Because of the war in Ukraine, the Cologne Carnival festival committee canceled the Shrove Monday festival planned for Monday with a parade in the Rheinenergie Stadium.
Instead, a peace demonstration with persiflage wagons will be organized in squares in downtown Cologne, said a spokesman for the festival committee of the dpa news agency on Thursday.
The Shrove Monday festival was intended as a corona-friendly replacement for the Shrove Monday procession.
The Cologne Shrove Monday procession was supposed to go through the football stadium.
The street carnival in Cologne started on Thursday.
A few hours after Russian troops attacked eastern Ukraine, tens of thousands of costumed revelers celebrated and swayed in the cathedral city on Weiberfastnacht, and long queues formed in front of pubs in the morning.
Mayor Henriette Reker (independent) said at a reception in the town hall that she personally could not combine carnival and the war in Ukraine, but that carnival was important to many others.
"Everyone has to decide for themselves whether this is the right moment to celebrate," said Reker on Thursday.
"I'm not celebrating." It was clear to her that the start of the carnival on Thursday "will give rise to images that will cause shaking of the head".
At exactly 11.11 a.m. the triumvirate officially has the street carnival on the Alter Markt with a countdown and three times "Kölle Alaaf".
"We don't sway past people's concerns," called Jungfrau Gerdemie (Björn Braun) from the stage.
"But we also don't let the limits of happiness be determined by people who trample on freedom and peace."
Because of the pandemic, only 750 viewers were allowed in a cordoned-off area for the program on Alter Markt.