Wonderful bike & train tour in Fukushima 福島大好きおじさんの自転車・鉄道旅日記 Tohoku Kizuna Festival parade in Fukushima, June 1-2, 2019. （東北絆まつり福島２０１９年６月１

Tohoku Kizuna Festival parade in Fukushima, June 1-2, 2019. （東北絆まつり福島２０１９年６月１－２日）

Tohoku Kizuna Festival took place during June 1st and 2nd at Fukushima City, where six major festival floats and dances from each of the six Tohoku prefectures showed their performance in one place. This was a good chance to experience those at one time and I was one of a large number of spectators at the venue. The parade played out mainly on a section of national route 4 where car traffic was shut out. The photo shows a gigantic float of the famous Nebuta Festival from Aomori Prefecture. The figure was of a legendary general of samurai Minamotono-Yoshiie. One of his battlegrounds was Fukushima some 900 years ago and there are many places in the prefecture even today that shows his traces. The float, which was 9 meters wide, 5 meters tall, and weighed 4 tons, was newly created for this occasion.
東北絆まつりが、６月１日から２日間、福島市で行われました。東北６県の夏祭りが同時に見られ、私も大勢の見物客の１人でした。パレードは、主に国道６号を貸切り行われました。写真は、青森ねぶたの大きな山車です。今回は，源義家（八幡太郎義家）が題材です。約９００年前、福島のあちこちでも活躍した武将で、今日でも各所にその痕跡が残っています。このねぶたは、幅９ｍ、高さ５ｍ、重さ４ｔで、今回初めて作られたものです。

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Fukushima showed off its Waraji Festival parade which was renovated for this year. Waraji means a straw sandal and the gigantic waraji was carried by many local people. Some of the scenes were shown above. In the top picture Fukushima City mayor was on top of the waraji. There appeared a smaller and golden waraji as shown in the bottom picture.
福島は、わらじまつりを披露しました。今回少し新しくしたもので、上の写真には福島市長が乗っています。また、下の写真には金の子わらじが担がれています。

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Kanto parade, where large vertical bamboo poles each with nearly 50 lanterns were supported by hand, forehead, or shoulder walked along the way as shown above, came from Akita Prefecture. Highly trained skill was needed to keep taking balance of the lantern poles with winds blowing from all the directions.
秋田の竿燈まつりは、写真のように、５０近い提灯をつるした竹竿が、手のひらや、額、肩などでバランスをとりつつ支えられ、何台も行進します。風の強さや向きが変わるなか大変な訓練と技術が要るようです。

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Yamagata Hanagasa dance parade went along the way with so many locals dancing with sedge hat, decorated with colorful flowers, in their hands as shown above.
山形の花笠踊りは、写真のように、色とりどりの花で飾られた笠を持ちながらの踊りです。

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Morioka Sansa dance parade from Iwate prefecture came along with people carrying and beating a portable drum on each waste as shown above.
岩手県からの盛岡さんさ踊りは、写真のように、太鼓を抱え演奏しながらの行進です。

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Lastly, Sendai Suzume dance from Miyagi Prefecture came along, as shown above, with each carrying unfolded sensu fan decorated colorfully.
最後は、宮城県からの仙台すずめ踊りです。写真のように、色とりどりの扇子をかざしながらの踊りでした。

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And this picture above was of the last joint parade expressing gratitude to the world for helping recovery of the region from 2011 earthquake disaster.
写真は、バレード最終の共同行進で、世界に向かって東日本大震災からの復興支援の感謝を伝えるものでした。

The following very short videos each for Aomori Nebuta, Fukushima Waraji, and Akita Kanto may help giving you a sense of atmosphere at the venue.
以下に、青森ねぶた、福島わらじ、秋田竿燈の順に、極短いビデオを載せました。場の雰囲気が少しわかります。

Each of the regional festivals is scheduled to be held in early August this year as shown in the website http://tohoku-kizunamatsuri.jp/en/festival/.
東北各地での今年の夏祭りは、８月初旬の予定で、詳しくは公式サイトをご参照ください。http://tohoku-kizunamatsuri.jp/festival/

The exact route and locations are shown in the map below. The map can be scaled up and down with a click and scroll.
ルートと場所は、下の地図を参照ください。地図は、クリックとスクロールで、拡大・縮小が可能です。