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Workshops and hands-on

Picking oil roses at dawn in Bulgaria's Rose Valley

Join the early morning harvest of Damask roses near Kazanlak, the centre of Bulgaria's rose oil trade.

Rose pickers in Rose Valley, Kazanlak, Bulgaria
Photo: Avishai Teicher, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

What it is

The Rose Valley lies between the Balkan range and the Sredna Gora hills in central Bulgaria. Since Ottoman times its farmers have grown the pink Damask rose for rose oil, of which Bulgaria is one of the world's main producers. It takes several tonnes of petals to make one kilo of oil. The harvest runs from about mid May to mid June. Pickers start at first light, because the scent fades as the day warms, and the flowers go straight to the still. Kazanlak holds its Rose Festival in early June, with a picking ritual in the fields, a parade and a rose queen.

Before you go

  • Be in the fields at sunrise. By mid morning picking is over.
  • Wear long sleeves. The bushes are thorny and wet with dew.
  • Visit a distillery and the rose museum in Kazanlak afterwards to see how the oil is made.

The flowers you will see

Damask roseA fragrant pink rose grown for oil, water, and sweets in West and South AsiaRoseWoody perennial plants with showy, often fragrant flowers in many colours

Read more

Rose ValleyA Bulgarian region where roses are grown for their prized oil
About this page

Original text by the Phool desk, written with AI assistance. Background: "Rose Valley, Bulgaria" on Wikipedia. Bloom dates move with the weather, and markets and gardens change their hours: check locally before you travel. If we have something wrong, tell us.

Photo credits on this page

The small pictures above come from Wikimedia Commons under free licences. Some are cropped to fit.

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