There are several legends about the origin of the Historical Kırkpınar Wrestling Festival. The commonly known one is as follows; during the campaign made by Orhan Gazi in 1346 in line of invading Rumeli, his brother Süleyman Pasha attacked Domuzhisar with his 40 soldiers and invaded the city. After invading other castles, 40 soldiers frontier unit returned and had a break in Samona, presently within the borders of Greece and started wrestling there. After hours of wrestling, two brothers named Ali and Selim could not beat each other. Later on, Ali and Selim started wrestling again in Edirne and although they wrestled whole day, they could not beat each other again and continued wrestling through the night under the light of torches and candles. In the end, they both died there and their friends buried them under a fig tree and left that region. Years later, when people returned there, they saw a fountain with abundant water on the place where the tombs of brothers were. Afterwards, this place was named "KIRKPINAR (FOURTY SPRINGS)".

Grease Wrestling

Although the Edirne Municipality started conducting Historical Kırkpınar Wrestling competitions in 1964, Kirkpinar Wrestling has a much longer history. As a matter of fact, Kirkpinar Wrestling has it`s place in Guinness World Records as the oldest sports competition that lasted until today in human history. People from different countries come to Edirne every year to see this competition and experience the exciting atmosphere of the city. This years festival will take place in the second week of July. If you would like to be one of these people, please feel free to contact our office...