Lions and more

The history of the parades

There is only a ten years tradition to conduct such charitable parades. Bears, tortoises, cows and pigs participate in parades in many cities of the world. The first parade took place in Zurich in 1998. Plastic-made and quaint coloured cows were exhibited. That year more than million tourists visited Zurich and the quantities of sale increased on 30 %. This action was very successful and nowadays there are cow’s, bear’s, elephant’s, Mickey-mouse’s, pig’s and other “live-stock’s” parades in the world. Charity is the main task of all these actions. All takings from the sale of “animals” by the final parade-auction will send to extremely poor children. In 2005 in Munich “lion’s parade” started. Lion’s figures in natural size in traditional Bavarian costumes with beer-bocals were carried through the city.

This lions were placed in different places of the city and they will stay in Munich till football world-cup. All takings from the sale of lions by the auction will use for charity. Most of these parades took place in foreign countries but nowadays this idea became popular in Russia and CIS. In 2005 the “Cow’s parade” took place in Moscow. The organizers of the action could take more than 300 thousand Euro for the charity programs for children. The highest price - 38 000 Euro was given for the Anrew Makarevich’s cow. Tatyana Nazarenko’s cow (32 000), Zurab Tseretely’s cow (18 000), Vladimir Dubosarsky’s and Alex Vinogradov’s cows (15 000) are through the leaders of sale.

In 2005 in autumn the “pig parade” took place in Ukraine. Show-business and sport stars participated in this parade. Singer Andrey Danilko (Verka Serduchka) and gymnast Liliya Podkopayeva were the first who presented their creations. Liliya Podkopayeva coloured her pig in red and drew lilies on this background. The absolute Olympian champion in gymnastic said, that her pig was the symbol of wealth. Andrey Danilko’s pig is like Verka Serduchka: the pig stays on the wad of 100 dollars notes and is the symbol of the stability of the Ukrainian show-business. The Sophiya Rotaro’s “Dark-skinned” pig took the record sum – 8100 dollars. Her pig was coloured in tradition Moldavian ornaments and it also was adorned with pictures on which the best parts of the Crimea were depicted. This pig comes to Odessa because it was bought by the founder of gambling business in Odessa who wants to stay incognito.