Photos from Winter Wonderland Prague - Letňany. JŠ
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The slow departure of winter and the onset of warmer spring days heralds the traditional Mardi Gras revelry bidding farewell to the cold with exuberant merriment. The so-called Fashank is celebrated between the Lenten season of Christmas and Easter and this year falls between 7 January (after Three Kings) and 13 February. But carnival fun varies from place to place, in some places lasting just one day, in others for weeks. Organisers also often coordinate so that spectators can see multiple parades in one year and enjoy the fun. It is also an opportunity to visit neighbours near and far and learn about their culture.
The Old Bohemian Carnival in Hlinsko was inscribed on the UNESCO Intangible Heritage List in 2010. It is held in the open-air museum of the Vroubenek on Veselý Hill and nearby villages. After the ceremonial permission to go round, the procession of masks goes from building to building and plays and dances for the owners of the houses to bring them luck, abundance, good harvest and fertility. Merry songs are played, but if someone has died in the building, they are replaced by tunes of mourning to honour the deceased. The hosts then treat the musicians with typical sweets such as doughnuts and alcohol to warm them up. Refreshments are also offered to visitors who come with the procession. The masks like to play pranks on them - they paint black lines of soot on their faces, throw the boys into the white snow and take the pretty girls for a spin. You'll find a chimney sweep, a chimney sweep, a Turk, a grasshopper, a laufro and straw scarecrows. Then in the afternoon, during the closing ceremony, they recite the carnival testament, enumerating the sins of the grasshopper mask. She is then slaughtered and the procession ends with the frolicsome dance of the masks - a symbol of the removal of all evil and the arrival of a new pure time.
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