Revelers throng to New Year’s events after COVID hiatus
With virus curbs lifted, the world welcomes 2023
NEW YORK — New Year’s celebrations swept across the globe, ushering in 2023 with countdowns and fireworks — and marking an end to a year that brought war in Europe, a new chapter in the British monarchy, and global worries over inflation.
The new year began in the tiny atoll nation of Kiribati in the central Pacific, then moved across Russia and New Zealand before heading deeper, time zone by time zone, through Asia and Europe.
At least for a day, thoughts focused on possibilities, even elusive ones like world peace, and mustering — finally — a resolve to keep the next array of resolutions.
In a sign of that hope, children met St. Nicholas in a crowded metro station in Kharkiv, Ukraine.
Yet Russian attacks continued New Year’s Eve. At midnight, the streets of the capital, Kyiv, were desolate.
French President Emmanuel Macron rang in the new year with “a message of unity and trust” in a televised address Saturday and pledged continuing support for Ukraine. “During the coming year, we will be unfailingly at your side,” Macron said. “We will help you until victory and we will be together to build a just and lasting peace.”
In London, tens of thousands of people watched the city’s New Year’s Eve fireworks display on the banks of the River Thames for the first time since 2019, before the COVID-19 pandemic. Restrictions on mass gatherings dampened festivities in both 2020 and 2021, when drone light shows replaced more traditional fireworks viewing.
Rio de Janeiro’s Copacabana beach welcomed a small crowd of a few thousand for a short fireworks display, and several Brazilian cities canceled celebrations this year due to concern about the coronavirus. The Brazilian capital’s New Year’s bash usually drew more than 2 million people to Copacabana before the pandemic.
Turkey’s most populous city, Istanbul, brought in 2023 with street festivities and fireworks. At St. Antuan Catholic Church, dozens of Christians prayed for the new year and marked former Pope Benedict XVI’s passing.
New York City prepared to join the glow of the new year with a dazzling Saturday night spectacle in iconic Times Square, anchoring celebrations across the United States. At the stroke of midnight, a ton of confetti was expected to rain down on soggy revelers, glittering amid the jumbo screens, neon, and pulsing lights.
Last year, a scaled-back crowd of about 15,000 in-person, mask-wearing spectators watched the ball descend while basking in the lights and hoopla of America’s marquee New Year’s Eve event. Because of pandemic rules, it was far fewer than the tens of thousands of revelers who had descended on the world-famous square before the pandemic.
Before the ball dropped, there were heavy thoughts about the past year and the new one to come.
Ali Thompson, who was showing her brother around Times Square the day before, said people should do their part to take care of their corner of the world.
“I think we live in a broken world, and we see that play out every day,” she said. “I think anytime that we can do something to make it a little less broken is always a good thing.”
In Australia, more than 1 million people crowded along Sydney’s waterfront for a multi-million dollar celebration based around the themes of diversity and inclusion. More than 7,000 fireworks were launched from the top of the Sydney Harbour Bridge and another 2,000 from the nearby Opera House.
In Auckland, New Zealand, large crowds gathered below the Sky Tower, where a 10-second countdown to midnight preceded fireworks. The celebrations in New Zealand’s largest city returned after COVID-19 forced them to be canceled a year ago.