The 31st edition of the international mummer festival Surva has asserted its standing as the biggest masquerade festival in Europe.
There were more than 12,000 participants in the festival this year, coming from all ethnic regions of the country. 22 foreign groups from several European countries also joined the festival parades, the press centre of Pernik municipality said.
The festival kicked off on the morning of 24 January with a children’s masquerade procession Survakiada, in which more than 1,500 children took part, the local administration says, as quoted by the Bulgarian news agency BTA.
The festival in Pernik has been organized since 1966, and in 2015, the Surova folk feast, typical of central Western Bulgaria, was inscribed on UNESCO’s Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. The festival popularizes different versions of ancient rituals that have come down to us.
Translated and posted by Milena Daynova
Photos by Gergana Mancheva
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