Kazanlak Rose Festival

Picking roses

The Rose Festival honours the Bulgarian oil rose and is the official holiday of Kazanlak, Karlovo, Gurkovo, Pavel Banya and Strelcha. On the climactic Sunday in Kazanlak, the ritual of rose picking and rose-oil distilling is staged for guests in the gardens of villages such as Razhena, Kanchevo, Rozovo, Gorno Izvorovo, Dabovo and Gorno Cherkovishte. Rose pickers in folk costume, authentic folklore groups, kukeri and dance troupes welcome visitors, who are invited to pick the Kazanlak oil rose themselves; the most skilful picker receives a prize, and rose oil is distilled in a traditional still.

The Rose Queen and the procession

Each year Kazanlak chooses a Rose Queen from among its school graduates, who represents the city abroad and leads the carnival procession, the high point of the festival. More than 5,000 participants parade through the streets for an hour, depicting moments from the history and culture of the Rose Valley, including much-loved characters from the stories of the writer Chudomir, while kukeri chase away evil and horsemen guard the procession. More than 70,000 people watch.

Since 1903

The people of Kazanlak first organised a Rose Festival in 1903, with exhibitions of roses and flowers, trips to the Shipka monastery and postcards of the rose harvest, and money was raised for poor families, old people, orphans and tuberculosis patients. In the 1930s special trains brought visitors from across Bulgaria to the rose harvest. The festival was revived in 1966, the first national rose festival was held in Kazanlak in 1967, the carnival procession was introduced in 1969, and in 1971 the Council of Ministers declared it a national festival.