From my photos at Flickr Produced by Kayakman Media

As we rode the tram from the train station up to the stadium in Debrecen we could easily see that in this town the celebration of St. Istvan's Day (Szent István napja) is no small event. In fact, it's a week-long festival full of concerts featuring Hungarian and foreign artistic groups, dance companies, majorette groups, and other events that all culminated with the big parade and fireworks on August 20th. And of course, as this is the Flower Festival (Debreceni Virágkarnevál) there's dozens of creations and displays of flowers. The parade floats were so creative and detailed that only by standing next to them could you see the flowers. It's said that some floats use as many as three million of them!

Most of the events were free, but a small admission got you into the stadium to see the floats up close and to watch the Folk Dance Show. We particularly enjoyed the group from Sopron and the whirling dervish. Outside the stadium, the carnival feel prevailed and there were plenty of chances to spend money on food (of the not so healthy variety), trinkets, and other flea market stuff. There were more booths scattered downtown, especially clustered near the main square in front of City Hall where a number of the events took place.

Clearly Debrecen knows how to celebrate, then again this festival, which also commemorates the wheat harvest, has been around for over 100 years. It was pleasant to get away from the tourist crowds in the capital and experience how a provincial city honors such important day in Hungarian culture.