Bulgaria's Koprivshtitsa Festival Added to UNESCO Heritage List

A festival in the Bulgarian town of Koprivshtisa has been included as intangible cultural heritage of UNESCO, the UN cultural body, the organization says.

The national festival has become the fifth item on UNESCO's heritage lists, alongside the Bistritsa Grandmothers (Bistrishki Babi), the Chiprovo carpets, the nestinari (a community of people walking on fire) and the Surva festival in the area of Pernik.

More specifically, the Koprivshtitsa fair is now ipart of UNESCO's Register of Best Safeguarding Practices.

It takes place every five years, passing on tradition from the participants to other Bulgarians, including diaspora members who arrive to attend the celebrations.

The festival has been a Bulgarian tradition since 1965 with the aim to collect and preserve authentic folklore, namely songs, dances, crafts and customs.

Nowadays it involves some 10 000 participants from across the country and abroad, having attracted as many as 20 000 performers (in a nation of 7.1 million increasingly unused to mass gatherings) during its peak.