Bulgaria greets the year with monsters and ends the spring with roses — masked survakari in fur and bells chase away evil around Pernik in January, and in June the Rose Valley around Kazanlak picks its famous oil roses and parades behind a Rose Queen.
Photo: Dachegraphy, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
The two festivals in this atlas mark two ends of Bulgaria’s year. The Surova folk feast of the Pernik region, on 13 and 14 January, celebrates the New Year of the old calendar with a masquerade that UNESCO inscribed on its Representative List in 2015. The Rose Festival, first held in Kazanlak in 1903, celebrates the Bulgarian oil rose in the towns of the Rose Valley at the start of summer.
Сурова
On the nights of 13 and 14 January, masked survakari in fur, horns and heavy bells gather around fires in the villages of the Pernik region, then go from house to house marrying young couples in jest and wishing health for the new year — a masquerade listed by UNESCO.
January 13 – 14, 2027Calculated
Празник на розата
At the start of June, the Rose Valley around Kazanlak celebrates the Bulgarian oil rose — pickers in folk costume gather blossoms in the gardens, rose oil is distilled for guests, and a Rose Queen leads a carnival procession of thousands through town.
June 6, 2027Calculated