The story
Simitli Mummers Festival in Simitli
Costumed sechenitsi, Simitli's own local term for mummers or kukeri, parade through the town's Septemvri stadium each January in heavy bell-hung animal-hide costumes and carved masks, a midwinter ritual meant to scare off evil spirits and secure a good harvest. Groups travel from across Bulgaria and occasionally neighboring Balkan countries to perform, though the event stays smaller and more regional than Bulgaria's best-known mummer festivals in Pernik and Yambol.
Simitli calls its own mummers by a name most of Bulgaria does not use, sechenitsi rather than the more familiar kukeri, a linguistic marker of how localized the country's midwinter masquerade traditions remain even a few valleys apart.