After 2 years without street carnival due to the Covid-19 pandemic, Brazil’s most traditional festival returned with full force this year. The federal government estimates that over 46 million people are participating in the festivities that officially began on Friday and will last until February 25.
In Rio de Janeiro, a city that hosts one of the most famous carnivals in the world, residents and tourists were eager for the street parties, the well-known blocos. The city hall of Rio allowed the parade of more than 600 of them, but there are still unregistered blocos. The largest blocos attract millions to the streets. And there is everything, from famous artists singing their biggest hits, carnival marchinhas, and even a bloco that plays Beatles songs in carnival rhythm.
But everyone knows that the main spectacle takes place at the sambadrome in Rio, the famous Marquês de Sapucaí. According to Jorge Perlingeiro, president of the city’s Samba Schools League, this year the spectacle is expected to break records, with over 100,000 staff and spectators per day, in addition to 18,000 people parading for the schools.“The biggest carnival of all time”
If this year the carnival will break the record in terms of the number of participants, 104 years ago, Rio de Janeiro held the “biggest carnival of all time.” Out of awareness, celebrating the end of the Spanish Flu, which sickened over 600,000 Cariocas and overcrowded hospitals the previous year.
That revelry would go down in history. After all, those who managed to survive the plague and World War I had every reason to celebrate and enjoy the party as if it were the last. And that’s exactly what the revelers did. The Fluminense capital partied hard since January of that year.
Victory against Covid
This year, the atmosphere is similar. After two years without carnival and 700,000 people dead due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the second highest death toll globally – the country only trails the United States – Cariocas were eager to return to the streets.
And in the streets, they celebrate not only the return of the carnival but also the defeat at the polls of former president Jair Bolsonaro, who was blamed by many as responsible for so many deaths due to his negligence regarding the pandemic.
Source: AP