Camel Wrestling in Turkey: A Winter Festival of the Aegean

On a cold winter Sunday, a field outside an Aegean town fills with smoke from a hundred grills. Families spread blankets on the slopes, drummers and zurna players warm up, and men in embroidered caps lead huge, bell-hung camels into a sandy ring. This is a deve güreşi, a camel wrestling day, one of the oldest and loudest folk festivals of western Turkey. So if you travel in winter, camel wrestling in Turkey shows you a side of the country few visitors ever see.

What Is Camel Wrestling in Turkey?

In a match, two male camels push and lean against each other with their necks, usually roused by a female camel led past them. A camel wins when its rival falls, cries out or runs away, and each bout lasts about ten minutes. Then the handlers step in with ropes to separate the animals.

The Tülü camels

The wrestlers are Tülü camels, bred from a one-humped female and a two-humped male. Their keepers, called savran, raise them only for wrestling and choose them by bloodline, much as people breed racehorses. Like human wrestlers, the camels are called pehlivan, and an announcer, the cazgır, introduces each one to the crowd. Besides, they wrestle in four classes, from the lightest to the heaviest.

Camel Wrestling in Turkey, a Winter Tradition

The season runs through the winter, the mating season of the camels. Around İzmir, Manisa and Aydın, for example, matches take place between 7 December and 15 March. Overall, roughly thirty festivals are held across Aegean Turkey each year, almost always on Sundays.

Where the tradition comes from

Camel fighting goes back to the nomadic Turkic tribes, and in Anatolia it belongs to the culture of the Yörük, the old herding people of the Taurus and the Aegean. Local tradition has it that the first organized bouts took place in the 19th century in the village of Hıdırbeyli near Germencik; however, written records show camel wrestling around Tire already under Sultan Mahmud II. In the 1920s the young Republic discouraged it, yet from the 1980s it returned as part of the country’s heritage.

Watching Camel Wrestling in Turkey

One of the best-known festivals takes place every year on the third Sunday of January, in the wrestling arena at Pamucak in Selçuk, near Ephesus. On the Saturday before, a contest in town picks the best-decorated camel. On the day, spectators grill sucuk sausages and cheer for their favorite camels, while zeybek dancers in the costume of the old efe heroes perform to the drums.

Camel Wrestling in Turkey and Its Critics

In fairness, several animal rights groups criticize camel wrestling as cruel. Supporters reply that the camels are valuable, carefully kept animals and that the handlers stop each bout before serious injury. Either way, it is good to know both views before you go.

Plan Your Visit

We can add a day of camel wrestling in Turkey to a winter trip around Ephesus and Şirince, with a guide who explains the rules and the songs. For other celebrations, see our guides to Kırkpınar oil wrestling and food festivals in Turkey. Dates change every year, so ask us to confirm this season’s program before you plan your trip. For the ruins and the hill village, see our Ephesus and Şirince tour from İzmir.