King in the making

No carnival in the world would be complete without its king.

In Malta, King Carnival takes the form of a float - a majestic one next to which all other floats seem to pale in comparison.

The Malta Folklore Commission every year contracts a float builder (karrist, in Maltese) to put the King Carnival float together; and for the past eight years, that honour has gone to a karrist with 20 years of experience behind his back, Charles Axisa better known as "il-Landa".

MaltaMedia visited Charles Axisa and his team at their workshop just two weeks before carnival to see how work on the immense float was proceeding. We were not surprised to find them busy on their finishing touches.

The workshop, located near Pinto Wharf in Floriana is nothing short of cavernous. Parts of old floats waiting for their turn to be recycled are dangling from the ceiling. Tools, pieces of metal, wood and immense quantities of old newspapers line up the walls.

Charles started his 'career' as a karrist twenty years ago - two years after his son Clint was born. Nowadays, Clint shares his father's passion for Carnival and other team members acknowledge that his talent for float building is even better than his father's. Charles, Clint and the other members of the team spend all their free time (and that includes Saturdays and Sundays) at the workshop… and they have been doing this since early September.

"Work on the float started much earlier than that," Clint told MaltaMedia. "We were already busy on the designs of the float in July," he continues.

The Maltese karristi get a lot of their inspiration from other Carnivals such as that of Viareggio. This year's King Carnival in fact features a large number of movable parts and lights. But there's wasn't much more to see for the time being. The float is still covered with sheets of paper to protect its fragile body.

So, will King Carnival live up to the usual grandeur of past the leaders of the grand defile? "Il-Landa" and his team think so. And from the few glimpses we gave to their creation, we certainly agree.