Havana’s historian, Dr. Eusebio Leal Spengler was awarded with the Special Prize of Corporation Habanos S.A. for his commendable work in favor of spreading Cuban culture.
That important award, invested by Inocente Nuñez Blanco, co-president of that entity, consists in a silver trophy in the figure of a medieval gentleman smoking habanos, on a granite platform, created by the Cuban silversmith sculptor Raul Valladares, given every year to different persons who stand out in the world of habanos.
The ceremony took place in the Convention Center of the Cuban capital, during a conference by Leal on Cuban tobacco and its links with national culture.
Despite not being a smoker, Leal said that since his childhood he had indissoluble links with the habano world, as many of his relatives participated in tobacco production.
He also referred to the 500th anniversary of Havana that will be marked next November 16 and its close relation to tobacco, as precisely the name Habano comes from the Cuban capital.
The 21st Habano Festival, to be closed next Friday with the usual Gala dinner and the auction of humidors, has the presence of some two thousand 200 persons of some 70 nations.