Wednesday, 28 September 2011 13:11
Columbus Cemetery, Havana, Cuba. Photo by L.Calvo
My father always said that the splendor and magnificence of a cemetery says more about the category and class of a city (and its inhabitants) than any known data or statistics.
I think this paternal theory is confirmed when one visits Havana´s "Necrópolis de Colón" (The Columbus Cemetery), appreciated as the largest cemetery in the Americas, and the third largest, most eye-catching in the world, after Genoa´s Staglieno and Barcelona´s Montjuic.
While walking through its streets and lots, there are many huge, carved rocks —fine Carrara marble and colorful granites— opening to the heavens. For example, there´s the historical sculpture that crowns the facad, which is 34-meters long and 21-meters in height, carved out of the best Italian marble. The mausoleums are also impressive and highly varied in architectural styles and materials. There are columns and domes, windows and arches, but there are also more modest burial structures as well.
The cemetery´s construction began on 30 October, 1871 and was completed on 2 July, 1886; it covers 57 hectares and is the country´s most important cemetery, as it has been a Cuban National Monument since 1987.
Here lie the remains of countless relevant people in all fields of human endeavors, such as Amelia Goire de la Hoz, a Cuban woman of high society who died in 1901, who has since been considered in popular mythology as "La Milagrosa" (The Miracle). Each year, thousands of people flock to her tomb to pray for favors and pay for promises, and her grave is always overflowing with flowers and offerings. There aren´t only Cubans in this cemetery, but also those who died in Havana, such as American soldiers who died the explosion of the Maine, in February 1898.
The Columbus Cemetery is included on several tours for tourists, so that visitors may see first-hand, Havana´s stories that can only be remembered with silence through our dead.
Details:
The Columbus Cemetery
Calzada de Zapata and 12th Street
Vedado.
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