Apokries: Carnival Time in Greece Feb. 5-26, 2023

Greeks LOVE festivals and the 20 days before “Sarakosti” or Lent, is a period of costume parties, carnival festivities with much fun, drink and revelry for all ages! The Greek word is apokreas (απόκρεας–but written in English more phonetically as apokries,). The word means “from meat” as it is the time of eating and excess that will be cut from daily life during the 40 days of Lentin fasting (vegan diet, but with seafood–more on that later!) before Easter. This year it started a week ago and the children have already started going to parties and will even celebrate at school. The adults begin the parties this week and especially this coming and the following weekends.

This Thursday, February 16, is called Tsichno Pempti (tsichna is the mouth-watering smoke created by meat on the grill and Pempti is Thursday). For the pious, this is the last day to eat meat before the fast that will last until a minute after midnight when Great Saturday turns to Easter Sunday. On Tsichno Pempti, everyone is eating grilled meat somewhere–either at home with friends and family or at one of the packed tavernas. The next week is the week of cheese, where the pious will have their last dairy products until Easter arrives. 

Within the next two weeks, and especially the weekend of Feb. 24-26,  thousands flock in costume to the downtown Athens neighborhoods of  Plaka and Psiri where the streets are packed, as are the clubs, bars, restaurants and discos. Visitors to these neighborhoods must sometimes dodge plastic clubs that are a traditionally used to whop revelers on the head, which don’t hurt but can be pestering at times! These clubs are thought to be a remnant of the phallus cult from the ancient Dionysian festivals of Athens. Confetti is also constantly being thrown.

There are also big Carnival parades on the last Saturday and Sunday. The biggest takes place in Patra (Greece’s 3rd largest city, located in the Peloponnese). Patra is on the west coast, has ferry connections to Italy and has been greatly influenced by Venetian traditions. The parade is always televised and has colorful floats, singers, dancers, fabulous costumes and all sorts of masked revelers in attendance! In Athens, the Carnival parade is in the neighborhood of Moschato, where the streets are closed to traffic and filled with people. There are also celebrations on the island of Skyros where people dress in goat skins covered with bells. In the town of Tyrnavo in Thessaly giant penises are paraded through the streets accompanied by special and very “spicy” songs to match. The town of Rethymnon, Crete also has a large Apokreas celebration as does Xanthi in Northern Greece. In fact there is fun and revelry everywhere this time of year in Greece!