Kuker’s celebration of health, fertility and winter reunion is celebrated in Karlovo.
From 10.00 am in the center of Karlovo town with the most beautiful, the most terrible and unique masks, with ritual dances, the kukeri gather to intimidate both the evil forces and to ban the winter and the cold.
The game also includes rituals for human and animal health, as well as for fertility.
The holiday for the Carlovers is “Starchovden”, because once in the Rose Valley they called kukeri “old people”. Kukeri from the Sushitsa district of Karsha are also called arapi, because in their masks and costumes the black color is predominant, and because the old name of the neighborhood is Arapovo.
Near the Arapovska Mogila were held the most magnificent carnival processions from the past years.