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Burning Man Festival 2018: 5 interesting facts about the grandest event in the desert

The annual eight-day festival Burning Man traditionally began on the last Sunday of August in the American desert Black Rock, Nevada.

We offer you 5 interesting facts about the surrealistic festival, which is definitely worth visiting at least once in your life.

1. The first 9 years of the festival was held without reference to a specific topic, but since 1995, the event was held according to a predetermined theme.

The first theme was "Good and evil."

This year the theme of Burning Man - "I'm a robot", with reference to the famous science fiction writer Isaac Asimov.

2. According to the legend, the festival began two men Larry Harvey and Jerry James, who in 1986 burned on the beach of San Francisco a wooden scarecrow.

It looked like a man with a dog, and it was decided to burn it as an act of radical self-expression because of unrequited love.

It was so much liked by Garvey that he decided to repeat the event exactly one year later in the same place.

Subsequently, the statue for burning was officially named "Burning Man", and the number of people who participated in the ritual increased annually.

The festival moved from San Francisco to the Black Rock desert, and the burning of the statue was even temporarily stopped.

3. This festival is not about music, but about culture and self-expression in general.

In the desert territory you can find incredible examples of contemporary art from around the world.

4. For the entire history of the festival in 2011, Burning Man has a record number of participants - almost 54 thousand.

More than 900 camps were placed in the desert. Interestingly, the participants themselves provide themselves with food, shelter and other needs on the territory of the festival.

The location of the festival in the desert varies year after year.

5. As part of the Burning Man Festival in 1992, a "ranger" position was introduced to guard the order of the event.

In 1998, Google first dedicated a special doodle, and in 2000, for the first time, the newspaper Black Rock Gazette began to appear.

In 2003, a virtual game dedicated to the festival was released, and in 2006 the festival was broadcast on television.

With the development of the Internet in 2014, Burning Man could be watched for the first time in an online broadcast.

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