The Rose Valley

14/04/09

The Rose valley" is situated between the Balkan Mountains and Sredna Gora. The valley has specific climate - mild and short winter, and warm and long spring. Roses need dampness and warmness; almost all oil-bearing roses’ fields are concentrated in this region.
An oil-bearing rose called Damascene was imported from the Near East 300 years ago. Since the XVII century Bulgaria has made a name for one of the biggest producers of altar of roses in the world. Today it is the second world exporter of altar of roses after Turkey, extracting 1 tone of the altar per year. For the production of a liter of rose water is used 1kg of rose flowers, and for the production of 1 kg of rose oil are used about 3500 kg of rose flowers. The first rose picking season is 3 years after rose planting. The rose picking is manual and it begins early in the morning and finishes at noon at the latest. It is necessary blossoms to be fresh because the dampness and the aroma should be well preserved and extracted later in the distillation process. The production of Bulgarian rose oil is strongly connected with ancient traditions.
Each year the Rose valley hosts Rose Festival and Rose queen competition. In the Sunday morning people go to the rose field to reproduce traditional for rose picking customs.
In the town of Kazanlak is opened "The tower" Historical –Ethnographic complex. Tourists have the opportunity to watch rose boiling in a primitive manner and certainly they can try rose oil products.