Ciutadella prepares for the safest Sant Joan
The Vigil of the Lamb opens this Saturday evening the big party that welcomes summer and that this year will be marked by an already exemplary operation in the Balearics, a parade with more horses and a more massive first touch than in the last two years
CiutadellaIn Ciutadella, this year there has been no controversy about Sant Joan. Not even the public defense by the Councilor of Festivities, Esther Mascaró, in favor of female participation in the procession has caused a stir. The debate opened by the unexpected court ruling that forces the City Council to reverse the pedestrianization of the Plaça del Born has overshadowed everything.
With the conflict unresolved and the courts awaiting compliance with their mandate, from this weekend onwards there is no longer any topic of conversation in the city other than the festival that is about to explode. To the delight of the between 120,000 and 150,000 people who, according to local police estimates, will gather in Ciutadella these days, Menorca's most populous municipality with 32,431 registered inhabitants and 40,000 tourist beds, almost half of all those on the island.
The “festival for everyone”, as the City Council proclaims in an until now unsuccessful attempt to get the Government to pay part of the more than one million euros that its organization costs, will bring together at least 30,000 people from Mallorca and Catalonia. A trickle of visitors that is already noticeable at the port and has led to the re-release of the campaign ‘Sant Joan is lived like this’, with which it is attempted to increase awareness and respect for the festival that many adolescents discover as a reward for their success in the school year that has just ended.
To reinforce the message and prevention, tutor police officers have given talks in high schools outside Menorca and the Local Police has complemented this, in Ciutadella itself, with a series of videos on social media, where the protagonists of the festival, from the piper to the head cashier, ask for respect from residents and visitors. Especially at the time of the first drum and pipe call and the Jocs del Pla, where it is essential for everyone to cooperate in leaving space and respecting the corridor opened by the volunteers
It has been 11 years since the last fatal accident that Sant Joan has been governed by a strict safety plan and capacities that limit attendance to only 27,600 people at the Caragol del Born and 25,261 at the Jocs del Pla, but this year the operation will break all records. Police reinforcements from outside and the expansion of private security and extra-hospital assistance contracts will simultaneously mobilize on the eve of Sant Joan, the moment of greatest potential risk of the festival with 136 knights in the procession, up to 450 security personnel.
The Sant Joan security operation, drawing on its own experience and its connection with other major festivals across the State such as Pamplona's San Fermín, already serves as a model and benchmark in the Balearic Islands. This year, for example, Ciutadella has provided specific training to local police officers from Mallorca in order to import its methods to other festivals, such as Pollença's Patrona and Sóller's Firó.
With thermometers already above 30 degrees and the characteristic Sant Joan heat of the summer solstice warming Ciutadella, the city is counting down the hours to the first toll. Since 1990, it has been the flabioler Sebastià Salort who, this year, will lead a procession marked by 30 years. These are the years of the young caixer senyor, Ignasi Saura Sánchez, nephew and grandson of caixers senyors, and the years since the peasant caixer from the north, Cristòfol Moll, and the owner of Son Caravinya, José Capó, first appeared in the procession. José Capó, who this year will start the festival on foot, surrounded by wool and with a lamb weighing about 35 kilos on his back.
The lamb born – and washed seven days ago – at the Son Usina estate will be the first protagonist of the festival. It has been chosen by the owner of the farm and, at the same time, the peasant caixer of Migjorn for the biennium, Miquel Torres, and will be adorned as befits it by his family.
Between 9 in the morning and 10 at night, the Lamb Procession will make 89 visits on Sunday to public spaces and private homes of farmers and caixers linked to the festival. The flabioler Sebastià Salort – 61 years old, 33 of which he has spent on the donkey – will also stop in front of two houses to sound the toll of mourning for the death of people connected to the Sant Joan environment.
The following day, Monday, the prelude to the start of the procession will be experienced around fire and the 13 festival organizers and four street parties authorized by the City Council in various parts of the city. Amidst music, street concerts, popular dances, batucada and a lot of excitement, the city will entertain the wait for the most anticipated explosion, sustained for 365 days: the first beat of the drum and flabiol, which will sound this year in the Olivar palace opposite the church, looking at the facade of the Cathedral, right in the square.
Tuesday, at two in the afternoon, Ciutadella will experience its particular new year. The flabioler will forge an impossible path through the crowd, climb the palace stairs, and ask permission from the young noble of the Saura family to begin the procession. The first dry, trembling sound of the drum and the fife will bring tears of emotion and unleash joy, which the procession will magically spread for nearly 40 hours throughout all corners of the city. The heart of Sant Joan will beat strongly again in Ciutadella...
