A young boy, wearing a bear fur, watches New Year ritual dances in Comanesti, 300 kilometers north of Bucharest, Romania. In pre-Christian rural traditions, participants wearing colored costumes or animal furs, toured from house to house in villages singing and dancing to ward off evil. With the average income in Romania, which joined the European Union in 2007, at around 200 euros ($US 295) a month and much lower in rural areas, the tradition has moved to Romania's cities where dancers travel to perform the ritual for money.