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Kadirga Highland Festival in Kadirga Plateau
The Kadirga Highland Festival, known locally as the Kadirga Otcu Senligi, is a centuries-old highland gathering held on the Kadirga plateau on the border between Trabzon's Tonya district and Gumushane's Kurtun district. It takes place every year on the third Friday of July, drawing thousands for Friday prayer at an open-air historic mosque, music and horon dancing.
For centuries, families across the Eastern Black Sea highlands have followed their livestock up into the mountains each summer, a seasonal migration known locally as otcu goc, the grass migration, moving from lowland villages to cooler highland pastures called yaylas.