Las Fallas, the Festival of Fire Celebrated in Valencia
Every year the city of Valencia in Spain celebrates the
ancient "Las Fallas" fiesta, a noisy week that is full of fireworks and
processions in honor of Saint Joseph which climaxes in the burning of
large papier mache figures displayed around the streets of the city.
Las
Fallas is celebrated to commemorate St. Joseph's Day, the Patron Saint
of Carpenters. Las Fallas literally means "the fires" in Valencian. The
focus of the fiesta is the creation and destruction of ninots (“puppets”
or “dolls”), which are huge cardboard, wood, paper-machè and plaster
statues. The ninots are extremely lifelike and usually depict bawdy,
satirical scenes and current events. A popular theme is poking fun at
corrupt politicians and Spanish celebrities. The labor intensive ninots,
often costing up to US$75,000, are crafted by neighborhood
organizations and take almost the entire year to construct. Many ninots
are several stories tall and need to be moved into their final location
of over 350 key intersections and parks around the city with the aid of
cranes on the day of la plantà (the rising).
