Ptuj, Slovenia: Kurentovanje

Shrovetide carnivals like those in Rio de Janeiro, Venice, and New Orleans, need little by way of introduction. They’re well-famous, days-long festivities in the lead-up to Lent (in Slovenia, it’s called Pust), culminating on Shrove Tuesday.

Lonely Planet apparently put together a list of the 10 best carnivals in the world. While I have found numerous references to this, I can’t find the original LP list. Could this be a case of repeat it often enough and it’ll become true?

Regardless, if you’re in Europe, Kurentovanje is one to put in your calendar for next year.

The Kurenti, what I like to call the hairy men [I met them first in Mohács, Hungary at the Busójárás festival, Hungary’s main Shrovetide carnival], have been on Unesco’s Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity since 2017.

Kurenti practise their rounds through villages and nowadays also through the town of Ptuj. Groups consisting of Kurenti and one or more devils run from house to house, form a circle in the yard and jump around the owners. According to their beliefs, the noisy bell-ringing and brandishing of the wooden stick chase everything evil away and bring happiness to those they visit.

They’re noisy devils, their presence foretold by loud bells and cheers. They carry sticks to which people tie handkerchiefs and the Kurent with the most handkerchiefs at the end of the festival is the main man.

I say man because of all the headless kurenti I saw, all were male. But I’m open to correction.

Wandering the medieval streets of the oldest town in Slovenia during Kurentovanje is a treat. You never know what you’ll meet around the corner.

We’d visited Ptuj seven years ago, resolving to come back the following year for the festival. It took us a while, but we got there.

We were more prepared than usual. We’d checked the programme and knew where to be at what time. But when we wandered into town on Saturday morning, we felt decidedly underdressed. Everyone else was in costume. Spot the visitors!

My favourite was a teenage girl dressed as an American. It took me a minute but when the dime dropped, it was laughably stereotypically obvious.

The first parade on Saturday seemed to be a historical parade of the town’s history, the City Carnival Promenade, an event that has been going on since the nineteenth century. The commentary was in Slovenian so we could only guess at what was going on. Given the progression of costumes though, it was pretty obvious we were moving through time.

It reminded me of a festival we happened upon in Poreč, Croatia, a few summers back.

Later that evening, at 5, the monsters came out. Again, not being able to understand a thing that was being said, I assumed this was when the surrounding chapters of the Kurenti came out to play, trying to outvy each other in their horribleness.

In between events, the town is very walkable with plenty to see. More on this in my next post.

The dates are already in the calendar for 2025. Book now. If we go, we’ll go early enough to catch the Ethno Parade – I want to see some rusas, cockerels, and bears.

But I’d also like to go to the masked ball. And I think they bookend the festival. mmmm…