Sat 3/1 @ 9AM-5:30PM
When members of Cleveland’s large Slovenian community decided they wanted to bring more attention to the area’s Slovenian heritage, they came up with the idea of replicating a festival called Kurentovanje, which attracts thousands of tourists each year to the city of Ptuj in Slovenia featuring furry-suited “kurenti” ringing large bells to chase away the winter. So in 2013, they debuted the first Cleveland Kurentovanje festival, taking place at the National Slovenian Home on St. Clair and East 65th.
That festival, which will be celebrating its 13th year this year, has grown from a small, neighborhood effort to a popular event that lines St. Clair for the parade and packs the Slovenian home for an afternoon of food, drink, music, dancing, a vendor village, kids’ activities and bocce. It’s also expanded to include a week of cultural activities leading up to the main event.
The festival day now kicks off at 9am, when registration starts in the front lobby of the Slovenian Home for the Kurent Dash 5K, which steps off at 10am. (You can register in advance here.) That’s also when the doors open at the Slovenian Home, with rock band LoConti kicking off the musical entertainment on the ballroom stage from noon-1pm (they play again from 2-3) and kids’ activities (which continue all day with crafts, face painting, story time, sing-alongs and polka music) on the lower level. Kids can make colorful headdresses to wear outside when the parade steps off at noon.
The parade on St. Clair features local businesses or organizations, ethnic dance groups, marching bands, polka bands and an ever-increasing number of kurenti who run up and down the street greeting the crowd and posing for selfies.
Back at the Slovenian Home, there’ll be four stages of music and other entertainment including the ballroom stage, a stage downstairs in the kids’ area with polka music, the club room stage with the Sellouts playing classic rock cover, and a tent outside where Kurenovanje regulars The Chardon Polka Band regale the crowd with high-energy polka versions of pop and rock hits.
Kurentovanje concludes at 5pm with the Pokop Pusta (Closing Ceremony) outside by the fire pits, where an effigy is burned and buried, signifying the end of the festival. The Kurenti unmask and place black streamers in the coffin to be burned.
The festival is extremely family-friendly, free and open to everyone — all races, ethnicities and what have you.
Get a full schedule of events here.