Tsalqtubo
December, 2024
Developed in the 1920s, it flourished by the 1980s, with 19 sanatoriums, 9 bathhouses, and a large park The resort was frequented by many prominent historical figures and there was even was a bathhouse built especially for Joseph Stalin. Following the Soviet Union's collapse in 1990, the town was abandoned and the once-grand typical structures were left empty to deteriorate and decay. When war broke out in the nearby Abkhazia region in 1992, an estimated 200,000 ethnic Georgians fled from the conflict, and some 8,000 refugees were given temporary shelter in Tskaltubo’s abandoned sanatoriums. In the present day families are still living in the
Baquedano
October, 2023
The charming railway station of Baquedano, located in the heart of the Atacama Desert, was built to transport nitrate from the mines to the ports for export. Today, the station building has been converted into a museum that showcases the history of the railway lines built to improve the conditions of exploitation and export of nitrate. The museum is home to abandoned locomotives, rusty engines, and wooden houses that offer a glimpse into the past.
Animitas
July, 2023
Animitas are a phenomenon of aesthetic and religious character. As an aesthetic phenomenon, they have been placed within the currents that distinguish popular art; as a religious phenomenon, they are conceived as part of popular religiosity. They have certain formal characteristics and devotional keys that are transmitted from generation to generation. Animitas are small shrines that are built on the roadside or in other public places to commemorate the dead, especially those who died in tragic or unexpected circumstances. The name comes from the Spanish word for "little souls" and reflects the belief that the deceased can intercede for the living if they are honored and venerated. Animitas are part of the popular religiosity of Chile and other Latin American countries, and they often display objects, images, candles, flowers and messages related to the person who died. Animitas are erected as a memory of those who were early taken from life, constituting a testimony of faith in a life that transcends death.
Serenata Queima das Fitas 2023
May, 2023
Coimbra's Queima das Fitas Serenata 2023
Ousilhão Shrovetide
April, 2023
Janeiras
January, 2023
As Janeiras (singing the Janeiras) is a Portuguese tradition where groups of people go singing by the srteets announcing the birth of Jesus, wishing a happy new year. These groups go door-to-door, asking residents for Christmas leftovers. Nowadays, these 'leftovers' are often given in money. It takes place in January, starting on the 1st and extending until Three kings Days, and can also be prolonged through the whole month in some places. In Freixo, Rancho Folclórico Os Camponeses do Freixo dressed up accordingly and kept the tradition.
Latada 2022
October, 2022
After two years, Desfile da Latada (freshman's parade) is back on the streets of Coimbra.
Lazarim Shrovetide
March, 2022
Lazarim's Shrovetide is considered one of Portugal's most traditional and genuine. Its festivities have such an ancient history that few dare to guess their origins. Demons, grotesque figures with zoomorphic physiognomies or witches, preferably with pointed horns and unpainted are the typical masks of the Shrovetide in Lazarim. Alder wood masks sculpted by artisans who symbolically record their imagination and cultural universe on their masks. There is no mask like the other. If the mask is the pulse of the earth, caretos are its personification. Men and women wear the masks as well as suits made of straw, corn husks, dry leaves, old rags and rattles. Devils on the loose that boldly rattle those who walk the streets.
Draught
March, 2022
Portugal in extreme drought. The Aguieira reservoir, despite the extreme drought that is taking place in the country and although with abnormally low levels for the season, still appears to have some water reserves with a quota 118m (maximum level: 126m; minimum level of exploitation: 110m).
Sporting C P National Champion 2020-21
May, 2021
After 19 years, Sporting Clube de Portugal became National Champion 2020-21 and took thousands of supporters to Coimbra's main square.
Presidential Early Voting
January, 2021
The early voting on mobility for the next presidential election on January 24th was the choice of many voters, which created unprecedented and unusual queues for an unofficial voting day. In Gaia, at Almeida Garrett secondary school, it was no exception.
County Football During Pandemic
September, 2020
With the pandemic came the banning of audiences in several shows including football. If at a professional level the lack of audience at football stadiums has already negative effects both for the game and for the teams, at amateur level these effects are greatly expanded. The lack of revenue and the absence of supporters vibrating in the stands with local players can become an unbearable effort and lead many county teams to have to temporarily hang up their boots.
Miradouro Train
August, 2020
The MiraDouro train runs all year between Porto São Bento and Régua and Pocinho. On a ride along the Douro River, you can take advantage of the panoramic windows of vintage carriages and enjoy the landscape classified by UNESCO as World Heritage. A train ride with your head sticking out of the window.
F C Porto Football National Champion 2019-2020
July, 2020
F. C. Porto became National Champion 2019-20 and took thousands of supporters to the Avenida do Aliados. This year, in addition to the usual flags and scarves, fireworks and petards, there were also masks to remember that we are still living pandemic times.
Black Lives Matter
June, 2020
Black Lives Matter and anti-racism manisfestation in Coimbra on the 6th of June.
Caretos Podence
February, 2020
Caretos de Podence, originally from the village of Podence, were declared an intangible cultural heritage of humanity by UNESCO on 12 December. Inserted in the winter festivities, so characteristic in the region of Trás-os-Montes and Alto Douro, Caretos de Podence represent diabolical and mysterious images that every year, from times long gone, go out on the streets in carnival festivities. Interrupting the long silences of each winter, as if leaving secret and unpredictable from the corners of Podence, they appear hissing the «Caretos» and their frantic rattles well crossed in the colorful fringes of thick blankets. The youngest boys who follow and imitate the faces are called Facanitos, and they ensure the continuity of the tradition trying to imitate them with their stupid and inconsequential runs
School During Pandemic
May, 2020
For almost two months this was the normal day-to-day of schools. Concomitantly, the classrooms have been permanently transfigured into class breaks and common spaces now have endless hours of classes. The commotion of corridors and atriums replaced by the silence of the absence of those who should have been, shouts with uncertainty. The future suspended in this flowerless Autumn garden.
Hygene Training
May, 2020
Within the scope of the operation to prepare for the reopening of schools and the return to face-to-face education, which took place today, the Army (through RI 14) promoted last Friday at the Mortágua Schools Grouping an awareness and demonstration action on school cleaning, sanitizing and disinfecting during COVID-19 pandemic times. Thirty-nine operational assistants from the Secondary School, EB23 and from EBM Pre-School Education were present.
Covid-19 Testing
May, 2020
The third phase of Covid-19 screening tests took yesterday place in the municipality of Mortágua, a program promoted by the municipality of Mortágua in partnership with the Intermunicipal Community of Coimbra Region, the University of Coimbra and the Polytechnic Institute of Coimbra, with the testing being carried out by the latter entity. The screening took place in the Volunteering Firefighter's facilities and, complying with the safety protocols, covered elements of the Santa Casa da Misericórdia de Mortágua and the Balmar Centre, the social support institutions of the municipality (nursing homes) and the GNR, which are entities involved in emergency management for Covid-19.
City Nightwalk
May, 2020
The tapes block the leisure spaces, the houses look different with the new lit windows that seem to have appeared, and the noise that was once heard in the gathering spaces was replaced by the electric crackle of the street lamps, which illuminate the deserted sidewalks in perfect circumferences for those who didn't decide to go. The roles were reversed, and those who pass and disturb the silence of the night in the city can hear life happening inside the walls. The unprecedented calm at every turn of the corner invites us inside and, unlike the cats that in their nocturnal inconspicuousness remain all gray, the silhouettes of those who wander are now noticed as a note barely played in a careful composition.
Village Nightwalk
March, 2020
Away from the big centres, there where time awaits, quarantine has also arrived. Or it seems as if it has never left: whoever left the house today at the beginning of the night would find the same emptiness of the streets, the same silence of those who speak softly, and the same shadows of the stray cats that hide from those who don't pass. For good and for bad, life happens slowly and without the rush of those who have nowhere to be. . It is to say that the village is deserted and nobody wrote your name, nor anything else, anywhere.
Revisitings
May, 2020
After the State of Emergency period ending, life begins to return to normal. Certain establishments and certain places start to reopen and people start to visit them again. The same is true with cemeteries, which the pandemic temporarily closed but are now living with people again. The irony that even in life people were deprived of visiting those who are no longer is again extinguished with each flower placed in the arrangements.
Nazaré Tow Surfing Challenge 2020
February, 2020
Nazaré held again the Tow Surfing Challenge - World Surf League - where the biggest waves in the world were surfed. by the best tow surfers in the world.
Life of Others
February, 2021
The new confinement forced us again to have to stay at home. Social need, however, compels us to look outside the four walls and thus build our view of the world from the window - that of some wider and more diverse than that of others. Involuntarily and unusually we become voyeurs of the lives of others while, and without knowing it, we are also the target of distant voyeurism. We now know, from the restless and thoughtful cigarette that he usually comes to smoke at the window after dinner, that the pandemic is being stepmother to the neighbor in front, and that the cat next door comes every morning to sunbathe unconcernedly. And we are also happy when we see that the child with a terrace on the ground floor, although still far away, is each day and with each shot getting closer to realizing his dream of being a football player. Conversely, the each small details and idiosyncrasies give meaning to the passing of hours as if we came into existence only when and while observed. We meddle in such a way that, from our parapet, the lives of others become, more than also, ours and we take their repeated daily steps as ours. I don't know any of my neighbors from the front or from the side. Had I known them and I wouldn't know who they are.
Porta Solidária
November, 2019
Situated in the well-known Igreja do Marquês, since 2009 that Porta Solidária - Centro Social da Paróquia Senhora da Conceição - feeds people and families most needy. The number of meals has been increasing and if in 2009 there were about 40 daily users, by the end of this year this number reached more than 250. The role of Porta Solidária thus passes through providing daily food aid for the needy and homeless in the city from Monday to Friday. And this whole project is only made possible and successful through the initiative and work of volunteers and institutions that cooperate with Porta Solidária. Because never all doors close, and whenever one closes there is another one that opens.
November 1st
November, 2019
Every year on November 1st thousands of people come to the cemeteries to remember and pay tribute to their own. After cleaning the cold faces of the marbled graves and the jars adorned with season flowers and plants, the lit candles and prayers complete the ritual of remembrance and deference. The bleak and nostalgic countenance of those who revive is revealed in the silence and stillness of those who are revived. In the solemnity of those who are no longer, the wings and alleyways earn ephemerally another life.
Afurada
September, 2019
Life doesn't rush in here.
Pilgrimage
April, 2019
Ever year a group of pilgrims from Mortágua take the road to Fátima on a three days and 150km journey to celebrate the first apparition of the Virgin Mary.
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