Carnival in Rio de Janeiro

The Carnival in Rio de Janeiro is a festival held every year before Lent and considered the biggest carnival in the world with 2 million people per day on the streets, is celebrated in Rio de Janeiro Brazil. The first festivals of Rio date back to 1723. The typical Rio carnival parade is filled with revelers, floats, and adornments from numerous samba schools which are located in Rio. A samba school is composed of a collaboration of local neighbors that want to attend carnival together, with some kind of regional, geographical common background, it stems from Catholic roots as a celebration before the 40 days of lent.

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History

Carnival began in the 1830s as a continuation of the Portuguese tradition of celebrating and indulging on the day before Lent begins. Lent is the 46-day period observed primarily by Roman Catholics as a means of sacrifice and abstinence in preparation for Easter. During the late 1800s, street musicians and dancing were introduced in Rio de Janeiro's Carnival, in addition to themed costumes and the tradition of electing the Carnival's "king." The celebration includes live music, street performances, dancing, floats, costumes, food and beverages. Foreign visitors number some 700,000 each year. There are 30 samba schools with thousands of members. Each school is fronted by a queen and led by hundreds of drummers and a cavalcade of floats. And this is just the official parade. Bandstands for public parties and Carnival balls are found across the city, along with more off-beat parties in clubs and venues in Rio's Centre and beyond.

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Importance of this Celebration

Rio's global image is so closely associated with Carnival that the two things are almost synonymous. Everything from the tourist industry to episodes of The Simpsons have found it hard to separate the two entities. Usually this is a huge boost for Rio's economy but this year the global credit crisis has even taken the shine off Carnival. Materials for the parades have shot up in price and costume suppliers have gone bust.

More important, the big-name sponsors and donating companies, such as Petrobras, the state-owned oil company, aren't able to contribute costing the parade millions of pounds. The Rio state government will donate several million, and tourist revenues, though likely to be down on previous years, also hotels are expecting a 20 percent drop in occupancy, that will still be significant. Carnival goers are expected to inject $521 million into the city's economy, up from $510 million last year.

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Opinion

The Rio de Janeiro’s Carnival is the most famous carnival in the world, is celebrated for 4 days to celebrate the start of the Lent and it represents one of the major cultural expressions from Brazil. Every year, they exceed the 2 millions of participants. Its origins go back to Mid-nineteenth century, when the masked dances were imported from Europe. During the four nights, all the schools face each other, after having trained the entire year and the most famous schools are Mangueira y Salgueiro. In summary it’s a great place ti visit if you are in Brazil and you will see the magic of this celebration.

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