CubaPLUS Magazine

The beautiful Sancti Spíritus, one of the Cuban heritage cities because it was the fourth town founded by colonizer Diego Velázquez, turns 509 today, full of traditions and always revered by its inhabitants and by Cubans in general.

The story goes that Sancti Spíritus, founded on June 4, 1514, was first established near the Tuinicú River, in the vicinity of the cacicazgo of the aboriginal chief Magón. But six years later, its inhabitants had to move from the place due to the attacks of strange and invasive fire ants, very harmful to the health of children.

Then they ended up in another good area, also providing aboriginal labor for colonization, on the banks of the Yayabo River, where the current enclave of the beautiful city, with more than half a millennium of well-lived existence. Although in Sancti Spíritus some of its old cobblestone streets remain, in the colonial style, and the majestic buildings of the Mayor Parish Church, the Main Theater, the famous Bridge over the Yayabo River (1831) and the seductive Calle del Llano, among other testimonies of the past, modernity continually bursts into its sites, in a very peculiar superposition, very much like today's life.

That is why what could be called the Historic Center of Sancti Spíritus, although with its lasting genuine values, does not have the unequivocal colonial character of the nearby city of Trinidad, with which it shares territory in the province. A world of traditions enriches the spirits. Admirable even today are his pottery works, hand and guano weaving, native dances and the cultivation of the beautiful musical genre of songs or tunes, versifications, and, with very prominent authors in Cuba, the attachment to the traditional romantic song.

The Creole "canchánchara" (mambisa drink based on honey and brandy) is still drunk with relish, they display large agricultural and popular art fairs and they boast of being the creators of the famous guayabera garment, or yayabera, which began being used only by men from the countryside and today people of both genders carry them in elegant versions.