The unique for Strandja white mummers can be seen on 18th of February in Malko Tarnovo. Unlike all the other mummers in the country who chase the evil and welcome the coming of the spring and the awakening of the earth for a new life, the mummers in Strandzha do not wear terrible masks. They are dressed in white skins and their faces are covered with black soot.

According to the researchers in the seven sheepskins with which the mummies of Strandzha are dressed as an allusion to the life of the Greek god Dionysius, which was torn to seven parts of the Titans before God Apollo gave him a new life. That’s why at the end of the holiday the mummy suit is wound up and turns into 7 different skins that are thrown into running water.

The mummers in Strandzha are a whole group, and they carry a plow to bend the ground and to symbolically make the year fruitful. One of the mummers, on his part, carries a red-painted phallus, symbolically fertilizing Mother’s Boot. There is also a violinist, bride, bridegroom, grandmother, pop, and bear, who have each role in the ensemble.

It is obligatory for the group to wear a long rod, on the edge of which is a cloth soaked with soot. It marks every house through which the mummers pass in order to expel the evil from it. At the end of the day, a huge basket of straw is fired and later all the people participating in the ritual and watching it jump over it for health.