On Pentecost weekend (May 9-12), Berliners will speak dozens of languages ​​and will have a party. No miracle on the horizon, but simply a big gathering: the Carnival of Cultures or four days of street party, cultural mix, concerts, good food and political exchanges, in the mosaic district of Kreuzberg. A great success of multicultural Berlin, where more than 180 communities live together!

Kreuzberg, Métis Berlin

Platform between East and West, Berlin is also a city of mixtures. After the fall of the famous wall, the opening to various influences increased. Today, there are more than five hundred thousand foreigners in Berlin, from one hundred and eighty different origins, including many artists and intellectuals.

In Kreuzberg, a high place of alternative culture in the 80s, coexist all kinds of communities: Turkish immigrants, intellectuals, protest artists, bohemian bourgeois … From Bergmannstrasse to Marheinekeplatz , Kreuzberg 61 is an idyllic and alternative neighborhood, where you can find full of nice bars and restaurants. On the side of SO36, you will find the protest bohemian and the poor immigrants from Kurdistan. Finally, near Kottbusser Tor and Görlitzer Park, Kreuzberg takes on the air of Turkish Belleville.

It was in this area of ​​abundant diversity that was born in 1996, the Carnival of Cultures (Karneval der Kulturen). The goal: to make it a place of expression and mixture of minority and young cultures of the German capital, a kind of ode to its plural character.

Crossroads of mixtures

It is a bet won. While strolling in Kreuzberg during the carnival, you can buy Peruvian clothes by eating Chinese noodles, a few steps further, drink a mug of German beer while discovering the handicrafts of Togo, on the other side of the street, listen a reggae group from Senegal breathing in the scent of Indian incense.

Berlin associations are invited each year to take advantage of the event to make themselves known and disseminate their action. That is why there is an easy stand alongside one another, along the streets, in support of a death row inmate, anarchist activists, Dadaist artists, multiple mutual aid associations, etc. In total, three hundred stands of all kinds.

Music, too, is international. Four stages are installed on Bücherplatz: one predominantly Turkish, another Latin, a third between Eastern Europe and Asia and the last devoted to Africa. Without forgetting the festival off: more or less official concerts on the sidewalks and in the bars of the district, until the end of the night.

Marathon parade

An event not to be missed during this weekend: the parade of May 11 which will pass through Hermannplatz, Hasenheide, Gneisenaustraße and Yorckstraße . From 12:30 p.m., it will bring together four thousand two hundred costumed participants, all in colors and world music, for nine hours. The Carnival of Cultures brings together more than a million people year after year. Its success is growing (the first edition had gathered “only” fifty thousand people).

For four days, the party is really on the street. All generations meet, more or less late at night. The atmosphere is good, as the Germans conceive of large gatherings. Don’t miss the charming children’s carnival on May 10 either. At the moment when spring shows its nose, the Carnival is a good entry into the Berlin summer always very hot (in every sense of the term). And also, an amazing discovery: that of multicolored Berlin, like this bustling capital. Come to Berlin, this is where it happens.

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