AN EXCEPTIONAL START TO THE 60TH KURENTOVANJE

The Intercontinental meet of traditional carnival characters kicked off the 60th Kurentovanje in Ptuj. Some 15,000 visitors to the 2020 European Carnival Capital welcomed over 2,200 costumed participants from 10 countries, which included over 800 Kurents, Venetian carnival characters and a group from Bolivia, which Ptuj hosted for the first time.

The 60th edition of Slovenia’s largest traditional carnival festival, which comes recommended by Lonely Planet and The Guardian, and is held under the patronage of Unesco, started with a carnival, which showcases local, national, regional and world carnival traditions.

The 60th Kurentovanje started when the Mayor of Ptuj Nuška Gajšek symbolically handed the power over the city to the 17th Carnival Prince Darko Cafuta aka Baron Jakob Zekel Videmski, while the ceremony was overseen by the Chairman of the Organizing Committee and Secretary General of FECC Branko Brumen.

Kurentovanje’s biggest traditional folk parade so far showed that Ptuj deserves the reputation of Europe’s largest open-air museum, as the visitors flocked the streets in the warm and sunny weather. According to the security service, almost 15,000 people reveled with Kurents, Korents and their friends from Slovenia and abroad, which is by one third more visitors compared to the year before.

The opening of Kurentovanje also featured Ptuj Lions Club’s charity stew cooking competition in the courtyard of the Minorite Monastery. Over 5000 people came to the event and enjoyed over free 4000 servings of stew, which was cooked by 20 teams, testing their culinary skills to raise funds for underprivileged families.

The 60th Kurentovanje has been successfully opened and will feature over 70 different events in 11 days. You can read more about all the events and highlights of Ptuj’s fifth season of the year in the festival brochure (here)