THE MANY TYPES OF PETRÓPOLITANS
Autor: MARCELO DE ALMEIDA | Publicado: 2011-08-30T12:51:00-07:00

As mentioned in Serendipity´s Matterhorn Petrópolis is a potpourri of different people. This is not because it offers mass employment, attracting immigrants from around the globe, but rather, on account of it being a combination of an assortment of people invited to live here during the 1800s, and a later wave of Brazilians who continued in their footsteps.

&nbsp;I have stated in other texts that this city was the property of a king, and is now part of the inheritance left to his heirs. So much is this a reality that every year the owners of properties within the municipality must pay a special tax called 'Laudemio'. It totals to about one percent of annual payments to the country, but when added together, must produce a reasonable amount.
&nbsp;King Pedro personally welcomed thousands of immigrants to his farm two hundred years ago so as to construct a train line from Rio de Janeiro up the mountain to Petrópolis, and eventually extending on into the general mines state just north of Rio de Janeiro state. Being as he´d commissioned an Austrian engineer to design his new city, the first planned city in brazil, he also allowed this engineer named Frederico Koeller to find immigrants which would best suite his fancy. Koeller went straight for the refugees of Germany, which were fleeing religious warfare and starvation. This first group of immigrants came from the margins of the Rhine river, on the border with France. The names of a few of their cities are still used by neighborhoods today. Amongst them we have Darmstadt, Mosel, Ingelheim, West Falen and Bingen. These immigrants were commonly recognized as the Hunsrückers because they lived mostly on the high planes of the Rhineland-Pfaltz region of Germany.
&nbsp;Petrópolis is divided into five sections. The first one is where King Pedro built his house, which is now the imperial museum, and is the area where most of the German families still reside. The second section corresponds to a second wave of immigrants which came from Italy this time. Since the German government eventually accused Brazil´s Royals of mistreating their citizens, the wave of German immigrants soon ceased to a halt, and the next best alternative, in Pedro´s eyes, were the Italians. Most of these groups came from the Italian province of Veneto in order to begin filling the broken link of Germans who had overflowed into textile mills. Together these 3,000 Italians erected the second district called Cascatinha, or little waterfall. By the 1840´s the two groups had equaled out in number and both contributed to the character of today´s city.
&nbsp;Due to the fact that the Portuguese people came to Brazil in such large numbers and from the earliest stages of colonization, they were not mentioned in 'Serendipity´s Matterhorn', when in fact they are ever present in Petrópolis' history and comprise the third group. The Portuguese were known as Lusitanos, from their ancient name for a region in Portugal. They also came in the same numbers as both the Germans and the Italians and settled the neighborhood of Caxambu. Contrary to the other Europeans, they mostly dealt in agriculture and retail, and till today continue growing and selling most of the vegetables we purchase in the region. However, people who are alike do not stand apart, and so nowadays there are no yearly events commemorating their participation in Pedro´s city the way the Italian day and The Bauernfestival do.
&nbsp;Moving on now, I must not leave out the fourth group which were the African-Brazilians who also came up in hoards. But their case is distinctly different because they were not free to found any memorials, museums, restaurants, parks or anything to be remembered by. A considerable number were brought by white settlers such as by the king himself, while others came as wives or kids of the Portuguese colonists, and can easily be recognized today. I could even go so far as to state that their´s is the fastest growing of all the groups in the city, for it is they who now build the slums up into the Atlantic Rain Forest of the region. The African-Brazilians give Petrópolis a very Rio de Janeiro type of feeling, so much so, that at times the city could be considered a high altitude neighborhood of the sprawling metropolis below.
&nbsp;finally we come to the latter two groups who made Petrópolis their home starting from the 1900´s, and these were the ‘Mineiros’ or people from the state of ‘Minas Gerais’, and the ‘Cariocas’, or the famed residents of ‘Rio de Janeiro’. Beginning with the state of minas gerais, we must not forget King Pedro´s train which ran through the city, connecting the sea port of Rio de Janeiro to the general mines state up north. This state has it´s very own special history going back to the original colonial times when the Bandeirantes, or flag carriers moved northeast from their state of São Paulo in the name of patriotism, and fought head on against the Portuguese occupation of the rich mining areas. Consequently it would be reasonable to imply that this group enriched Petrópolis still more, lending the city yet another typically Brazilian component.
Finally we reach the last group, and most well known internationally, the Rio de Janeiro ‘Cariocas’.
&nbsp;I could run the risk of saying that without the ‘Cariocas’, Petrópolis would have lost it´s European charm altogether because it was this group of people who took King Pedro´s ideas to their limits by building countless structures in a distinctly European flavor. They mirrored the german style in the construction of a huge casino beside the lake in ‘Quitandinha’, which in 'Serendipity´s Matterhorn' is where the dating couple spend a day lounging around on the lake in swan shaped pedal boats.
&nbsp;Due to Brazil´s ban on gambling during the 40´s, this proud ‘Norman building’ never served more than two years as a place of gaming, but soon turned into a regular block of beautiful apartments. The plastic carpeted ski slope was another carioca invention which can still be seen above the city center. I rode up the chairlift as a child, listening to the whistling wind blowing through the loblolly pines along it´s ski runs. From the top of the lift all the mountains can be seen, like ‘the Alps in the summer’. The downtown main street stretches into the distance until the afternoon fog bank arrives, leaving the viewer stranded on an island in the sky, and isolated in the middle of the city.
&nbsp;With the Cariocas came fancy ‘chocolatiers’ like ‘Katz and Patroni’. But the principal element brought by this group was the urbanization of the city. High-rise buildings were constructed, industrial companies of Rio de Janeiro loaned recreational and educational facilities, and a gigantic population of retirees took the city by storm. 
Slowly the old fabric of Petrópolis was altered into a modern carioca metropolis, counting on an extensive modern interstate equipped with bus services to Rio de Janeiro which now depart every half hour. So we could accuse this latter group a defacing King Pedro´s island Europe, and this wouldn´t be wrong to say. However, ‘the king’ was himself a Carioca, and never actually intended his city to be any different from his ‘then’ Brazilian capital of Rio de Janeiro; after all, the majority of his wealthy friends were also from Rio. 
&nbsp;Today Petrópolis is both a weekend getaway as well as a dormitory city for those who wish for a cozy, mysterious city with European zeal. Many Cariocas claim to live in the city for security reasons, being Rio de Janeiro an unsafe metropolis. Teenagers often complain about the city´s lack of night life, and the damp climate of the first district regularly scares many would-be-residents from ever taking this city into their hearts. I consider myself part of the latest wave of colonists who has been drawn to this European-Brazilian city, walled in by 7,000 foot mountains, and cooled by a sea breeze from Rio´s South Atlantic, which only 3,000 feet of altitude can provide. If there´s one place in Brazil where a writer could feel stimuli to advance a craft, I would have to cite Petrópolis as the star of the show and thank ‘a nineteenth century king’ for allowing immigrants like myself to take part in his creation. Thank you King Pedro II !