Valencia’s Fallas Festival wrapped up with fireworks and the burning of colorful sculptures after returning to the eastern Spanish city following a pandemic-induced hiatus.
The five-day festival is traditionally held in March but was cancelled last year as the COVID-19 pandemic swept Spain. It was the first time that the festival was suspended since the end of Spain’s civil war (1936-1939).
Each year, residents make hundreds of colorful puppet-like sculptures – some as big as four-storey buildings – out of wood, plaster and papier-mâché for the festival inscribed on the UNESCO Representative List of Intangible Cultural Heritage. Called “ninots”, the sculptures depict fairytale characters and cartoonish effigies of politicians and celebrities. The Fallas Festival is believed to have originated from pagan rituals marking the end of winter.
One ensemble from this year’s event was inspired by the hit Spanish Netflix series “Money Heist”. It depicted several people wearing red overalls and Salvador Dali face masks like the main characters in the show.
The ninots are displayed in the streets of the Mediterranean city and then burned on the last day of the festival – in a bonfire called the “Cremà” – in a centuries-old tradition honoring St. Joseph, the patron saint of carpenters.
Fireworks lit up the night sky as this year’s bonfire, which features about 750 sculptures, was held without the thousands of spectators that the event usually draws.
The bonfire was brought forward by two hours to allow festivities to end before a nightly virus curfew came into effect at 1 am. After much debate, a customary flower offering to the Virgin Mary was allowed to proceed – but without people lining the route.
