Düsseldorf

Cologne or Düsseldorf? Which city celebrates carnival the best? Our Hungarian writer renders a clear verdict. She reports about how she escaped the kissing, but was let in on intimate secrets by Tom Cruise.

When the alarm clock rings on a Sunday at seven in the morning, there must be a very good reason not to ignore it. An important journey, for instance, or a business appointment that couldn’t be changed because it’s for the deal of the decade. That at least. Or it’s simply 11/11. Four ones in Düsseldorf mean Helau, and in Cologne Alaaf, and even if the opening of the “session” does not happen to be at the weekend, that doesn’t bother the carnival revellers. The day’s business dress code is “casual clown” and the top of the to-do list is: clink glasses as often as possible. The magical numbers – the double ones – are the justification for celebrating by the light of day as if it were New Year’s Eve. If it were only a matter of the numbers, why not start at eleven past eleven at night? But, that’s not the point. So, what is? This Hungarian attempted to find out.

My German colleagues – some of them active carnival revellers, others detractors of the winter custom – all warned me: without a costume and a beer in the hand, it can get unpleasant to join the crowd. Unless, of course, you want to bützen with the clowns.

Bützen? What an intimidating expression. It really doesn’t sound like it means kissing. In the south of Hungary on the Serbian border there is a folk festival where women are also kissed and aggressively flirted with by perfect strangers. There, the Busós frighten girls and women. I experienced it quite often in my childhood and found the festival very unpleasant. I therefore decided to don subtle carnival garb: my pumpkin-coloured leather jacket and a piccolo bottle of dry sparkling wine. The half-hearted solution proved fitting at first. The pumpkin colour suited the flashy crowd and the sparkling wine was a good choice. A group of girls in my overcrowded train, for example, emptied a bottle of “Hugo” after a sour apple Berentzen. Not Kölsch beer as I had anticipated.


Speaking of the train: I chose Cologne to start off carnival, but the journey at 9:40 AM turned out to be a daring choice. The platform filled up with the masked en masse, colourful and jolly, but not yet on a bender. The regional train from Paderborn was already full when it arrived. I was able to squeeze myself between beefcakes – a team of six with six-packs made of sponges. Only a few – very few – boarded without costumes, but for that with very obvious exasperation. As tight a squeeze as it was with the travelling carnival-goers, there was always plenty of room to pour more and more alcohol. There was a cry from one corner: “Düsseldorfer raus!” Wry smiles lit up the faces in the crowd. I had already heard plenty about the animosities between Düsseldorf and Cologne, about Helau versus Alaaf. Now, I’m even getting to experience a little of the carnival turbulence in real life.

An announcement bellows form the loudspeaker: “Stand away from the doors, there is no more room for passengers, please take the next train to Cologne,” our impatient chauffer requested, although the end of the line was Aachen. I suppose the conductor was not expecting anyone to be heading to Aachen this morning. After thirty minutes of an ever-boozier ride, the train actually did reach the central station in Cologne.

Working on the carnival mood sip by sip

The wave of revellers poured out onto the platform and moved towards the exit. I had determined to let myself be carried off in the crowd. The stairs leading up to the Cologne Cathedral had become a gathering place for carnival Jecken. It was 20 minutes before 11, only 31 minutes until the carnival starting gun. I followed the throngs headed towards the Heumarkt, or hoped so, for I was not very familiar with the cathedral city.

The melee hit a snag at the border to the Old Town, but only briefly. Helpers were passing out plastic glasses; I emptied my piccolo into one. Although it had gotten lukewarm during the journey and sparkling wine is not really appetizing out of a plastic beaker, I started working on my carnival mood sip by sip. It wasn’t easy. I wasn’t really keen on getting drunk in the morning. Yet no one around me seemed to have this problem.

The Heumarkt was already jam-packed. Many carnival-goers remained outsiders on the square in the spatial sense: the area in front of the stage was blocked off. At 11:11 sharp, there is no dual-class society among the revellers. All clowns are equal and hollered with raised hands, “Kölle Alaaf! Alaaf! Kölle Alaaf!”

In Hungary the New Year is not celebrated as enthusiastically – not even at the turn of the millennium – as they celebrate an additional, fifth season here, which may not change the weather, but certainly the people’s moods. The dancing begins, the shouting continues. I have to find something to do in order to enjoy myself. I decide to judge the garb and costumes as a one-woman jury.


So, I busy myself with the costume show. If the disguises reveal a person’s wish for a secret identity, then most of the men in Germany would apparently like to be Tom Cruise in “Top Gun.” The women? Maya the Bee. I am unable to ascertain any diversity in costuming ideas. It seems that the mask manufacturers this year were focused on bananas, police officers, hippies – all wearing the same patterned silk bell-bottoms – and, of course, clowns. The fools are all clowns.

I then concentrate on the few truly original costumes. For example a group of women who tailored their costumes from Ritter-Sport and Milka wrappers, ecologically worth seeing. Yet, even these ladies were not genuinely versed in carnival customs. The responses to my test question of what Kölle Alaaf might actually mean were, “No idea.”

A Frankfurt flamingo hugs – doesn’t kiss

I asked the same question of the umpteenth Top Gun machos, who also did not know the answer, but one of them did explain the reason for the popular khakis: “I like Tom Cruise, but not because I’m gay.” It seemed that he needed to get this unrequested information about his sexual orientation off his chest.

The narrow, cobblestoned lanes of the Old City were doused with Kölsch instead of Eau de Cologne like an Easter custom in Hungary. On Easter Monday, boys and men ambush girls and women and douse them with water to keep them from withering. Here, Kölsch beer is used instead.

After the women in chocolate, my second place ribbon for the costume contest went to three chaps from Dortmund each wearing a simple white mask and carrying a rose in their hands à la Phantom of the Opera. They explain during our conversation that it was an inexpensive, yet stylish solution for the “best party in the land.”

Before I headed to Düsseldorf to put the differences between the carnival strongholds under the microscope, I walked past the cathedral once again and stopped for a moment. The square made a desolate picture in the early afternoon. I wonder whether the congregation accepts the day of clowning or does the church prefer to shut its doors? No, it’s open and a mass is being held; it is Sunday. Anyone desiring a little quiet and divine stillness need simply enter. Even some carnival-goers are among the visitors; they behave no differently than the other God-fearing visitors, they merely look different.

At the train station, I am confronted by the contrast of carnival time. Elephants and whores are at the ATM, a woman in a formal suit with chic wheeled suitcases is wearing a clown hat and her nose is painted red. The train back to Düsseldorf is half-empty, no one is in costume. It is as if the past three hours among clowns was just a dream. But, apparently no one wants to get back as early as I do.

Düsseldorf attempts to rival Cologne. Bolkerstrasse, the marketplace and Burgplatz only managed halfway. Far fewer carnival-goers were out and about there, but many tourists and “regular” people who joined the happy company, or didn’t. Many simply walk past it. In one place, the Brazilian carnival atmosphere was on display. A Brazilian woman in an authentic bikini was dancing wildly to the Germans’ drumbeat. Naked skin is quite a sight on 11 November, where everyone else is wearing their winter coats. She wins third place in my costume contest.

An open-air stage was set up on the marketplace and a tent was on the Rathausplatz for a private party. Not a trace of clowns on the riverside, but the restaurants on the Rhine were full. The Düsseldorfer were enjoying the lovely weather, strolling along the river without shouting even one Helau.

I also didn’t get a kiss, but while I was attempting to photograph a dozen flamingos on the marketplace, one of them gave me a hug. “Was that bützen?” I asked. “Pardon me?” the tipsy flamingo asked. “Bützen,” I replied, “don’t you know what bützen means? And Helau?” “No, we’re from Frankfurt. Just want to have some fun.”