From Sofia rivers to Varna’s animation showcase and Burgas’s seaside feasts, September opens with festivals across Bulgaria.
There is a peculiar geography to Sofia. Vitosha is impossible to ignore. The rivers are remarkably easy to pass by without noticing.
The Perlovska passes through the Bulgarian capital in plain sight, yet for much of its urban course it runs between walls of concrete and stone, crossed by traffic and relegated to the margins of everyday movement. Sofia Rivers was created to change the city’s relationship with these waterways. The project began in 2020, when the Collective Foundation used temporary architecture, cultural programming and public access to showcase what could be changed. Generations had already grown up beside these rivers, playing along the banks and walking dogs beneath the trees. The Foundation asked what more these familiar waterways could become: easier to reach, greener along their banks, better shaded and more completely joined to the life of the city.
What began with a small budget, partnerships and improvised interventions developed into the wider City Rivers drive, spreading to Ruse, Veliko Tarnovo, Gabrovo, Stara Zagora, Troyan, and elsewhere. In 2024, the mayor and district representatives signed a memorandum concerning the city’s rivers, while work subsequently began on more than 120 sewage overflow points. The festival’s organisers describe the change in language itself as significant: people increasingly speak of Sofia’s rivers rather than its canals.
That distinction is the purpose of the festival.
The concerts, decorative installations placed in and along the river, and lights appearing beneath the trees are not meant merely to make the riverbank photogenic.
In 2025, more than 80,000 people came over three days. For its seventh edition, from 28 to 30 August 2026, Sofia Rivers returned to the banks of the Perlovska in South Park, but over a larger territory and with more than 150 events.
For three days, the Perlovska was difficult to pass by without noticing.
A river made visible.
Follow the Perlovska into the festival grounds and the first impression is not of a conventional city festival at all.
Wooden walkways cross shallow water. Large illuminated paper boats appear to have run aground among stones and tree roots. Others hang vertically above the stream. At night their blue and turquoise light catches in the current, while strings of warm bulbs disappear between the trees.
For three days, Sofia moves part of its life down to the Perlovska, beneath the trees and onto the riverbank.
By nightfall, illuminated boats rested upon the water while a seven-metre sturgeon hung pale above the shallows.
As August draws to its close, follow the Perlovska through Sofia and, beneath the trees of South Park, the riverbank will lead you to Sofia Rivers.
Then there is a fish.
Alexander Lazarkov’s Vanishing Ecosystems takes the form of a monumental illuminated sturgeon, approximately seven metres long. It is deliberately disproportionate to the modest Perlovska beneath it. The installation belongs to a visual programme concerned with threatened aquatic life and the ecological condition of urban rivers.
By evening, the river had changed character. Children stood barefoot in the water. Families sat almost at stream level rather than behind a barrier. At dusk, the installations double themselves in the reflections.
Friday, 28 August, began with Vanishing Ecosystems opening the River Stage. Its seven-metre sturgeon was difficult to separate from the place chosen for it: the enormous pale fish hung above the Perlovska while children stood barefoot in the shallows beneath it. The programme moved from ecology into music. Un gos tres came first, followed by the official opening, Jamie Mc Donald & The Easy Pieces and DaBeDa. Bright Eye brought fire dance to the riverbank at the end of the night.
At 100 Chairs x ProCredit Bank stage, Silvia and Hristo Donevi were followed by Tlen. The young Sofia band moved through indie and alternative rock, post-punk and dark wave, with a cinematic edge to its sound.
French Fry brought a different city into the park. The Athens musician had begun writing his own material in 2022, drawing partly on the contemporary indie-rock current associated with Fontaines D.C. and Idles. His songs turned the frustrations and absurdities of early adulthood into dry-edged guitar music.
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Deeper among the trees, the Forest Stage changed the sound again. Coolblue DJ was followed by Factuaw, the name used by Momchil Shishkov, a Plovdiv-raised, Sofia-based DJ and producer whose work had travelled well beyond Bulgaria, including Berlin, Tel Aviv, Shanghai and Amsterdam.
Between the stages, Friday kept branching into other things. Circus in the Park and the Fine Acts pop-up occupied the Family Zone. Birdhouses were being built elsewhere; there was a book exchange, recycled puppet making, painting and wine, and children’s puppet theatre. Houses and People occupied the Quiet Stage, while Rivers of Sofia and then Against the Current brought film into the programme.
Back beside the water, darkness had changed the Perlovska. Lights appeared beneath the trees and were reflected in the river. Illuminated boats sat on the water, some small, others enormous enough to dominate the channel. People gathered along both banks.
The river had become the easiest way to find the festival again.
Saturday, 29 August, began earlier and spread farther. It offered a different way into the park: by following its wildlife and waterways.
Birdwatching tours with the “Bulgarian Society for the Protection of Birds” and “Visit Sofia” left twice during the day. The “Secrets of the Rivers” expeditions did the same. I made my way back towards the Perlovska through workshops devoted to children’s construction, painting, kinetic art, recycled puppets, human rights and responsible care for companion animals.
The River Stage eventually returned attention to the inhabitants of the water, with a lecture on endangered fish and other species found around Sofia.
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By the time I came back along the bank, the subject had changed from fish to folk movement. Opni pa Tropni brought Shopluk dance to the river, followed by Petya Ruseva & Live Band.
Then came Morpheus, the collaboration between Ivan Shopov and Rossen Zahariev.
Coals came from Silesia, the Polish region that supplied their name. Kacha Kowalczyk and Łukasz Rozmysłowski had met online in 2013 and begun making music together soon afterwards. More than a decade later, their music occupied a shifting territory between dream pop, electronica, ambient textures and experimental pop. I find a curious resonance in hearing a band named for Silesia’s coal landscape beside the Perlovska.
There were other directions to walk. Drum & Bass Avalanche had taken over the 100 Chairs x ProCredit Bank Stage. Through the trees, the Forest Stage moved from Ivan Tanchev to Liubo Ursiny and Stephan Panev. Roller Bounce occupied the festival entrance.
On the Great Lawn, the new sports zone added another piece of South Park to the route, with volleyball, mini-football, spikeball, cornhole and rope jumping. The Family Zone offered children’s yoga, animation, balloons, magic and science, alongside the presentation of Maya Bocheva-Yuku’s new novel. Against the Current returned for another screening.
Then there was the river again.
People sat along its banks beneath suspended pale forms. Decorative boats occupied the water. Elsewhere, red paddles hung above a wheelbarrow standing in the shallow channel. The temporary crossings carried people through the installations and repeatedly back towards the Perlovska.
The Quiet Stage followed the same geography in words. Its programme included a tour of urban rivers and lakes, a lecture on rivers and the city, and a discussion connecting rivers with urban climate and health.
Saturday had begun with people looking for birds and ended with dream pop from Silesia beside the same river.
By Sunday, 30 August, parts of the route were familiar
Houses and People remained. The birdwatching tours and “Secrets of the Rivers” expeditions returned. So did Against the Current. Children’s activities, puppet workshops and painting and wine appeared again in the programme without needing another introduction.
Other things changed.
The Rivers in Me brought movement into the quieter programme. There was another exploration of Sofia’s urban rivers and lakes, a WWF presentation, a discussion of the past, present and future of the Residency, and conversations about motherhood and work, Bulgarian architecture internationally and Sofia’s new art spaces. One climate discussion travelled much farther before returning to the water beside us: “from Antarctica to the Perlovska River”.
Tai chi, a drum circle and the VR film Dancescapes provided other stops along the way.
At the Forest Stage, Shosho b2b Factor played the long final stretch. The River Stage moved through DJ Sakuro and Desy & The Visual Madmen.
I left the river again for 100 Chairs x ProCredit Bank, where Vibe City was followed by Peyotoff.
Peyotoff was the solo project of jazz-trained guitarist Petar Yotov. His music joined neo-soul guitar to future beats, instrumental hip-hop and jazz. His Living Jewel EP had accumulated more than 1.5 million streams and led to his inclusion in a Miles Davis tribute project. A Secret DJ Set followed him on the same stage.
There was one final reason to walk back towards the Perlovska.
Kottarashky & Sando closed the River Stage.
Kottarashky was Nikola Gruev, an architect turned composer whose source material was already geographical. He gathered field recordings, Bulgarian voices and sounds collected during journeys through the country, then reconstructed them through electronics, hip-hop, jazz, blues and Balkan material. His 2009 debut Opa Hey! reached No. 3 on the World Music Charts Europe. Gruev himself had called the resulting territory “Balkan psychedelic”.
After three remarkable days with Sofia Rivers, this is how I remember the Perlovska.
The lights are moving in the water. Beneath the trees, the illuminated forms are turning the channel itself into part of the night.
Kottarashky had spent years collecting pieces of Bulgaria and returning them as sound.
I had spent three days walking beside the Perlovska.
That was how Sofia Rivers stays with me.
Practicalities: Come for the river, prepare for a park
This remains a festival built beneath trees, open sky and stars, not beneath a roof. Comfortable shoes made more sense than festival finery, particularly for anyone intending to explore the installations, crossings and activities beside the Perlovska.
Families should leave plenty of time beyond the concerts. The children’s, sports and workshop programmes were substantial rather than decorative additions; there was as much to discover wandering between the water, trees and installations as there was in the programme.
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There was also one prosaic detail worth knowing before settling beside the river for the day. The toilets in the section towards Nishava Street were spacious, clean and paid; chemical toilets were positioned at various other points around the festival.
Sofia Rivers 2026 is the kind of festival travellers rarely find by searching a city’s conventional cultural calendar. For three days, Sofia moves part of its life down to the Perlovska: beneath the trees, onto the riverbank and, occasionally, straight into the water.
In 2026, more than 150 events filled South Park with music, workshops, exhibitions, sports and performances. Illuminated boats appeared on the water. A seven-metre sturgeon hung above children standing barefoot in the shallows. Three stages carried music through the trees, while the Perlovska offers another way to discover Sofia: follow it through the city towards Sofia Rivers in South Park.
For travellers planning to be in Sofia in the summer of 2027, Sofia Rivers is worth putting on the watchlist now. End of August. If you have an evening in Sofia, spend it by the river. Arrive earlier. Bring comfortable shoes, leave enough time to wander beyond the stages, and give the river as much attention as the programme.
In 2027, if your journey brings you to Bulgaria’s capital while Sofia Rivers is on, go down to the Perlovska, South Park side.
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