Dating back to many years ago, the Babaria custom takes place in Florina on the New Year’s Day, in honour of the regeneration of the earth and the fertility of soil. The central character of the traditional event is a bride who also symbolises the notion of fruitfulness. Moreover, there are some vile entities whose objective is to kidnap the woman.

The participating men disguise themselves; their costumes and masks are made of lamb skin. The group consists of 10 to 15 young men of the village who carry bells around their waist.

These young men take charge of giving away the bride to the groom safe and sound and preventing her from the spiteful human beings who lie in ambush. The characters incarnated by the disguised persons are the grandfather, the old woman, the priest with his censer, the doctor with his medicines and the ragged man – also called the hunchback – who teases the bride.

The bride is a man wearing a local wedding dress and small horse bells. The group of young men go from one house of the village to the other. The head of each family has to give them the one tenth of the harvest in kind (wine, tsipouro, sausages, bread etc.).

Moreover, the town echoes to the sounds of the bagpipes, the pipe and the snare drums. The event culminates in the thrashing of the would-be fiancés and the hunchback.