site.bta25th International Masquerade Festival Kukerlandia Opens in Yambol

The 25th International Masquerade Festival Kukerlandia began here on Thursday and will continue until Sunday. Over 100,000 visitors and over 3,000 kukeri (mummers) and other masked participants are expected in the city during the four festival days, said Diana Boncheva from the Municipal Directorate for Culture, Sports, Youth Activities, Tourism and Public Relations.

The organisers of the festival are the Yambol and Tundzha municipalities. The programme includes carnival parades, concerts, exhibitions, creative workshops and bazaars. On the first day of the festival, over 200 children will participate in a children's programme that is part of the festival. "The best thing about kukeri is the continuity, because the creation of the costume, the preservation of the mask - these are family traditions, the children learn this at home," commented Boncheva.

The official opening of the festival will be on Friday, while the culmination of the event will be on the weekend, when there are competitive parades of masquerade groups from all over the country. The groups will be judged by a jury including, among others, folklorist and academic Krum Georgiev, Prof. Anton Andonov, Head of the Department of Choreography Dance and Fine Arts at the Plovdiv Academy of Music and Dr. Iglika Mishkova from the Institute of Ethnology and Folklore Studies with National Ethnographic Museum Bulgarian Academy of Sciences.