February marks the beginning of the agricultural season in Bulgaria and the locals will be heralding the occasion on the 18th with nationwide festivities as part of the Kukerov Den festival.
Dancing and leaping men seek to prove their virility at this time by dressing up in colourful masks and costumes and parading themselves to the fairer sex, who, assumedly, are impressed by such antics.
The national festival takes place on the first Sunday before Lent and marks a time of celebration that the spring has arrived after a hard winter. Lent is a six week period of fasting and penance in the Christian calendar in the run up to Easter.
Since the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, Bulgaria has slowly forged closer ties with Europe and has recently become a centre of rapid economic growth. It houses one of Europe's fastest growing property markets and is in growing demand among tourists.
Bankso has emerged as a well developed, thriving ski resort popular with British tourists in particular, whereas Sozopol on the country's east coast has become a popular beach resort that boasts Mediterranean temperatures in its five month long summer.
For those aged under 36 who are off on an extended trip,
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