INTERNATIONAL CARNIVAL PARADE – 19.2.2012. (Sunday) at 12 pm, Korzo _____________________________________________________________________________________
The International Carnival Parade is the jewel in the crown of the carnival festivities on the Kvarner and even further afield. Competitions in imaginativeness, humour and originality, fireworks of colours and shapes result with a parade of hundreds of allegorical floats, thousands of masks and uncountable number of domestic and foreign observers.
Since the day it was organised for the first time, in 1982, by the Rijeka Tourist Board, the renewed Rijeka Carnival has, in the best possible way, continued with the tradition of masking of more centuries in the coastal area of Croatia and has placed the city on the Rječina River amongst the most important European carnival cities. When, in 1982, three masked groups (the "Lako ćemo" carnival group , the "Pehinarski feštari" carnival group and the "Halubje Bellringers" carnival group ) passed through the Korzo pedestrian street, nobody foresaw the range this would take over the years, which has already become traditional International Rijeka Carnival, within which the International Carnival Parade is only one of the programs of this important event which every year brings together larger number of participants and audiences both from Croatia and from abroad.
Today we find ourselves in the situation not only to preserve the tradition, but to create it by ourselves as well. We create it through new adventures, parties, masks and new periods. We do that in an organized and imaginative way, in step with contemporary conditions. The International Carnival Parade is a muster of traditional and urban carnival groups which operate as citizen societies and by means of their masks try to retrospect actual social events.
Nowhere in the world will you be able to experience such a characteristic bond of European civil carnivals based on historical and cultural customs and folklore elements with mythology so be whatever you want, come to the Rijeka Carnival!
The Rijeka Carnival is hard to describe in words or conjure up with photos or television broadcasts. The Rijeka Carnival must be experienced and passed through! So we invite you all to the Rijeka Carnival – where you can be whatever you want!