Preserve in Camagüey the universal and exceptional values of its historical center

By: Yolanda Ferrera Sosa/Radio Chain Agramonte

Hands and hearts of the current people from Camagüey, are deposited loving in a made that honors it:: to preserve the universal and exceptional values of the oldest center in a district that makes of it antiquity a cult to the useful and perishable: Camagüey.

Already near to it 495 years - it will arrive on February 2 -it receives with satisfaction the indispensable retouch that suggest the date and the salutation day foreseen for the first week of that month, well denominated of the Culture.

The historical center of the town of Camagüey, is main character - for own right - of the patrimonial wealth of the formerly village of Santa María del Puerto del Príncipe, declared National Monument November 10, 1980.

For many years, the legacy of almost half millennium of its foundation, kept zealously, is preserved by means of a wide selection of actions, contained in the Plan Teacher and of Handling, with restoring projects, remodelators and of integral recovery in the places where the logical step of the time has left its prints.

The aspiration of incorporating to a plethoric segment of so much patrimonial content, in the listing of the UNESCO, like Center Historical Urban Cultural Patrimony of the Humanity, is a reality.

This concentrates on the oldest urban nucleus that includes the places from which the amplification of the village was irradiated. They are 54 hectares, that is to say, 16 percent of the total of the historical center. There eight thousand 180 citizens reside in two thousand 843 properties. They are 13 little squares, seven squares and six churches.

This beautiful pierce is known as city of the XVIII century. It not only store public and religious buildings, or the vetustas large houses, but also an individual and collective way to be and of being projected sui géneris in the national context. They are the elements that grant to the district that sense of identity and of specific authenticity of the worthy excepcionality of it condition like Cultural Patrimony of the Humanity.

The enumeration of its physical attributes goes by the irregularity of the streets, generating of a wide system of squares and of little squares, only of its type in Cuba and in the Continent; the abundance and quality of the religious buildings; the harmony and integration among their diverse architectural styles; the proliferation of the mud like material used in the elaboration of bricks, tiles, floors, earthenjars and works of art; the vegetation in the beautiful yards of homes and urban spaces… and - also - the love for the traditions that feed a full past of legends, festivities, personalities, facts, events… ways of taking the existence of those who live proud of their ancestors, of the forge achieved during almost half millennium and definitory of the imaginary of the city.

That`s why the hearts and hands villagers incorporate to the mission of preparing it appropriately, so that it welcomes its 495 years not only decked out with shave physical but also with the fondness of today's people from Camagüey that continue making history.