22 hours ago
3
My guide Jovana Markic scoops up a glass of wine from a street table in Kotor old town and raises a toast: “Abrum!” The table is unguarded and not linked to any particular restaurant, but people are happily helping themselves to free vino and food. Jovana says this is normal.
It’s a welcome gesture for visitors coming to Kotor, on Montenegro’s Adriatic coast, for the masked Mardi Gras carnival (3-25 February this year). Abrum means welcome in the local dialect and comes from ombra, Venetian for a little glass of wine.
As we sip, costumed revellers and musicians surge through the narrow streets and gather in cobbled piazzas and outside baroque churches. It’s reminiscent of Italy, but the air is spiced with different flavours, such as fresh pomegranate juice and earthy Turkish coffee. Jovana points to a stone lion above the town gates, the symbol of Venice. The lion holds an open book, which means Kotor was semi-autonomous under the Venetian Empire, from 1420 to 1797, along with swathes of the coast of Croatia, Albania and Montenegro.
This year, instead of joining Venice’s overcrowded, pricey carnival, I’ve come to see how its legacy has lived on in these once-fortified Balkan outposts. The most famous carnivals are here in Kotor and in Rijeka in Croatia, but there are many others along the Adriatic coast. They include a revived carnival in Shkodër, the Albanian town that produces thousands of masks for Venice.
The setting is more rugged than Venice. Kotor is on a blue lagoon ringed by Montenegro’s dramatic black mountains. The panorama is best viewed from a cable car that starts just outside the town and climbs to the highest peak of Lovćen. Venetian explorers first encountered the drama of Kotor from the sea, when they sailed into Boka Bay in 1420. They returned to build ports, walled mercantile cities, cathedrals and fortresses.
They also threw a Venice-inspired Mardi Gras to mark the end of winter. These had a mischievous bent and, to this day, Kotor residents wear masks in the satirical Italian commedia dell’arte style to parody notables. If a politician has angered people that year, they will know about it come carnival time, as the town goes to great efforts to build parade floats to convey their messages.
“Unfortunately, most of our politicians don’t seem to understand veiled criticism,” says Jovana. “Most of them mistake the attention for praise.” In 2022, a puppet of the then prime minister Dritan Abazović was ceremonially burned at the end of the float parade to cast out the bad omens. Abazović posted an image of his puppet on social media along with a sincere thank you note.
Venetian-style masks can be bought in several costume shops around town, including one next to the Historic Boutique Hotel Cattaro. The main masquerade ball and parade (23-25 February) kicks off with a feast of seafood and Montenegrin wines, and culminates in a kaleidoscopic float parade and bonfire. To fill the tank before the evening festivities, go to Restaurant Galion or Konoba Galerija, renowned for mixed seafood in buzara sauce, a blend of olive oil, wine, garlic and mild spices.
Along the coast in Croatia, the Rijeka carnival runs from 17 January to 5 March. Here, the Venetians’ constant fear of enemy infiltration from the Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman empires prompted the city authorities to ban masks at carnival as you never knew who was behind them. However, Rijekans had a rebellious streak, so over the centuries continued the masked parties in secret groups.
The carnival burst into the open again in 1982 thanks to three groups from nearby villages. One of these was the zvončari (bell-ringers), who wore sheepskin and swung bells and maces once used to symbolically ward off invasion. They donned masks and paraded through the streets, drawing a crowd. It was such a hit that the carnival was officially revived.
after newsletter promotion
Now, each year, the mayor of Rijeka hands over the key to the city to the carnival master of ceremonies, who becomes the symbolic mayor for the festivities. A carnival queen is elected. The parade takes place on the last Sunday before Ash Wednesday, and is a huge affair: 9,000 masqueraders in 92 groups, each with its own decorated float, music and theatrics, stomping through the streets from noon till night.
Rijeka’s masks diverge wildly from the Italian style: rather than feathers and sequins, the zvončari wear bizarre animal heads with horns, antlers and red tongues. Many are farmers who come from villages bearing olive oils, cheeses, wines and cured meats, which visitors can sample at stalls. Some zvončari, such as the Grobnički dondolaši, are shepherds who parade shaking giant rattles they use to protect cattle from wolves. In the day the parade is a riot of colour and sound, but at night the animal heads take on an otherworldly, terrifying aspect. It feels closer to the pagan rite of banishing winter.
The carnival that most resembles a medieval Venetian masked ball takes place in Shkodër in Albania (20-22 March). Although Shkodër passed from Venetian control to the Ottoman Empire in the late 15th century, it somehow became a centre of production for carnival masks in the 1990s, when Venice began outsourcing them due to increased demand.
One of these suppliers is Albanian artisan Edmond Angoni, who set up the Venice Art Mask Factory in 1996 and now produces more than 20,000 hand-crafted masks a year. When I visit before the carnival, I spot all the Italian commedia dell’arte figures hanging in the showroom. Artisans show me how to mould the clay and papier-mache before layering on exquisite designs and feathers.
The masks are shipped to Venice, Rio and even Hollywood, and some remain in Shkodër, where a masked carnival has been going strong since the 1990s. It was grafted on to a local tradition (that had been banned during the communist era) where figures known as surretënit went from door to door dancing, singing and frolicking, and were rewarded with doughnuts and dried fruit.
Nowadays, Shkodër’s carnival is organised by the Catholic church. Revellers parade through the cobbled bazaar in medieval gowns and a ball takes place at the Hotel Tradita. It’s all very Italian until the Albanian folk music kicks off and gets everyone up and dancing in circles. Fruit brandies called rakia will have you swaying to a thumping Balkan beat, while waiters weave through the revellers, holding aloft steaming stews and meat platters.
Shkodër is blessed with a beautiful lake and before the festivities begin I go to the lakeside Hotel Balani bar and restaurant and watch fishers drifting leisurely, lines extended to catch Shkodër’s carp. Legend has it that the carp is the only fish that Albanians liked to eat during the Venetian occupation because locals were horrified by the Venetian habit of pumping sewage into the sea. They joked that anyone who ate saltwater fish literally “kissed the arse” of the occupiers, and elevated the humble lake carp into a rich dish with dried prune rind and tomatoes called tava krapi.
This is a key dish come carnival time, demonstrating that far from merely imitating their former colonisers, the Balkan towns across the Adriatic have instilled Mardi Gras with their own culture and festive spirit.
The trip was provided by Visit Montenegro and Albanian Trip, and organised by New Deal Europe
Other carnivals include Budva and Herzeg Novi. All the Montenegro carnivals hold re-runs during August aimed at visitors
