Three years of pause due to the covid pandemic have not subtracted faithful to the 'Burial of Genarín' in the streets of old León. This massive pagan celebration, celebrated with a march through the streets at dawn this Friday, is the most massive and also most controversial act of Holy Week in Leon.
The figures in this parade are the protagonists of the story, which, as if it were a religious procession, have their own sizes to...
This year's procession has changed the traditional route and although it has started from Puerta Moneda instead of Plaza del Grano and has not ended in front of the Wall of León, right in the same place where Genarín was run over, but before the steps of the Provincial Archive.
This year the good weather has accompanied the procession and it was with great difficulty that the steps could circulate through the old town amid the noise of the drums and the smoke from the torches.
The night passed without significant incidents and, as always, it was possible to make the traditional offering in the third cube of the wall. Bread, cheese, an orange and pomace accompany the laurel wreath that the "climbing brother" places on top of the Roman wall between slogans and toasts in honor of this skinner who became a saint by the brotherhood of Nuestro Padre Genarín, who maintains I live the myth.
The parade, organized by the Brotherhood of Nuestro Padre Genarín, has its beginnings in 1930 when a group of friends got together to relive the experiences and places of the run over skin.
The procession was made up, with some occasional additions, of four men: Pérez Herrero, mechanic-dentist and poet of some fame; Luis Rico, aristocrat and bohemian; Nicolás Pérez 'Porreto', soccer referee, and Eulogio, taxi driver by profession and copler by devotion. With time and tradition they were known as the four 'evangelists' of the Brotherhood of Nuestro Padre Genarín.
The tradition is perpetuated today with the meal between the brothers, based on cod, garlic soups and an orange for dessert.
Subsequently and in the first blows of the pomace, the 'baptism' is carried out with brandy from the new brothers. After the twinning that always favors the good pomace and before midnight the brothers go to the Plaza del Conde Luna where the procession begins the tour.
