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Zheravna Festival of the National Costume in Zheravna
Zheravna's festival enforces a strict rule found nowhere else in Bulgaria's folk calendar: only visitors wearing a traditional national costume, or nosia, may enter, with smartphones, cameras and plastic goods banned outright. Founded in 2008 by choreographer Hristo Dimitrov after noticing the effect traditional dress had at his own wedding, the three-day event turns the well-preserved 17th-century village of Zheravna into a full immersive recreation of pre-industrial Bulgarian dress culture.
Entry to Zheravna's festival requires a Bulgarian national costume, a nosia, and nothing more modern than that; smartphones, cameras and plastic bottles are turned away at the gate, a rule the festival has enforced since choreographer Hristo Dimitrov founded it in 2008.