Carnival in Crikvenica

The Crikvenica Riviera's winter slumber receives a rather cheerful awakening with the arrival of carnival. It's a time for hosting numerous events, typified by the cheerful atmosphere and a great variety of colourful and imaginatively designed masks. Every year, as they make their way through the local villages, the carnival's participants sing and bang their drums loudly to chase away the spirits of winter and to summon spring back to life. Traditionally, masked parties take place on Saturdays in Crikvenica, Jadranovo and Selce, and tea parties with tombola on Sundays. There is also parade for children on Sunday, 20 January and large carnival parade with groups on Sunday, 27 January. On Ash Wednesday, 13 February, local people read out "the sentence", a text criticising the state of society and making fun of certain events. After that comes the burning of the Pust – a puppet that gets held responsible for everything that has gone wrong in the previous year and that is named after actual social or political events in the area.