503rd anniversary of Havana. Image:MC

Havana, November 16 (RHC)-- The people of the Cuban capital keep alive the tradition of walking three times around the ceiba tree, a few hours before November 16th, at the site where in 1519 the first mass and town council took place, marking the founding of the town of San Cristóbal de La Habana.

The Office of the Historian held the traditional ceremony in the Greco-Roman temple known as Templete del Centro Histórico, where bells rang and passersby paraded following the Mazas del Cabildo from the Museo de la Ciudad through the Plaza de Armas.

For the occasion, a poem evoked the figure of the so-called Eternal Historian of Havana, Eusebio Leal Spengler, soul of those cobblestone streets and colonial buildings for which he gave so much and everything in life to achieve their restoration and rescue their heritage value.

The singer Leo Vera dedicated a song to the symbolic tree and classic works of the Cuban songbook and repertoire were also heard, such as the zarzuela "Cecilia Valdés" and pieces by Ernesto Lecuona, performed by Milagros de los Ángeles Soto, Marcos Madrigal, Geidy Chapman, Gerardo Alfonso, among others.

The event was attended by Luis Antonio Torres Iríbar, First Secretary of the Party in the capital; Perla Rosales, Deputy Director General of the OHCH and other authorities of the government and institutions of the capital and directors of the Office itself.

"Like Don Quixote, like the illustrious hallucinate that marks the evolution of our history, which has always been the dialogue between Don Quixote and Sancho, between dream and reality, let us move forward", said Leal on one occasion and these words are still valid on this anniversary.

The collective that follows in his footsteps works to restore the splendor of its buildings, enhance its identity and history and extend its socio-cultural work combining its traditional values and contemporary expressions.

Every November 15, the foundation of the ancient village, founded in 1519, baptized in 2016 with the title of Wonder City of the Modern World and declared a World Heritage Site in 1982 by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, is awaited with this act.

This is the Havana of José Martí, Félix Varela, José de la Luz y Caballero and so many other heroes of independence, but it is also the Havana of the ajiaco of African, Spanish, Chinese, Haitian, Italian, German, Polish, Russian culture... "Congratulations to all of them."