All About Brazilian Carnival

by Kseniia Semenova

Brazilian carnival is one of the most famous and popular of the festivals in the . This year it takes place from Feb. 9-Feb. 17. Because of the population of the country and number of tourists, many people come to celebrate this holiday. This celebration is beyond imagination, just some samba processions on parade floats are going thru the streets. Its huge parties with thousands of people in the city celebrating, buses with DJs, and people from different walks of life.  

I was lucky to be a part of this amazing  party in the city of Sao Paulo,(it is a financial capital in Brazil, like New York city). I can say it is one of the most unique moments in the year when people from different societies come together and just celebrate this holiday. No one knows who you are, where you are from, or your class. Still it is not safe, you need be aware of people who can take advantage of you. There are many different sides of this festival. 

Historically this festival began in 1723 to Brazil by the Portuguese colonizers. It became more cultured and celebrated in the late 1800s. Samba schools appeared with their performances at the beginning of the last century. Because of the huge unfortunate amount of enslaved people from Africa. The beautiful dancing rhythm of samba grew so popular and made festival  more colorful and delightful. Brazil is also the country of many European colonies, with the Portuguese colony being the largest, this why the Catholicism is the main religion in this country. The beginning and the end of the carnival is always different due to the Easter dates, 40 days after comes Easter. 

What about samba? Thanks to the famous Carmen Miranda (the lady with fruits on her head) samba got famous around the world.Brazil has many samba schools,and there is also a huge competition in between  them. Where in Canada has hockey, Brazil has samba. My mother-in-law told me around 40 years ago, usually in the summer, kids were sent to samba camps and at the end of the summer they would performing on the carnival. 

Did you know that summer in Brazil is during our winter? Is it weird? But that is a discussion for another time.  

My aunt-in-law is in her 70s. Before COVID, she was going to one of the samba schools and learning the performance for a whole year to participate in the festival. They have their participation fee that includes costumes. Usually the costumes are very colourful and can have many feathers. This is to pay tribute to native people of Brazil. To see the beautiful performances, you need go to the closed stadiums, tickets are not cheap to see the whole show.  

This is why regular people who want to have fun gather in the city streets and spend time with friends. Usually, the city makes a schedule for closing streets each day, to avoid problems with traffic and to control the security of the people. It is a very fun time of the year. People dress up crazily, red sweet popcorn is sold everywhere, but there is also a dark side of this. When I was there I saw many homeless kids in the crowd, looking for lost possessions of people, it is more even mafia. Some of them trying to find some food in the trash because people are wasting drinks and snacks. It is very sad but it is the part of the world people live in. 

Carnival is celebrated not just in Rio de Janeiro, but in all the cities of the country. Many countries in the world like Columbia, Spain, Italy, and New Orleans have their Mardi Gras. All these carnivals are happening around the same time of the year, and basically, they are all connected to the same religious holiday the beginning of Christian Lent, 40 days before Easter.