Las Mayas: A spectacularly revived 16th-century festival in Lavapiés
Each year, the barrio of Lavapiés selects a few young girls between ages six and 15 to sit on the makeshift but highly decorated altars surround the popular church of San Lorenzo.
El Horno de Encomienda: three generations of Lavapiés patissiers
"My abuelo opened this place 90 years ago, before the Spanish Civil War. During the war, people used to come here to collect their rations of flour and my abuelo would have to sign their rations cards.
Madrid is experiencing a deadly climate crisis but the council continues to make a series of dangerous moves
In winter 2021, Madrid experienced the worst snowstorm in 300 years and lost around 80,000 trees. A year later, the city council planted 90,620 saplings, but by summer – the city's hottest on record – 77% of them had died. Ecologistas en Acción explained: “They left the saplings abandoned and without watering at the height of summer,” rightly claiming that this mass recklessness could and should have been prevented.
Bar Vietnam: the beating heart of barrio San Cristóbal
It's one of those perfectly no-frills bars where you can get Valdepeñas wine – for ¢80. When I shared these photos on social media, comments came pouring in. The unassuming no-frills bar in Barrio San Cristobal that I'd stumbled across quite by accident turns out to be in the hearts of so many of you. Here's a small selection.
Are landlords just low-key colonialists?
As a long-term renter not out of choice, this is pretty much how I see it. But there are fundamental differences and multiple discriminatory factors at play.
Guide for foreigners: How to register to vote in the Madrid Municipal elections
Madrid's Municipal elections are on Sunday, May 28, 2023. If you're an EU citizen or from the following countries, you have the right to vote!
Bolivia, Cape Verde, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Iceland, Norway, New Zealand, Paraguay, Peru, South Korea, Trinidad and Tobago, and the United Kingdom.
Arson attack on occupied building triggers mass eviction of vulnerable residents
A residential building owned by the state-owned ‘bad bank’ SAREB was deliberately set on fire on Wednesday morning in what is set to become the most violent mass eviction in Spain since the 2008 crisis began.
Never-before-seen photos of Vallekas’ mid-century housing before the entire barrio was razed
"I was not a professional but I managed to take regular photos and, above all, to give them life. I feel happy because if I hadn't been there, these photos wouldn't exist. A story that is not documented or photographed does not exist."
Spain prepares to pass the first menstrual leave law in Europe – but there is still work to be done
In a European first, Spain is to pass a landmark menstrual leave law, mandating that workers suffering from severe period pain will be entitled to an extra five days of sick leave per month.
La tienda no-frills de regalos
Todo lo que pides se imprime en mi imprenta del barrio. Todos los embalajes proceden de mi papelería familiar de Lavapiés. Todos los pedidos se envían por Correos. Y los demás se entregan en persona por mí, Leah!
Madrid’s ‘killer’ tornado of 1886
On Wednesday May 12, 1886, according to several reports at the time, the whole of Spain woke up to strong storms. By 6pm that same day, a tornado touched down in the capital and began a diagonal line of destruction between the then-town of Carabanchel and Madrid’s city-centre Retiro Park.
“In Lavapiés, all of us have the right to be safe”
I’ve been a resident of Lavapiés for almost 10 years. In that time, even though a lot has changed, there have been a lot of constants. Police are everywhere. Gentrification – the systematic loss of the barrio’s traditional bars, shops and markets – is a day-to-day reality here. On most streets, spray-painted bedsheets hang from balconies expressing an array of concerns from noise pollution and touristification to drug dealing and evictions. Large tour groups that snake through our streets and cluster on our squares have long incorporated the stories of our struggles into their voyeuristic spiel.
The demolition of Tetuán’s Neomudéjar heritage
Today, the demolition of this beautiful neomudéjar building in Tetuán will resume and, by the end of the week, the iconic 1925 workers' housing block will be gone forever, despite fierce resistance from the neighbourhood.
The unspoken story of Madrid’s Muslim cemetery
Following a spike in burials during Madrid’s first wave of Covid-19, the Griñón cemetery ran out of space, but instead of finding a new site, “there have been discussions about exhuming bodies that have already been there for 10 years, but not necessarily informing the families,” says Maysoun. “Another option discussed was to demolish the mosque, but [really] we just need more space.” Beyond a lack of space or access to Islamic burials, however, there’s something else that haunts the families of those buried in Griñón – it's where Franco's Moroccan troops are buried.
Spain’s plan for menstrual leave is good, but it can go further
In May this year, the Spanish cabinet approved a menstrual leave law – the first of its kind in Europe. If it passes in the country’s parliament, people suffering from painful periods will from next year be entitled to a minimum of three days of menstrual leave per month, with the possibility of extending this to five days if necessary.