For the first time in cultural studies, this paper explores, based on published works of the late 19th – mid 20th centuries, a system of play and entertainment traditions in the spiritual life of Gagauz youth in the Bulgarian Dobrudja. Little-studied works on these issues, by such authors as the Czech historian Konstantin Jireček, the Bulgarian local historians Hristo Doktorov and Atanas Manov, and the Polish Turkologist Włodzimierz Zajączkowski, are subjected to analysis. Conclusions are made about the distinctive features of the studied segment of the traditional everyday culture of the people in comparison with the game thesaurus of the Bessarabian Gagauz, presented at about the same time by the Russian ethnographer Valentin Moshkov.