Ah, carnival, ah, carnival!

Horny tropical afternoon I gave away from the heat at home on Santa Clara Street in the Copacabana area in Rio de Janeiro. And then a pickup appeared under the windows, in the body of which sound columns with a kind chemer. I did not suspect which spectacle is prepared for me, while the cry from megawatt speakers) "Santa Clara orchestra, here!"

And twenty minutes did not go from where the musicians of all ages and dimensions with trombones, pipes and shock instruments began to flow. The latter was especially a lot and all different: from small asked with the pioneer line of my childhood drums to the giant, to carry which only one person was capable of all the orchestra, the alternate ebony, weighing the attack far for the centner.

Finally, the number of musicians has reached the critical mass, and the main started (in this case, it is more accurate to say the rolled out of the middle-aged day, waiting for Tibour-Major, waving a wander to Tambour-Majera, which did not dream of classical ballerinas and did not dream. The audience approvingly thugged. Inspired by this inspiring "Santa Clara orchestra" also did not roll up and with all my pipes and trombones hit the samba. Her, of course, accompanied the labor structured by the European ear.

So began for me the famous Brazilian carnival. Millions of pages are written about it: from the scandalous chronicles in the boulevard newspapers to solid academic studies. Carnival is not just an artistic and ethnographic festival, but the phenomenon of a national scale, an integral part of Brazilian mentality and the most valuable cultural heritage of the country. He is so multifaceted and a born that, having a prutkov’s goat, I will not try to argue the immense, but just share some personal impressions from what he saw and experienced.

The inhabitants of Santa Clara with enthusiasm responded to the appeal sounds of the siba and were poured together, which immediately turned into an improvised dance floor, the Brazilians call her sambodrom. And such a gigantic sambodrom became the whole Rio. The carnival moved on the road along the city streets, along which the tribunes for viewers were abolished. Fun beyond the key. The rapid dancers raised the faded bottles with beer, and the neighboring bar once blocked his weekly norm.

As musicians told me, it’s not so difficult to become a carnival orchestrant: you need to know a samba repertoire, have your own tool and own it so that colleagues and viewers do not frow. Rehearsing the musicians all year round to be to the main event being in the peak of the form.

For three weeks the carnival filled with all the information space. Even before his official opening, it was worth opening a newspaper, turn on the TV or radio, how the avalanche of information was collected. So I learned that hotels are filled with tourists under the urban, and the State Tourist Agency "Riotur" Invested in a carnival program without a small 10 million dollars. Reporters reported that the sambodrome stands are collected "The best people of the country". Even parliamentarians decided to postpone the bills over which they worked on time "After carnival", When life returns to normal.

And one more colorful detail: 10 million condoms were prepared for distribution to the participants of the festival. The kind of boldly naked dancers, in the rabid rhythm of shaking with all its charms, produces on men just a knockout impression, and the erotic tone of Rio at the time of the carnival sharply jumps.

In a word, in the country there was a mighty, bubble, all subordinating the elements of the samba, causing a surge of the patriotic pride of Brazilians. They are convinced that their carnival is "the most of the most" in Latin America, and hence the entire planet. The atmosphere of universal vacation did not leave doubts how exactly the word should be placed on each other, the scratch of which the magazine was proposed as a competitive task "Domingu": "Earth, Chief, Rio, Carnival, Event".

"Carnival in Rio de Janeiro, explained to me a neighbor of home Don Jullio, it’s like a natural phenomenon, as a change of seasons. It is useless to resist this process, you can only adapt to it".

Actually, this was occupied by most of the country’s population from the inhabitants of the Presidential Palace to the residents of Favel, urban slums. And there is no exaggeration. Brazil President Fernanda Enrika Cardoza on the eve of Carnival addressed the population on the radio with a call on the days of massive festivities not to get behind the wheel in a state of intoxication. "If I drank, the head of state persuaded compatriots, then take a taxi or stay with friends until we sober".

The choice of the topic of presidential radio broadcast was by no means random. According to the police, on the days of Carnival, up to 80 percent of all road traffic accidents are usually associated with the use of alcoholic beverages and drivers, and pedestrians. Looking ahead, I note that this year on federal tracks for four holidays happened without a small 2500 accidents, in which 150 people were killed and 1538 were injured.

The hierarchs of the Catholic Church acted with official statements in connection with the carnival. So, Archbishopath Rio de Janeiro threatened to appeal to the courts with a claim to insult the feelings of believers, if one of the leading schools of Samba "Unidus Yes Tijuka" It will not remove from the platform prepared for the passage by sambodroma, the image of the Virgin Mary and a huge cross. The picture with the Virgin Maria in the end was covered with the curtain, and the cross managed to defend.

As clarified the lawyers representing the plaintiff, the church against the carnival in principle does not object, although it does not relate to the feast of Samba to the category of godly affairs. The fact is that in this old folk festival, some Puritansky tuned church ranks see the remnants of pagan rites. In addition, it is too much flesh.

Brazilians in the mass of their zealous Catholics, but abandon the Samba above their forces. Therefore, they easily find a moral compromise: well, let the carnival not attributed to the category of an awake affair, but he does not call him the Bog’s illuminous church, not?

And millions of Brazilians with enthusiasm are immersed in the element of the solemn flesh dance sambo. For those who and on the days of the carnival, do not forget to take care of the soul, the church holds the Mass right at the stadium where tens of thousands of people are going. Full carnival scale.

Already mentioned Don Juulio, having his own opinion about "Carnival Messes" It was obvious: "There are one old men yes old maiden". I hardly imagine a stadium, filled with sunbathing elders and elderly virgins, but I didn’t get into the controversy with Don. By the way, my neighbor managed to exchange the seventh tenth.

And yet we must admit that the carnival has both ideological opponents. In certain circles it is believed that this holiday "Low origin", brought to Brazilian slaves in Brazil "White educated person" there is nothing to do on it. It is curious that the Brazilian entertainment industry, a finely felt conjuncture, managed to adjust and under the tastes of those who do not tolerate the carnival with his deprivation, and then the violent atmosphere. Wishing to leave Rio de Janeiro to this noisy time are offered special "Contrast" vouchers with addresses of quiet mountain resorts with a guarantee that samba rhythms will not get there. That "Journey to silence" It is hardly more expensive than a tourist package with an entrance ticket for a sambodrom.

So it turns out that in front of the carnival, as it were for two counter streams: Some ride for the feast of Samba, others run away from her. Carnival vacation is almost a week, and the nervous part of the residents of Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo, El Salvador and other major megalopolises seek to take advantage of this time so that the whole family is sent to the city. This time on the eve of the carnival from Rio on the bridge across the Gayanabar Bay in the direction of resort places in the north of the state, 400,000 cars rushed almost at the same time. Immediately gigantic traffic jams were formed and the number of accidents increased dramatically.

It is with this collision on the roads of Karoica so called the resident of Rio and the beginning of the carnival is associated. Although, of course, there is another, official opening ceremony. It comes down to the fact that the prefect of Rio de Janeiro solemnly transfers the keys to the city of carnival king. However, the municipal palace, where this rite is committed, the entrance is allowed to be a little, but in traffic jams on roads risks any.

So, the moment comes when everyone who wanted and could have left, and who did not want to leave or could not, remained. And on the streets, 300 thousand tourists immediately became more noticeable, and the dollar exchange rate, which they arrived to spend, to the joy of local residents, fell in all exchange offices. Rio plunged into the carnival, which this year was distinguished by a special scale, as was dedicated to the 500th anniversary of the opening of Brazil. Actually, the official celebrations on the occasion of the anniversary began and began.

It is necessary to make an important reservation: in Brazil, in parallel, there are no two carnival. One folk, splashing to the streets uncontrolled fun. Another official working on the tough rules of a commercial enterprise. Invested in it huge money, and the organizers are firmly intended to return them back with decent dividends. It is expected that income from the carnival on the scale of the country this time exceeds half a billion dollars.

There are our commercial worries from performers. This year, each SAMBO School, having received financial support from the city authorities and travel companies, spent on average about a million dollars to prepare for a speech on sambodrom. Naturally, costs should pay off by a hundred.

The central event of the official carnival parade of schools of the highest league. Where did the name come from "school", no one comes to explain. Of course, it is not about school in the familiar sense of the word, and not even a club, where they teach to dance sambo. "Schoolchildren" You don’t need to learn to gleate the soup, with this ability they seem to be born, and then all their life only grind. School is rather a certain creative association, a semi-modern, semi-professional, the main task of which to prepare for a carnival procession and to hold it so that everyone is ash surprised and delight, and competitors from envy.

In the speech of each school participate from three and a half to five thousand people. This time, in an allegorical form represented one or another period of the country’s history. They were reflected even such, it would seem, absolutely not carnival themes as the Cold War and Military Dictatorship in Brazil 60-70s. And yet, the Brazilians designed their decision, sometimes very peculiar, and for these mixing topics. So, the cold war in the procession of one of the schools was personally identified by the figure male girls in strongly decolted dresses, stitched from the narrow strips of Soviet and American flags.

In the carnival parade of the best schools of Samba, the most famous artists and athletes do not consider to participate: they know that it will add them popularity. For speaking on sambodroma, in addition to enthusiasm and musicality, there are also non-decrees. Carnival suit so-called "fantasy" Those who are moving in the walk column can weigh up to 10-15 kilograms. It is still hard to have other "sambistam" on platforms called carnival terminology "Allegories". Men’s carnival "armor" can weigh up to 80 kilograms. It is no coincidence that some "pupils", Preparing for the parade, remember the gymnasium. For the princesses and queens (they are also mandatory in columns), who know that their figures will cost the television screens of the whole world, the carnival is also a week of sitting on a strict diet, and for some visits to the plastic surgeon.

The topic on how dressed, and more often participants of the carnival procession, truly inexhaustible. This time, as I noticed, the audience was particularly worried about who from the movie stars, fashion model and simply beauties their luxurious busts were natural, and from whom Silicone. Copies on this score broke a lot, as a lot of the beauties, who ran through the sambodroma topless with naked breasts.

On this naughty, frivolous background, the organizational rank of a carnival show, sometimes gave the terry bureaucratism, looked like a paradoxical contrast. What only events did not communicate to me for the years of journalistic work on the congresses of friendly and not very friendly parties, to the congresses of government and non-governmental organizations, it was possible to even cover the visit of Pope John Paul II in Cuba. But only on the feast of Samba in Rio, I got along with a plastic card accreditation memo that journalist "obliged to provide the organizers all the materials prepared by him". It was possible to consider the carnival draw. But the consequences of the violation of the above condition (censorship in pure form!) It is quite serious: for the next year, accreditation may not give.

However, there is enough about the wrongness, to immediately enter the multicolor surface of the beach, singing, joining the carnival, arguing along the ancient Rio of a giant snake.

14 schools of the highest league are two days, more precisely to say two nights. The sambodrom is empty only by the morning, when the first rays of the sun begin to highlight the water of Guanabar Bay. Tourists and the Carnival participants themselves are pumped up or "Tighten" Beautiful Brazilian beer, breaking before the next stormy night. Television turns fragments of the best performances, on the screen there is a continuous twee, or rather, the beauties in fantastic carnival costumes.

However, this festive bustle hides its drama. The jury must sum up and define the winner of the procession. Results, with a declaration of which the case is usually delayed more than a day, waiting with impatience and meet their surge of emotions, as stormy as the carnival itself. Often, it comes even to fist skimps between the hottest fans of various schools, who believe that judges behave biased and undeservedly underestimate the estimates of their pets, the present "kings samba".

"Scored! Again idolized!" indignation in the voice of a hefty negra is genuinely as an expression of suffering on a dark face. Near a slender mulatto, listening to the totals of the jury broadcast on the entire sambodrom, nervously redesters with her shoulders and cannot contain tears.

This time the victory was awarded the champion of last year school "Empress Leopoldinnense", which from 300 possible scored 299.5 points. In second place by giving way all the poll, "sambist" from school "Baja Flor". At the winners in the courtyard of the holiday, on which at least four tons of beer will be discarded at least four tons. Well, in the mill "Unidus yes Villa Isabel" and "Porta da Pedra" Mourning: the last two places in the list that took place these schools mean that for the next year they will have to perform in the group rank below. This will be equally departing from the highest football league in the first.

Carnival is not only a spectacle, but also strictly regulated, a tough competition. To defeat it, a maximum of creative fiction is required, a familiar artistry and certainly a team spirit that makes thousands of completely different people right and put out without a balance in the name of a common victory. This is how the carnival is perceived by the overwhelming majority of participants in the sambodromes from playful semi-nailed beauties, dancing on platforms, to muscular blacks, roll these very platforms by crowded tribunes.

In just 85 minutes, the contestants tried to prove to everyone (and most importantly, the jury) that our school was most original and intelligibly revealed the topic declared in the speech taken from the history of Brazil. Judges exhibit ratings on a ten-point scale, taking into account the set of nuances. How the column moves uniformly or between the rows gaps arose? Platforms were issued on due? How to sound a group of shock tools, the so-called battery? How much school succeeds "Taissure" Spectators? Is the bannance dance and her cavalry were expressive "Mestre-Sala"? For each detail, separate estimates are put, which will then judge and rebuild the connoisseurs of carnival art.

But everything in the world has an end, carnival too. Ugaslo unrestrained fun, and the crossed country began to count costs. It is believed that this year the feast of Samba in Rio de Janeiro was generally safe: in statistics violence of sharp bursts of violence was not registered. On the days of the holidays died (not counting the victims of the traffic accidents) "Total" 112 people no more than last year.

Carnival said goodbye to Rio to the rustle of the blizzard of municipal janitors who remove the remnants of confetti. The ownership of the carnival monarch King Moma a year is reappearing again to the size of the hangars, in which Samba schools have already begun to prepare decorations for the next holiday. Pretty student "kings" and "Queen" Carnival processions returned to their everyday worries. But with them the memories of the insane and happy days of the carnival of the past and anticipation of the coming: Samba is eternal as Brazil.