers, and stockbreeders in a tradition rooted in an 1898 border-crossing reunion that now stands as Bulgaria's most celebrated outdoor folk festival."
Национален фолклорен събор Рожен (National Folklore Festival of Rozhen)
"Kosti, a Strandzha village famous for its nestinarstvo, also keeps alive the Kukerovden and Palikosh masquerade customs seven weeks before Easter, filling the village with costumed mummers whose spring-fertility rites are found nowhere else outside Rupska Strandzha."
Кукеровден и Паликош в Кости (Kukerovden and Palikosh, Kosti)
"Brodilovo observes the uniquely Strandzhan Kukerovden and Palikosh mummers ritual seven weeks before Easter, a local spring custom involving masked community processions distinct from the better-known nestinarstvo fire-dancing the same village preserves."
Кукеровден и Паликош в Бродилово (Kukerovden and Palikosh, Brodilovo)