Public Project
Raianos
RAIANOS In Lageosa da Raia, a village in Portugal near the border with Spain, the locals said that, during the Portuguese dictatorship, the local economy was based primarily on three pillars: subsistence farming, cattle breeding and smuggling. Contraband was driven by the scarcity of certain products, non-existent in Portugal during the dictatorship, and the need for extra cash, essential for the survival of an impoverished population, living in an imposed misery by the Portuguese dictatorship ruled by António de Oliveira Salazar. With the end of smuggling, after the Carnation Revolution, in 1974, many had to emigrate. According to the 2001 Census, the county of Sabugal, district of Guarda, in Portugal, lost since the '60s, about 60% of its population. It is one of the regions in the country that most felt the fugue to the cities and the effects of emigration, mainly to France. Currently, the county of Sabugal has about 14.800 inhabitants, and each summer receives about 30.000 emigrants. Intriguing, or maybe not, is the sense of belonging of second-generation migrants - mainly living in the suburbs of Paris - to the Portuguese popular culture and the need for continuity of the old traditions. That's the reason why the local summer festivities in their parent's village are made by the younger people. The communities begin to simmer from the first days of August, with the summer holidays, when the migrants return to Portugal, to their homeland. Year after year, the feet that tread the streets of the villages spread new energy. It is a game where the action is lived in popular festivities - organized and financed mainly by the population - religious rituals, weddings, family lunches, or bullfighting festivals. The aim is to live it up in the days of vacation and create new stories to be remembered. In the end, there is only the certainty that in the next year, there will be more. |
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