Despite the rain and bad weather, the ancient tradition was respected this year in Donja Lastva near Tivat, where a large number of imaginative masks and citizens gathered today for the "Lastovo Carnival" - the largest and longest-running traditional event of its type on the Tivat Riviera.
Unlike summer carnivals, which are conceptually different and primarily aimed at entertaining tourists with the performance of masked (carnival) groups, the "Lastovo Carnival", organized by the NGO "Harlequin" and the residents of Donja Lastva, has retained all the traditional features of this event - the carnival doll, the trial and execution of it, as a symbolic showdown of society with itself, that is, with all that is bad in a social community.
Thus, this year's "Carnival of Lastovo", called Condanatto Invano (Condemned in Vain), is accused of all last year's troubles and problems of both the residents of Tivat and Boka, as well as the entire Montenegro, because the carnival's name, but also its appearance with a hood on its head and a "earbud" in its left ear, alludes to the latest high-profile escapes of first-instance convicted members of organized crime groups and the state establishment.
Since this year, due to the rain and high tide that flooded part of the local road, the usual procession could not be organized, the masquerades, majorettes and the Tivat City Music gathered in the hall of the Donja Lastovo Cultural Center, where the "Glorious and Unconstitutional Court of Darkness and Blindness" was in session. The prosecutor brought before it this year's carnival, "intended to throw the entire burden on its cross" and that "it will be blamed on it and said, although much worse than it will happen". During the trial, it was heard that "the independent court, barely assembled and uncorrupted, had been collecting evidence all year, depending on time, goodwill, and especially money", and the prosecutor filed an "indictment against the carnival, solid on the basis of countless gossip and leaked information for all the wrongdoings in the past year and for all the misery they have caused us".
The defendant was charged with Condanatto Invano's guilt for making society dependent on "the technical achievements offered to us and for living in a virtual world."
"We have the remote in one hand, and the mobile in the other. No one looks each other in the eye anymore, but we wait for someone to pop out of our screen. The accused is especially guilty of creating a false image that everything is upside down and artificial. Our intelligence is artificial, our teeth, nails, hair and breasts are artificial. And how can a man not go crazy?!" - the prosecutor blamed the carnival, also attributing responsibility to Condanatto Invano "for not being able to find a judge because everyone wants to defend" and "for being the first in the world in the discipline of shifting responsibility to someone else".
According to the prosecutor, the carnival is also to blame for "everywhere there is a rush and everyone is running for something - men are running after women, as well as wages for prices", "that the climate has changed so that in the summer we burn from the sun, and in the winter we suffocate from the humidity", as well as the fact that the people of Tivat are still waiting for "the start of work on the underground part of the boulevard from the airport to Lepetane", and the citizens of all of Montenegro have been suffering for years on the unmarked and dangerous construction site of the Tivat–Jaz boulevard, "so the safest thing to do is turn the car into the first canal, since they can't see at night". The carnival was also blamed for the fact that a decision has not yet been made on the fate of the airport and the concession tender, that the construction of the sewage system in Lastva has not begun, discord in the Boka Navy and a number of local problems.
"The defendant is guilty of being capricious and insatiable. We always lack something! Children are bought all sorts of things, adults have everything. Only pensioners are modest and understand the situation. And how can they not when their pensions have been increased!" - stated, among other things, the prosecutor, who pointed out that Condanatto Invano is "guilty that we always have to wait for someone else to do what we need", "that we all agree that we disagree and are looking for the guilty party without guilt", and "that we are angry at each other because we understand each other well, even though we still don't know what language we are speaking".
All the efforts of the Carnival's defenders were in vain, and the judge even characterized his request for the prosecutor's disqualification as "obstruction of the court." Carnival was thus sentenced to death by burning, and before the executioners carried him to the stake on the pier in front of the Church of Saint Rocco, his will was read, in which Condanatto Invano, by testament, left a part of his inheritance to each according to his merits.
The Tivat utility company thus received "a location for the disposal of construction waste and a sufficient number of cisterns", the Electric Power Distribution Company "a generator in functional condition, for the New Year holidays to complete the traditional New Year's Eve celebration at Pine with the traditional power outage", and the Municipality "financial resources and an unlimited time limit to continue work on the boulevard of broken pipes, torn cables and holes full of water - not to forget what a modern road entails".
"I am leaving an open competition for the position of 'general practitioner'. Transportation, accommodation and food provided. Salary by agreement. One part in cash, the other through the bank, and the third under the arm. Responsibility, of course, is not implied" - concluded his testament to the Montenegrin carnival society Condanatto Invano, telling the citizens "stand by me and be brave while you peek behind the shutters", while, as he said, "my legs are already shaking, my throat is tight, messages are constantly coming to me, and the explicit footage is spreading on the networks".
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