Kadırga Highland Festival
17 July 2026 · movable holiday — A horon on the mountain meadow – link arms and join the beat!
Kadırga is a high mountain pasture (yayla) in the Eastern Pontic Mountains of northeastern Türkiye, rising above the Black Sea. For generations, local families have spent the summer on such highland pastures, where their herds find fresh grass and cool air. The Kadırga gathering is one of the best-known summer festivals held on these meadows and, according to the available accounts, it usually takes place in July, around the third weekend of the month. People come from nearby villages and towns, and some travel from abroad.
The festival is traditionally tied to music and dance. The best known is the horon, a Black Sea circle dance in which dancers link hands or shoulders and make quick, trembling movements to the sound of the kemençe, a small three-stringed fiddle. There are also local foods, a market with handmade goods and walks among the clouds.
The festival follows the summer season of highland herding rather than any astronomical event. Still, high in the mountains the night sky is especially clear, and the stars seem a little closer.
Flying across the sky: An ethereal, bluish-silver figure group made of bright dots and fine lines, like a constellation: a line of dancers with linked arms, shoulders trembling in the lively horon dance, while a musician beside them plays a small three-stringed kemençe fiddle with a bow
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