heard about Bar Brusi before visiting Barcelona. It’s probably the most famous and archetypal no-frills bar in the city. It’s the ‘Bar El Palentino’ of Barcelona, except ‘Casto’ is a woman and she’s still going strong.
Welcome to La Model Prison, built 117 years ago on the outskirts of Barcelona. The city has expanded around it and Barcelona Sants Station, where the train from Madrid pulls in, is right in front. Inside, however, the prison remains exactly as it was the day inmates were relocated, just four years ago.
The government have just proposed a new bill aiming to abolish all types of sex work in one fell swoop, bringing unions of sex workers to Sol in protest.
Just after sunset on 13 August 2021, with temperatures still topping 35C, the seven delegates of the Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN) stepped onto the monument in Madrid’s Plaza de Colón. They had just completed a historic journey from the jungles of Chiapas in Mexico to the Spanish capital to mark 500 years since the Spanish conquest of the Aztec capital Technoctitlán, now Mexico City. A local crowd, who marched behind the delegates, marked their arrival with thunderous applause.
Eighty-three years ago to the week, in 1938, Franco began bombing Madrid with bread whiter than anyone had seen before. A report in the newspaper Diario de Cadiz published at the time read…
“How come your pincho de tortilla is only €1?” I ask Jorge. “Because it’s from Mercadona! I take it out the packet, cut it in four like this, put it on a plate and display it on the bar.”
Hero-worship is perhaps the oldest religion there is. But worshipers in Madrid may look enviously upon their fellows in London and Paris. The British capital, after all, has Westminster Abbey, where the ashes of Darwin, Dickens, and innumerable dukes and duchesses are mingled.
In February 1937, Franco’s Nationalist army launched a massive attack on Republican lines in the Jarama valley to the southeast of Madrid. Their objective was to cut off the road between Madrid and the Mediterranean port of Valencia, restricting vital supplies of food, fuel and munitions to the besieged capital.
Estefanía is the proud owner of Mil Duquelas, an anti-racist clothing brand for tops and jewellery designed by her, which she set up during lockdown. Here, she tells her own story.
On an April morning in 1887 in Madrid’s Retiro Park, Queen María Cristina declared the Exhibition of Philippines open for business. Over the course of six months, tens of thousands of Spaniards would have the chance to visit one of the farthest corners of the Spanish Empire – and even meet some of its people – without ever having to leave the country.
Located just across the street from Plaza de Nelson Mandela, right in the heart of Lavapiés, sits the clothing store Pantera opened just last month with the mission to help integrate manterxs into the labour market.
In 1749, orders were given by King Fernando VI for “all the gitanos of the kingdom of Spain” to be exterminated as “the final solution” to a population that “wouldn’t conform”. The operation was coined the Gitano Raid and left 12,000 Roma women, men and children dead, thousands of families dispersed and the economy of the Spanish Roma community ruined.
Today, Spain approved a new Ley de memoria histórica (memory bill) to tackle the legacy of Franco. From school education to exhumations, here’s a summary.
With their blacked out windows and monochromatic signs, one of Spain’s most dangerous industries to public health does a good job of hiding in plain sight. As the proliferation of the casas de apuestas, (betting shops/gambling houses), continues, the fight to prevent growing gambling addiction in Madrid’s barrios becomes ever more urgent.
Yesterday morning, police carried out the eviction of Manuela and Jesus, and their four small children (9, 8, 2 and 1) from their Vallecas flat where they had lived for seven years. The family initially occupied the flat because they couldn’t afford to rent anywhere and, despite having two toddlers at the time, were not granted social housing. The flat they chose to occupy belongs to CaixaBank, with which the family tried to negotiate without success.