Programs Nagykanizsa

Ptuj

Ptuj is the oldest city in Slovenia. With its rich cultural and historical heritage, ancestral traditions, thermal spa, wines, cuisine, wonderful setting, and constant development of tourist and other offers, Ptuj is a city that is unique not just in Slovenia but in Europe as well. Ptuj is the center place of a ten-day long carnival in the spring, an ancient Slavic pagan rite of spring and fertility, called Kurentovanje or Korantovanje. Kurent is believed to be the name of an ancient god of hedonism --the Slavic counterpart of the Greek Priapos, possibly linked to \"kurva\", the local word for \"whore\". Kurenti or Koranti (singular: Kurent or Korant) are figures dressed in sheep skin who go about the town wearing masks, a long red tongue, cow bells, and on the head multi-colored ribbons. The Kurenti from Ptuj and the adjoining villages also wear feathers, while those from the Haloze and Lancova vas wear horns. Organized in groups, Kurents go through town, from house to house, making noise with their bells and wooden sticks, to symbolically scare off evil spirits and the winter.