Giant paper lanterns at Japan's Aomori Nebuta Festival Bashny.Net

In many cultures, harvesting is accompanied by ritual acts: songs, dances and even symbolic sacrifices. But in Japan, a symbol of gratitude for a rich harvest are glowing from the inside of paper lanterns. During the annual Aomori Nebuta Festival, which farmers stage in August before the start of the rice harvest, giant lanterns painted with fantastic images are carried through the streets.





The Aomori Nebuta Festival is a mass action, comparable in its colorfulness to the Brazilian carnival. In its scope, it is not inferior to such Japanese festivals as the Naked Men Festival, during which naked Japanese walk in loincloths through the streets in search of luck, as well as the Setsubun festival, dedicated to the expulsion of winter and the meeting of spring.





The festival Aomori Nebuta, held in the north of the main island of Japan – Honshu, attracts many tourists from all over the world to not only watch, but also participate in this musical orgy. Through the streets of the city necessarily carry illuminated lanterns of various sizes (from very small, which can carry children, to huge, reaching a height of 22 meters).





The manufacture of lanterns is painstaking, usually it takes about a year to create each masterpiece. As materials for their manufacture are used, in addition to paper, bamboo, wood and rice paper. Ready-made lanterns are decorated in the form of fantastic images of demons, warriors, famous characters of legends and theater plays.

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