The Xanthi Carnival parade man isn’t holding a bag. It’s the traditional musical instrument “Gaida”. It’s a bagpipe, an airtight bag of sheepskin or goatskin. He is “just a fat Greek old guy who is drinking alcohol, eating sausages, playing music and enjoying his life,” according to Sotiris, our host.
A blazing effigy of the Carnival Tsar, parades of floats and costumed troupes serenaded by blasting techno and Euro pop, fireworks, and walking around stumbling drunk with a water bottle filled with tsipouro. Oh, Yes. Istanbulus don’t have to go to Brazil to enjoy Carnival season. In fact, there is a carnival just down the road — with all the confetti, costumes and dancing in the street. And it’s all a few hours away by bus. To top it off, it’s mostly locals: you don’t feel like part of a tourist spectacle.
Partying in Xanthi Square the last Saturday night before Lent
But like other Carnivals around the world, this one is filled with costumes, pranks, whistles and (a few) scantily clad women. This is perhaps the closest carnival to the frontier of the Christian-Muslim world. We first got wind of this mysterious Greek carnival from our friend Fatih, who booked an ETS weekend tour trip to Thessaloniki and towns in western Thrace. It was over drinks at a friend’s farewell party in Kadikoy. A carnival you dare say? We asked incredulously. What is this…close-by, small town revelry of which you speak? I was suspicious at first. Eh, I’ve been to “Thess” thrice, I murmured, when my wife Zeynep immediately begged us to go. I’m not going to join a tour where we spend the night there.
A woman stands on a parade float during the main parade in central Xanthi.
So we went…alone, minus Thessaloniki, and on the overnight bus/Couchsurfing style like it was 2010, when I was a border-running, private-English-lesson vagabond. Xanthi (Iskece in Turkish jive) is located about 400 km and one boring border crossing to the west of Istanbul. It’s home to a significant Turkish population (about half of the total city’s count) a quaint old city with late Ottoman era buildings and charming winding little streets…and the second largest carnival in Greece. For those (like me) who didn’t know, it’s not just the Catholics who enjoy colorful festivities in February. In Greece, it takes place in the weeks leading up to “Clean Monday”, the Monday in late February (this year, the 23rd) which kicks off the meat-free Lent season. 
We arrived on an Ulusoy overnight bus from the big Istanbul otogar (Esenler) at 5:30 in the morning, after the border round up featuring a zombie middle-of the-night duty free shopping spree. It was a good sign that there were still a smattering of drunken revelers heading home. Yes, I thought to myself, this seems like a bona fide carnival. Not wanting to disturb our Cuchsurfing host — a man who turned out to be the Greek god of Couchsurfing hosts — at such a wee hour, we were surprised to find a börek shop open, and more surprised to discover they spoke Turkish quite fluently with a strong Greek accent. (I’ve been told that the Turks in Kominti and Alexandropouli, towns closer to the Turkish border, speak Turkish better than they do Greek, but those of Xanthi speak Greek as well or better than they do Turkish).
A festive vendor sells souvlaki.
We waited until the more reasonable time of 6:30 to head to Sotiris’s house. After we took a short nap we headed out to see the action. Sotiris took us to the Saturday bazaar. If you live in Turkey, or have spent more than 16 hours here, this bazaar will make you feel right at home. The difference may be the consignment-store feeling of the name brand steals in jackets that can be had, or the kalamata olives, but other than that not too much to make you feel alien. We walked the main streets of new town, where the carnival takes place, past the famous 19th century clock tower in the platia (square), past a couple costume shops and the large speakers placed along the parade route. This being Greece in winter, the weather can be rainy, but on the Saturday of that last weekend of Carnival, it was a fairly pleasant 8 C and sunny.
Fireworks on Saturday night in Xanthi.
That night we partied. We watched a minin-parade warm up featuring people dressed in last year’s carnival costumes, a prelude to the grand parade the next day. Wooo boy! we partied like we were at, well, a you know. Sotiris took us to a quaint, low ceilinged bar in a stone building owned by a friend. Most of it’s a blur. I will say this: I’ve never seen my wife more drunk. Moving on…
Revelers walk through Old Town Xanthi after the parade .
The next day we stood in attention waiting for the big parade, hungover heads absorbing the music from the baboon-sized speakers posted every 50 meters along the main drag (it starts at about noon). At about one, there was the Carnival king float (see first picture), and the procession began: There was about an hour of various Greek “societies” consisting of 20 to 100 people, walking down the street in matching colorful costumes — dogs, Mickey Mice, cavemen and the like. I thought they were unions, but Sotiris said they paid like 30 euro and got the costumes.
One of the parade clubs in their matching costumes.
“One thing that used to be different at this carnival,” said the 30-something Sotiris, born and raised in Xanthi “is that people used to take time to make their own costumes. Everyone’s was different, no cheap masks. People also used to throw candy to the parade watchers.” We then meandered around the city. The town gets very quiet very fast once you leave the main area. Perhaps it’s my own bias: but the Muslim community there seems happier, calmer, more prosperous and content than most Turks do, and you get an inkling of what it might have been like in the more peaceful times of Ottoman days, various cultures living with what — on the surface, of course — appeared to be multi-cultural harmony. 
After a mediocre meal with atmosphere in a village house-themed restaurant, it began to get dark and rainy. Nevertheless, we were going to take an overnight bus to Istanbul in a few hours, and we’d be damned if we weren’t going to see an effigay of a giant headed Russian Tsar, who looked eerily like a caricature of a 19-the century “trickster” Jew, albeit with a green beard and a purple vest like something from a Duran Duran video (in other towns in Greece, they do call it the burning of the Jew). The tsar was in a riverbed below a bridge and flanked by a park. Finally, around seven, some men lit brambles of dried brush placed around the head, and the Tsar was blazing. As he smoldered, a fireworks show, rivaling that of any small town July Fourth show, kicked off. It was a fitting end to a great weekend escape, to the beginning of Lent, and to the ingraining of a memory of a weekend getaway that beat the late winter blues.