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Appeals instead of camels
STORY: What looked like carnival in places was something completely different on closer inspection or with an overview. The Cologne Carnival festival committee quickly turned the Shrove Monday parade into a peace demonstration out of solidarity with Ukraine. It was said that this was intended to send a clear signal against the hostilities. A call that tens of thousands followed, according to the police there were up to 250,000 people at the top. Neither Christoph Kuckelkorn, President of the Festival Committee, nor the participants saw a contradiction in the anti-war protests, including those in costume. “Especially in the last few years and months we have experienced divisions in society. And to experience community today is great. And if the carnival has the power to develop that today, then it has shown what it is capable of “Carnival and war go together in a certain way, yes, definitely, yes. In other words, solidarity, you can express so much in carnival, expressing it: solidarity.” The approximately 4.5 kilometer long demonstration route was similar to that of the traditional Shrove Monday procession. Up to 12,000 carnivalists otherwise take part, plus several hundred thousand revelers along the way. In the past few days there have been demonstrations in many places against the Russian attack on Ukraine.
The traditional Cologne carnival parade was canceled on Shrove Monday because of the Ukraine war, but tens of thousands flocked to the peace demonstration.