Scream of bagpipes, intertwined with heavy Rhodope voices, resound in the souls of the Bulgarians and spread emotion and strength that are out of time and simultaneously deeply rooted in every Bulgarian. There is no more suitable stage for folk music than the wide meadows of the Rhodope Mountains! After a long break, the summer of 2016 the Bulgarian bagpipes again announced the Rhodope Mountains under Rozhen Peak. For two years in a row, singers and instrumentalists gather here at a fair of the Bulgarian folk song.
The Rozhen fair has over a 100-year tradition. The first fair was organized in 1898 by Father Angel Indzhov – priest in the village of Sokolovtsi. He called his parishioners to honor all saints at the Rozhen chapels on St. Panteleymon's Day. Panteleimon – July 27th, at the chapel St. Kirik and Yulita", where to this day the festival is held. Through this place then passed the border between Bulgaria and the Ottoman Empire. Here the inhabitants of the three artificially divided surrounding villages – Progled on the Bulgarian side, Momchilovtsi and Sokolovtsi on the Turkish side of the border, gathered at generic meetings, sang Bulgarian folk songs accompanied by bagpipes, baked lambs – the barbecues on fire .
After the Liberation of the Rhodopes from ottoman rule in 1912, the Rozhen Council retained the spirit of tradition, time and place of conduct and its role as a center for the people from the Middle Rhodopes. Today, under Mount Rozhen, Bulgarians gather from all over the country, as well as those scattered around the world. To the sounds of the self-styled bagpipe orchestra "Hundred Kaba Bagpipes" and the multi-voice Bulgarian folk singing, Rhodope Mountain celebrates together with the people the living tradition of the folk art and the power of the Bulgarian spirit.
