Thousands celebrated the start of the carnival season with a colorful parade on New Year’s Day in Mainz. According to the organizer, in pleasant weather, around 1,200 guardsmen and dragoons as well as around 450 musicians and the “Schwellköppe”, oversized papier-mâché heads, paraded through the streets of the carnival stronghold on the Rhine. The foolish time officially begins on January 1st in the Rhineland-Palatinate state capital.
“The start of the campaign will not only take place with carnival music, a heart-warming cheer for the New Year and countless Helaus,” the president of the Mainz Carneval Association (MCV), Hannsgeorg Schönig, promised, “but we will also offer everyone who is hungry and Those who are thirsty have plenty of opportunity to strengthen themselves.” On the first day of 2024, sales of the special gold edition of this year’s train plaque also began.
The highlight in Mainz will again be the Rose Monday procession on February 12th. The foolish motto of the 2024 carnival campaign is “Mainz am Rhein invites the whole world to drink on Carnival Night”. The uniforms of the carnival guards were once created as a satirical response to the military, which played a dominant role in the garrison city of Mainz in the 19th century.
