International Folklore Festival Pautalia
The International Folklore Festival Pautalia is organized under the patronage of the Mayor of Kyustendil. The artistic director is Lyudmila Hristova, and the technical director - Iliana Kirilova.
The main purpose of the festival is to provide a field for folk groups and singers from different countries to show the richness of their folklore, to preserve and promote Bulgarian folk art and and to show its well-deserved place among the other nations.
The festival has a competitive character and takes place within three days.
On its fifth edition in 2011 more than 3,000 artists took part. They presented different culture areas and regions. All this shows that this festival has confirmed itself as one of the leading folk events in Bulgaria.
Do you know that:
- the redwoods near the village of Bogoslov are the oldest and the highest in Bulgaria.
- Kyustendil was the last of the big Bulgarian towns to fall under Ottoman rule.
- first Bulgarian publisher, Yakov Kraikov, was born in Kyustendil.
