Maria Montoya |
Pamplona (EFE).- Historical ties, cultural affinities, the coincidence of the name, war vicissitudes or casual circumstances such as sharing the evangelizing experiences of a saint, are some of the reasons behind the twinning between towns, a dynamic that had its peak especially in the second half of the 20th century.
The twinning between populations located thousands of kilometers away is still an effort of goodwill that arose in the reconstruction of Europe after World War II, with the opening between countries that wanted to move away from such a traumatic experience and exchange cultural, economic and social.
In statements to EFE, Javier Marquínez, who was head of protocol for the Pamplona City Council between 1999 and 2013, explained that, given the political circumstances in Spain, at the beginning these agreements were “historic and open-minded” because they allowed the public to learn about other realities and also receive people who brought other cultures closer.
This is the case of the twinning of Pamplona with Bayonne (France), “a city with which there had been a historical relationship, and which at that time was an escape valve, because crossing the border was a complex thing during the dictatorship,” says Marquínez. , who remembers that later came the brotherhood pacts with Yamaguchi due to his relationship with San Francisco Javier, with Paderborn (Germany) with economic ties, and with Pamplona in Colombia, with the common name and the Baztanese Pedro de Ursúa as a link.
The European Union also financially supported these pacts, so that in 2013 up to 553 Spanish municipalities were listed as twinned with 725 European towns, links to which are added those signed with consistories of the other four continents of the world, according to data from the Spanish Federation of Municipalities and Provinces (FEMP).
For Marquínez, the city councils provide the structure, but “it is civil society that then follows this relationship”, which usually focuses on cultural events, although they have also resulted in some exchanges of commercial and economic contribution. However, many of these relationships have cooled down with social evolution, since today citizens travel much more easily and can communicate by means other than face-to-face contact, he points out.
As many reasons as municipalities
As for the choice of the town with which to twin, the reasons are almost as diverse as the municipalities that sign them, and in some cases they go back centuries, such as the pact between the city of Pamplona and the Japanese city of Yamaguchi, for being this the one chosen by the patron saint of Navarra, San Francisco Javier, for the evangelization of Japan.
Almost 500 years later, Pamplona has a large park with the name of the Japanese town as the most visible gesture of the twinning of both cities in 1980, although in Yamaguchi there are also vestiges of San Fermin, such as a figure of the missionary giant “Savieru”, who, like that the Pamplona comparsa goes out through the streets on holidays.
The relationship of Coria del Río (Seville) is also established with Japan and centuries in between, where the samurai Kasekura Tsunenaga arrived in the 17th century. To this day, every August the Toro Nagashi ceremony takes place on the banks of the Guadalquivir, in the only place outside of Japan where it is celebrated.
War also unites
But not always the reasons for the rapprochement between two locations are pleasant memories. The bombing of Gernika in 1937 marked the twinning that this Biscayan town maintains, which has become a symbol of peace. In 2022, it signed a friendship agreement with the Ukrainian city of Irpin, also devastated by the Russian invasion, and it maintains agreements with the German city of Pforzheim, bombed in April 1945.
And just as these war experiences unite, others separate. This is the case of the twinning of Barcelona with Saint Petersburg, temporarily suspended after the invasion of Ukraine by Russia. Also, two months ago the mayoress of Barcelona decreed the suspension of the contract with Tel Aviv due to its discrepancy with the treatment of the Palestinian people, a controversy to which the mayor of Madrid responded by offering the twinning of both capitals.
In this context, three years earlier the twinning of the Jewish town of Kfar Vradim with the Burgos town of Castrillo Mota de Judíos was signed, which in 2015 changed its previous name -Castrillo Matajudíos- to thus become a symbol of the fight against anti-Semitism .
And for the memory of the residents of Celadas (Teruel) remains the park built with wood from the Russian forests of Vinogradovo, the result of a twinning that was born in 1991 during the process of dismemberment of the USSR due to the interest of the Soviets in knowing the practices agricultural.
Lorca (Murcia) is twinned with the French town of Adissan because more than half of its inhabitants are Lorca or descendants, given the large number of residents of Lorca who have emigrated to the Occitan town since 1920 to work in the grape harvest.
Cooperation projects are another of the fruits of these twinning letters, of great value in cases such as Logroño with the Saharawi settlement of Hagunia, located in the Tindouf desert (Algeria), from where Saharawi children travel to spend the summer with families logroñesas
historical ties
Historical ties take precedence over motivations, such as those of Avilés and San Agustín de la Florida, founded in 1565 by the explorer Pedro Menéndez from Aviles, who is remembered there every year in an act that recreates the founding times.
In Extremadura, in addition to the numerous twinning agreements with Latin American countries due to their historical ties with expeditionaries and conquerors, the one signed between Cáceres and Lumbini, the capital of Nepal, stands out, which reinforces the project of a large Buddhist complex in the capital of Cáceres that will be presided over by a statue of Buddha more than 50 meters high.
Among the dozen cities twinned with Toledo, the Greek Keraklion stands out, where El Greco was born in 1541. The painter lived in Toledo for more than half of his life and created a link between the two cities that has remained.
A character with a common past in both towns was also the initial reason for the twinning between Ceuta and the Sicilian city of Acicatena (Italy), both ruled by Luis II Riggio Branciforte in the 18th century.
And sport, which is so often divided in rivalry, is at the origin of the twinning between Oviedo and the Mexican municipality of Pachuca de Soto, given that their two soccer teams are managed by the same business group.
In addition, recurring are the twinnings for sharing the name of the city, as is the case with Pamplona and its Colombian namesake, the Spanish and Venezuelan Valencias, the Cantabrian Laredo with that of Texas (United States) and Mexico (Nuevo Laredo in this case), Logroño with Argentina’s Todos los Santos from Nueva Rioja, Muskiz from Biscay and Múzquiz from Mexico, or Toledo with Toledo from Ohio (United States).