Bucharest Comes Alive With Festival Of Winter Traditions

Women wearing bear costumes prepare their makeup just before the opening of Romania's second annual International Festival of Winter Traditions on December 16. 

Revelers in bearskins emerge from an underpass in central Bucharest during the festival, which attracted hundreds of participants from eight of Romania's regions as well as from Moldova. 

Women in stylized goat costumes during the Bucharest festival. Organizers say the event is held as "a catalyst for community cohesion and a promoter of authentic Romanian cultural values."

A festival participant wears a hat topped with peacock feathers. The event brought together some examples of the many distinct winter traditions that have been observed throughout Romania for centuries. 

A young couple dance during the festivities. 

A man is helped into a bear costume during the festival. Romania boasts one of the world's largest bear populations and the animals were once captured and then trained by Roma people to 'dance' on leashes in a tradition believed to drive bad spirits out of villages just before the new year. Today, people wearing bearskins are used to fulfil the same role. 

A young "bear" and his minders enter a Bucharest underpass. 

A man dressed in fur and a mask dances in Bucharest. The organizers of the International Festival of Winter Traditions also said that the Bucharest event was aimed at "increasing the visibility of Romanian culture internationally."

A man peers out from under his "goat" mask as the festival's parade begins. 

A group of "bears" are circled by musicians in Bucharest. Throughout the isolated villages of Romania, little-publicized festivals with roots in the country's pagan past can often be seen through the winter months. 

Pom-poms on a festival participant's shoes.