The most important non-religious social event in the Region during Holy Week turns 25. Until Saturday night, the silver anniversary of the La Unión Minerals and Fossils Fair will be celebrated, which due to the pandemic suspended the 2020 and 2021 editions. On the occasion of this event, the organizing committee will hold a series of activities “of a special nature”, explained its president, Carlos Bernabé, also head of the Association of Entrepreneurs of La Unión.
Undoubtedly, the one that caused the most sensation this Thursday, during the opening of the exhibition, was the life-size display, measuring 16 meters long by 7 meters high, of a Tyrannosaurus rex, the most feared dinosaur on Earth. history, an insatiable predator, protagonist on many occasions in widely remembered films, such as Jurassic Park.
Regarding the minerals that are new this year, the main attractions of the fair are calcites and galenas from the Sierra de Cartagena – La Unión, opals from Ethiopia and Australia, and vivianites from Brazil, explained the technical director Eliecer. Perez. In the section dedicated to fossils, new pieces of ammonites are exhibited, marine animals from millions of years ago that prospered in the Paleozoic and Mesozoic eras -from the squid and octopus family- and trilobites, ancestors of crustaceans.
Likewise, the fair has a prehistoric crafts workshop, in which a stone carver makes tools such as axes, knives, bows and arrows, with techniques and materials typical of both the Paleolithic and Neolithic. This year, the act of Homage to the Miner fell to the mining expert Santiago Guillén, one of the few extractive work professionals still alive in La Unión. The estimated attendance during these days will be between 12,000 and 15,000 people.
At the inauguration, the mayor, Pedro López Milán, highlighted the value of a “tourist attraction” that the fair has throughout the Levant. This was the case from the beginning, because since 1997 with the name of “I Seminario de La Sierra Minera”, at the initiative of the Association of Entrepreneurs for Progress of La Unión, they wanted to offer the general public a sample of the historical, mining heritage and industrial area of the Sierra Cartagena-La Unión. The mayor handed out plaques of recognition to the seven founders and to the Association of Entrepreneurs.
In 1998 it changed to the name of ‘Fair’, being celebrated as ‘II Fair of Minerals and Fossils of La Unión’. The dates of the same were varying in its beginnings until finding, already in its III edition, an ideal place in the calendar, coinciding with Thursday, Friday and Holy Saturday, dates in which tourism increases remarkably. By then it already had 17 exhibitors and 47 meters of table. Currently, 39 exhibitors from all over Spain participate, also counting in this edition with one from Colombia, and 165 linear meters of sample. The place of celebration is the building of the Old Public Market of La Unión, from 10:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. and from 5:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. Admission is free.
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