Kukeri and the Surva Festival: Masks, Bells and a Day in Pernik

Kukeri are Bulgaria's winter monsters: dancers in carved masks, shaggy fur and belts of cowbells who stomp through villages to chase off evil spirits and bring a good year. Every January the biggest gathering takes over Pernik, 30 km from Sofia, and it's the one winter day out I'd never skip. This is what the costumes and rituals mean, when to see them, and how I do Surva from Sofia.

What are kukeri?

Kukeri (кукери; one is a kuker) are masked dancers, traditionally men, who dress in goat or sheep fur, a carved wooden mask and a belt of huge bells. They go through a village in winter to frighten away evil spirits, and in return the village gets health, a good harvest and luck for the year ahead. They come out twice in the calendar: around New Year and in the weeks before Lent.

In the old custom the kukeri visited houses at night, so that the sun wouldn't catch them on the road. Then they gathered in the village square and danced, jumped and clanged until the crowd was in stitches. It sits beside name days and the martenitsa among the Bulgarian customs that still run on the village calendar, and it's the loudest of the lot.

The same custom turns up across the Balkans, and in parts of Bulgaria itself, under other names.

Where the kukeri tradition comes from

Nobody knows for sure where the name comes from. One theory traces it to an old Slavic word for an evil spirit, which would make a kuker a chaser of evil spirits. Another links it to the Latin cuculla, a hood.

The bigger question is age. In the 19th century, scholars tied the kukeri to a Thracian cult of Dionysus, the god of wine and fertility, and Bulgarian folklorists ran with the idea, which made the custom older than the first Bulgarian state. Most modern scholars disagree. They place kukeri in a Balkan tradition of winter mumming from the early modern period, shaped by Greek, Slavic, Albanian and Turkish customs, with close cousins still alive in Greece, North Macedonia and Romania.

You'll still hear the Thracian story at every festival, and I like it as much as anyone. I just wouldn't put money on it.

The kukeri costume: masks, fur and bells

A kuker's costume is built at home, and in the Pernik region families collect the materials through the year and teach the children how to make the masks.

The masks

Most masks are carved from wood and painted, usually as an animal face with horns, teeth, a beard of goat hair and sometimes a hinged jaw that snaps. Some are double-faced, one face looking forward and one back. Others grow upwards into tall headdresses of feathers, wool and rags that tower over the crowd, and carrying one through a day of dancing is a feat of neck strength.

The bells

The bells hang from a thick leather belt round the waist: big, dented copper and iron cowbells. The kukeri jump and twist their hips to make them ring, and the noise is the point, since the clanging is what drives the evil spirits out of the village. Close up, you feel the clang in your chest.

The fur and the props

Under the mask goes a full suit of goat or sheep pelts, or in some villages a costume of coloured rags in red, white and green. The dancers carry wooden staffs, wooden swords or mock scythes, and wave them at the crowd. A full outfit takes weeks to make, and dancing in one all day is hard, heavy work.

What happens at a kukeri ritual

The fullest version of the ritual I know is the Surova feast in the villages around Pernik, and it runs over two days.

On the night of 13 January, New Year by the old calendar, the survakari gather in the village centre in their masks. In the Pernik region the groups take in men, women and children. They light fires and tease the people watching. The next morning, 14 January, they walk through the village and visit the houses one by one. They marry young couples in a mock wedding, the bear "mauls" people for good health, and the hosts wait for them with a ritual meal and gifts. Groups often give the money they collect to orphans and people in need.

In other parts of Bulgaria, the kukeri who come out before Lent act out the start of the farming year: ploughing a furrow, sowing seed and staging a symbolic wedding, with a "bride" who appears pregnant and mimes giving birth. In that tradition the kuker himself stands for fertility.

These are the characters I look out for in a group.

When to see kukeri: the season and 2027 dates

The kukeri season runs from New Year to the start of Orthodox Lent. These are the dates I'd plan around in 2027.

Pre-Lent kukeri overlap with 1 March, when Baba Marta and the martenitsa arrive and everyone in Sofia starts wearing red and white threads on their wrists. In 2027, with kukeri out until 14 March, early March is the one stretch of the year when you can see both customs in a single trip. The rest of Bulgaria's festival calendar moves outdoors in late spring and summer, with the Rose Festival in Kazanlak and the fire-dancers of Strandzha.

The Surva festival in Pernik

Surva (Сурва) is the International Festival of the Masquerade Games in Pernik, run by the Municipality of Pernik and billed as the biggest masquerade festival in Europe. The first one was in 1966, so 2026 marked 60 years. The 32nd edition opened with a show on Friday 16 January 2026 and, for the first time, ran its parades over two weekends: 17 to 18 and 24 to 25 January. About 13,000 people took part, including more than 30 groups from abroad.

The groups parade past the jury on Krakra Pernishki Square in the centre of Pernik and compete for prizes. There's an audience vote by text message too.

Groups come from every corner of Bulgaria and from abroad, so one day at Surva shows you more regional styles than a month of village festivals: feathered headdresses taller than the dancers, horned wooden faces over goat fur, and the beaded masks of the Thracian plain.

The 2024 edition opened on 26 January, ten days later in the month than 2026, so I keep the second half of January free and check the festival's own site from December, before I book anything.

How to get to Surva from Sofia

Pernik is 30 km south-west of Sofia, which makes it one of the easiest day trips from Sofia to do without a car.

The train is my pick. Bulgarian trains are old, slow and cheap, and on a 30 km run you barely notice the first two. The bus suits you better if you're staying near Ovcha Kupel or the south-west of the city.

This is how I'd spend a parade Saturday.

How to watch the kukeri: etiquette and photos

Kukeri dance right up to the crowd, and that is part of the show. They'll bang their bells at you, wave a staff over your head or grab you for a twirl, and the bear may "maul" you for your health. Take it as good luck and laugh along.

A few things I'd never do: pull at a mask or a costume, touch the bells while a dancer is moving, or step into the parade route for a better photo. The dancers can barely see out of the masks, and a dancer in a full costume and bells doesn't stop quickly.

Dress for standing still outside in January in the Balkans. Days hover around freezing, and in Pernik you're on your feet on cold stone for hours, so boots with thick soles, a hat and gloves matter more than anything else on my list for packing for a Bulgarian winter. Small children can find the masks terrifying; older ones usually love them, and plenty of the dancers are children themselves.

For photos, the dancers expect cameras and many will stop and pose. Without the mask it's a different matter: if a dancer has pushed it up for a cigarette or a breather, ask before you point a lens at their face.

Where else to see kukeri in Bulgaria

Surva is the easy one from Sofia, but kukeri come out in villages all over the country. These are the places on my list.

Yambol and the Thracian plain

The kukeri of the Thracian plain, around Yambol in south-east Bulgaria, swap the fur for tall masks sewn with beads and trimmed with ribbons, embroidered white shirts and white leg wraps bound with black cord, with a ring of bells at the waist. Their big day is Sirni Zagovezni, the Sunday before Lent, which falls on 14 March in 2027.

The two in the photo came from Kabile, a village outside Yambol, to dance at Surva in 2012, which is how I'd see Thracian kukeri without crossing the country.

Kukeri groups from Sofia

Sofia has kukeri of its own, and in 2026 they took the top two places in Surva's audience vote: Yordanovi Art, a group from the city, came first, and Dolni Bogrov, a village in the Kremikovtsi district on the north-eastern edge of Sofia, came second. I look for both names on the programme.

When friends visit in January in Sofia, Surva goes on the plan before any museum.