HAVANA, Cuba, Nov 16 (ACN) The First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party, Miguel Diaz-Canel Bermudez, unveiled on Monday night a statue dedicated to Eusebio Leal, created by sculptors Jose Villa Soberon and Gabriel Cisneros Baez, which was placed at the entrance of the Palacio de los Capitanes Generales (Palace of the Captains General).
On the eve of the 502nd anniversary of the Villa de San Cristobal de La Habana, it seems as if the beloved Historian of the city was walking its streets again, with several books in one hand and greeting everyone, a common and close gesture of the most loyal of the Havana citizens.
That life-size statue is the one “we have dreamed of for Leal, to perpetuate his legacy, so that new generations will have that emblem in bronze,” said Magda Resik, director of Communication of the Historian’s Office, during the modest ceremony.
After uncovering, along with Javier Leal, Eusebio’s son, the white sheet that had covered the sculpture until then, the Head of State went inside the Palace of the Captains Generals – today the City Museum – to unveil a plaque in honor of the Historian.
On this night of tributes to Eusebio and his Havana, the president also went to El Templete, an emblematic place of the city, where on November 16, 1519, the first mass and the first town council of the Villa took place.
Diaz-Canel and his wife Lis Cuesta Peraza, and the highest authorities of the province and the Office of the Historian, made the three laps around the ceiba tree, an ancient tradition, in which people walk counterclockwise and make a wish.
