Havana’s Columbus cemetery is a must-see Cuba highlight

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Once again, I’m posting from Havana, this time after leading a group visit to one of my favorite must-see destinations in Cuba’s capital—namely, Necrópolis Cristóbal Colón, or Columbus Cemetery.

This truly is one of the world’s most astounding necropolises.

Covering 56 hectares (140 acres) in the Vedado district of Havana, this “exercise in pious excesses” contains more than 800,000 graves plus more than one million internments, including some 500-plus major mausoleums, chapels, vaults and tombs embellished with flamboyant ornamentation.

It was laid out between 1871 and 1876 in 16 rectangular blocks, like a Roman military camp. The designer, a Spaniard named Calixto de Loira (he died on September 29, 1876, and ironically was the first person buried in the cemetery), divided the cemetery by social status, with separate areas for non-Catholics and for victims of epidemics.

It was originally open to nobles, who competed to build the most elaborate tombs, with social standing dictating the size and location of plots. The cemetery is a petrified version of society of the times, combings, says the Guía Turística (available at the entrance gate office), a “grandeur and meanness, good taste and triviality… and even an unusual black humor, as in the gravestone carved as a double-three, devoted to an emotional elderly lady who died with that domino in her hand, thus losing both game and life at a time.”

The doble tres was that of Juana Martín, a domino fanatic who indeed died as described.

Famous criollo (Cuban-born) patricians, former presidents, and colonial aristocrats, such as Máximo Gómez (the commander of Cuba’s independence forces), are buried here alongside noted intellectuals and politicians. The list goes on and on: José Raúl Capablanca, the world chess champion 1921-27 (his tomb is guarded by a marble queen chess piece); Alejo Carpentier, Cuba’s most revered contemporary novelist; Hubert de Blanck, the noted composer; Celía Sánchez plus Haydee Santamaría, and a plethora of other revolutionaries killed for the cause, and even some of the Revolution’s enemies.

You’ll even find Greco-Roman temples in miniature; an Egyptian pyramid; medieval castles, plus Baroque, Romantic, Renaissance, Art Deco, and Art Nouveau mausoleums by a pantheon of Cuba’s leading sculptors and artists.

Many monuments belong to such communities as the Abakuá secret society, the Asturians, and the Galicians, and to groups such as film stars. The cemetery also boasts two monuments to players from the Cuban League, including one for members of Cuba’s Baseball Hall of Fame, as befits baseball as Cuba’s leading sport.

The triple-arched entrance gate, inspired by the Triumphal Arch in Rome, has marble reliefs depicting Lazarus rising from the grave and is topped by a marble coronation stone representing the theological virtues: Faith, Hope, and Charity. From here, Avenida Cristóbal Colón, the main avenue leads south to an ocher-colored, octagonal neo-Byzantine church, the Capilla Central, containing a fresco of the Last Judgement.

The most important mausoleums line Avenida Cristóbal Colón.
Hire a licensed, English-speaking guide at the office by the entrance gate. He or she will enliven your experience considerably, plus provide a more complete appreciation of the cemetery’s two main tombs:

• The Firefighters Monument—a remarkable 75-foot-tall (23 m) sculpture in Carrara marble dedicated to the Cuban firefighters who lost their lives in an explosive fire on May 17, 1890
• La Milagrosa—a flower-bedecked tomb of Amelia Goryi de Hoz, revered as the ‘Miraculous One’ and at whose grave scores of Cubans daily arrive to beseech a favor by knocking three times on the tombstone before touching the tomb, and walking around the mausoleum backwards.

Now that you’re ready to travel to Cuba, buy Moon Cuba, which includes further details, plus a map, of the cemetery.

For further information on Havana, buy Moon Spotlight Havana.

Learn more about Christopher P. Baker.

Disclosure: I occasionally accept free or discounted travel when it coincides with my editorial goals. However, my opinion is never for sale. The opinions you see in Cuba & Costa Rica Journal are my unbiased reflection of the good, the bad, and the ugly

Copyright © Christopher P. Baker