Last Sunday, hundreds of spectators gathered on the Hilia Plateau near Greece’s border with Bulgaria to witness one of the country’s oldest surviving sporting traditions: the annual oil wrestling contests that have been held there for nearly seven centuries.
The event, staged at the historic Seçek Yaylası (“Hilia Plateau”) in the Evros regional unit of Thrace, forms the climax of the Hilia Festival, the most important annual gathering of the Alevi-Bektashi community in northeastern Greece.
According to local tradition, the festival dates back to 1354, making it the oldest continuously held oil wrestling event in Greece.
Wrestling Rooted in Faith and Tradition
Far more than an athletic competition, the oil wrestling matches are part of a broader religious and cultural celebration centered on the nearby Tekke of Seyyid Ali Sultan in the village of Roussa.
The festival includes ritual music, the sacred Semah dance, communal feasts, and religious ceremonies led by Dedes, the spiritual leaders of the Alevi-Bektashi faith.
For the Alevi-Bektashi community, whose villages are scattered across the Rhodope Mountains of Evros, the annual gathering represents the strongest public expression of a cultural and spiritual tradition that has survived for generations.
The event gained added significance this year after the community recently submitted an application to the Court of Alexandroupolis seeking official recognition as a religious community, following legislation passed by the Greek Parliament in 2025.
The Alevi community, numbering around 3,500 people, is primarily concentrated in at least ten villages in the Thrace region of Greece, including Roussa, Mega Derio, and Mikro Derio. With the passage of this new law, the Alevis are now recognized as a distinct religious legal entity. This is a crucial development as it allows the community to operate with administrative and religious autonomy, while still retaining all the rights afforded to the Muslim minority under the Treaty of Lausanne.
The Art of Oil Wrestling
The wrestlers, known as pehlivans, compete wearing heavy leather trousers called kispet (or kiuspetia in Greek), traditionally made from calf, buffalo, or goat hide and weighing around ten kilograms.
Before entering the wrestling field—known as the Er Meydanı, or “Field of the Brave”—the competitors cover both their bodies and leather trousers with olive oil, making it exceptionally difficult for opponents to maintain a grip.
Victory therefore depends not only on strength but also on balance, endurance, agility, and technique.
Unlike Olympic wrestling, bouts involve unique holds that often require competitors to grip inside the leather trousers to gain leverage, creating a distinctive style that has remained largely unchanged for centuries.
A Living Heritage of Thrace
The Hilia Festival is one of the most distinctive examples of Greece’s diverse cultural landscape, preserving customs that blend athletic competition with religious devotion and communal identity.
Held each year on the plateau overlooking the Rhodope Mountains, the oil wrestling contests continue to draw participants and spectators from across Thrace and neighboring Bulgaria, ensuring that a tradition dating back to the medieval period remains alive in modern Greece.
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