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Basel Fasnacht. A multitude of bands of Picolo players and drummers, and Guggenmusik bands march around the city playing music and dragging these impressive Lantern floats.
| Mr Gas Mask.
Normally the lanterns are highly symbolic of an important issue that the group making it concerned about. In this case my guess was concern for pollution of the environment. |
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| The next two pictures are of the same religious lantern. There seems to be two sides to this one and I wasn't sure whether the meaning was serious or frivolous. |
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| The other side of the above lantern. Beside some 'hell
and damnation' images, it seems that Piccachu from Pokemon was also
involved in some way. Also not sure what the woman on the goat means....
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| This lantern seems to be a mild medieval theme (although the
lady on the left is holding a modern glass wine bottle).
The group painting the lanterns actually democratically decide on the theme (very Swiss). |
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| 3 lanterns..
The middle one looks like a map of France (what I did on my holidays perhaps?). The last one looks like an advert for a clothing store. The nearest one seemed to about politics (see next picture). |
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| Some definite politics here with the sheep wielding a knife on the SVP dog(?). The SVP is one of the political parties and fairly strong in Basel. There is also something about the Basel Exhibition centre (Mäss, so maybe its about local politics involved in the expansion of the exhibition centre in Kleine Basel.. |  |
| Rütli is where the Swiss Federation was formed. The left is a detail. Not sure if this was a protest against or support for the extreme right wing groups in Switzerland (in 2000 a large group of Swiss right extreme skin heads caused trouble at Rütli). |   |
| Overview of the Rütli lantern and a seemingly related float
in the middle, more pictures follow.
Rächts von Rütli literally means 'Revenge from Rütli' |
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| Another lantern 'Mein Kampf' depicting extreme right
wing themes.
It seemed at odds with the float in front. I was unable to determine whether this was for or against although the extreme right is quite vocal on occasions in Switzerland. The most surprising part of the image is shown in detail below. |
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| Little girl sitting on the back of the Mein Kampf lantern
float.
I wonder whether she understands the meaning of the float better than I did..... |
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| The 'Valkyrie' lantern near the Rütli lantern float.
Not sure what the creature on top of the cheese in the front lantern was. but there was lots of newspapers on that lantern (BaslerStaB is a local free newspaper - great for looking for apartments) |
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| Details of the 'Valkyrie' lantern.
The 'puppet on a string' on the back looked like some local figure but not sure who exactly. Certainly nice artwork if not necessarily nice messages..
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| The rear float appears to be a take on Expedition Robinson
or some other survival type TV show.
The front one appears to be a take on the Basel Stadt (city) Bishophric status (the black curled symbol on the cross in a Bishop's staff, the Canton Symbol of Basel). |
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| The Dupe Club lantern. Looks like pure fun. |
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| Looking from Marktplatz to Barfusserplatz with two piccolo bands heading in opposite directions (left side toward me, right side away - as per the road rules!). |
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| End of Fasnacht 2001 Lantern Floats. |
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