Dancing With Bears Lives on as Unique Custom in Romania

COMANESTI, Romania—A small industrial town in northeast Romania may seem like an unlikely tourist destination, but Comanesti is where huge numbers of visitors from as far away as Japan choose to spend part of the winter holiday season. They converge here to see an annual event that grew out of a millennia-old tradition in the Moldavia region: Bearskin-clad people of all ages, organized in packs, marching, and dancing to the deafening sound of drums in several rows of gaping jaws and claws. The Dancing Bears Festival, as the custom has become known, starts in the days before Christmas and ends with a spectacular finale in Comanesti on Dec. 30. Some of the “bears” jokingly growl or mock an attack on spectators....