Thoughts from Galicia, Spain: 6.9.18

Spanish life is not always likeable but it is compellingly loveable.

- Christopher Howse: A Pilgrim in Spain. 

If you've arrived here because of an interest in Galicia or Pontevedra, see my web page here. Garish but informative.

I can't do my usual Thursday-morning plundering of Business Over Tapas today, as poor Lenox Napier is laid up after shattering his ankle in a fall. Which sounds horrible. I'm sure everyone joins me in sending him best wishes for a speedy recovery and a return to his computer.

Matters Spanish

• It seems that this year's increase in road deaths wasn't confined to Galicia. I have no idea why this has suddenly happened, after many years of admirable annual reductions.
• More fotos – or perhaps just better ones – of the aftermath of the collapse in construction in 2008.
• A comment from a UK newspaper about the Sabadell/TSB IT fiasco: The problems started because TSB’s parent Sabadell wanted to migrate the bank from the legacy platform rented from its former owner, Lloyds, and that it was handled by Sabadell’s IT arm. Despite three years of planning, it went horribly wrong. You can say that again. But, thanks to inertia, only around 20,000 UK customers, out of more than 2 million, have emigrated to other banks. Astonishing.
• Here's the link to The Local list I cited yesterday. I've just discovered it was faulty. Which is strange, as I check them all.

Matters Galician and Pontevedran

• Don't just take my word for it. Here's the Voz de Galicia trumpeting that the entire summer was dedicated to fiestas. A sinfin de fiestas, if you like. As if the message was: Hey, the Crisis is finally over. Now, let's party like there's no tomorrow. Onwards and downwards, to the traditional Spanish Oktoberfest next month. . . 

• Galicia is reported to be suffering from a shortage of doctors. Possibly because they can retire at 55 and are compelled to do so at 65. One chap recently went on hunger strike against the latter but has now been persuaded by colleagues to give up this before he gives up the ghost.
• I was surprised to see this plaque when walking near our Alameda yesterday. For 2 reasons: 1. I hadn't noticed it since its installation at the end of 2016, and 2. It makes a direct reference to those imprisoned, tortured and sentenced by the fascists in 2 nearby buildings. Unusually explicit still. But we do have a left wing council, of course. In a region that was very much Francoist.

• Up in the mountains on the border between Spain and Portugal - see here - there's a region called Couto Mixto(Coto Misto). For 800 years this was 'The Andorra of Galicia'. And a smuggler's paradise. This is because it belonged to neither Spain nor Portugal. From which situation – of course – it took maximum advantage, until 1864, when the zone was formally split between Spain and Portugal. Below is a long extract on the place from the book Fariña (with machine translation), and here's the Spanish Wiki link. Of course, it would be a calumny to suggest that the locals still indulge in any form of smuggling.
• By the way . . . There are said to be German communities up in them there hills . . .

Finally . . .

• Here's a more global comment from the article cited above on the TSB IT calvario, with a worrying final warning: There are already lessons that can be learnt from TSB’s sorry tale. Don’t over-promise, but don’t over-dramatise, either. Double and triple-check everything, particularly when it comes to IT. And cross your fingers and pray. Because you can never be 100% sure that you won’t be next. No IT manager can guarantee that a system will survive an innovative new hack, or a password being stolen by a disgruntled employee, or a badly pasted bit of code. Perhaps the most alarming lesson is that as companies grow ever more complex, chief executives are less able to influence events – particularly when it comes to IT. Any company is now utterly dependent on technology to keep its data and customer information safe and as the power and capability of that technology grows, so do the risks. But they can’t stand still: IT migrations are a fact of life and there will be “another TSB” coming down the track.

© [David] Colin Davies, Pontevedra: 5.9.18ARTICLE

COUTO MIXTO

La frontera hispano-lusa adquiere en Ourense perfiles di­fusos. Esto se debe al estrecho vínculo cultural y lingüístico entre ambas partes y a la propia indefinición topográfica de la línea fronteriza. Hasta entrado el siglo XIX, hubo aldeas remotas entre Verín y Chaves cuyos vecinos ignoraban a qué país pertenecían. Tampoco les interesaba demasiado. El caso más extremo de esta situación apátrida se dio en una zona llamada el Couto Mixto. 

Santiago, Meaus y Rubiás eran las tres aldeas que for­maban el Couto Mixto, un triángulo de unos 27 kilómetros cuadrados perdido entre montes y pegado a la frontera por­tuguesa. Esta área semiabandonada fue declarada «coto de homiciados» en la Edad Media. Este era el estatus que recibía algunas zonas fronterizas o arrasadas por la peste o la guerra para ser repobladas a la fuerza con presos liberados. Unas 

1000 personas se instalaron en el Couto Mixto en el siglo XI, y con el paso de los años se conformó como un territorio autónomo. Ni el Condado de Portugal ni el Reino de Galicia querían para sí aquel pedazo de tierra, de modo que sus ha­bitantes construyeron una suerte de limbo territorial. 

Cuando Galicia se unió al Reino de León y después al de Castilla, la peculiar indefinición del Couto Mixto se afianzó. A partir del siglo XIII, ante la pasividad de las dos Coronas, los habitantes de esta comarca empezaron a funcionar como súbditos independientes: elegían a sus mandatarios, no pagaban impuestos a ninguno de los dos reinos ni sus vecinos eran llamados a filas. Sin ningún documento oficial de por medio, todas las partes aceptaron la independencia de facto del pequeño territorio. El Couto Mixto se convirtió en zona de libre comercio entre España y Portugal. Ni la Guardia Ci­ vil ni la Guarda de Finanzas portuguesa supervisaban la mer­cancía que discurría por el llamado «Camino privilegiado». Aquello era una autopista de contrabandistas, un sueño he­cho realidad. 

El Couto permaneció en el limbo geopolítico hasta que en 1864 España y Portugal firmaron el Tratado de límites, includo en el Tratado de Lisboa1. El Couto Mixto se dividió entre ambos países. Fue el final de la Andorra gallega, un territorio independiente que duró ocho siglos y que fue reflejado en el cine, de manera algo onírica, en la película de Rodolfo Gon­ zález Veloso «Rayanos: los últimos gallegos indómitos». 

La división del Couto Mixto trazó —oficialmente— la lí­nea fronteriza que todavía hoy separa Ourense de Portugal. Algunas familias quedaron dividas, otras simplemente hacían caso omiso de las fronteras firmadas y se orientaban por las lindes que siempre habían fijado los vecinos. En varias co­ marcas de la frontera, como la de Geres-Xurés, se hacían reuniones vecinales una vez al año para redefinir la frontera entre Galicia y Portugal conforme a los terrenos de cultivo o las nuevas casas en las aldeas. Así, mientras la oficialidad estipulaba una frontera, los vecinos se regían por otros límites decididos por ellos mismos. Tras la Guerra Civil, el régimen franquista blindó el borde, terminó con la permeabilidad y prohibió el intercambio y comercio de mercancías. Los pas­tores eran los únicos que tenían permiso para cruzar libre­ mente. Algunos, una vez atravesada a raia, no volvían.

La sólida frontera dibujó con nitidez dos zonas cruelmen­ te desniveladas por la posguerra española: mientras Portugal mantenía un aceptable nivel de vida, la Galicia rural sufría una pobreza extrema. No solo faltaban medicinas o gasolina, había carencia de alimentos, luz y recambios eléctricos. Pro­ ductos como el café u objetos como un encendedor eran lujos al alcance de pocos. Desde las casas gallegas con lámparas de aceite se distinguían con envidia las bombillas portugue­ sas iluminando las diferencias. El contrabando llegó casi por inercia, como una consecuencia directa de esta desigualdad a uno y otro lado de la frontera. 

Circulaban alimentos («contrabando de la barriga»), medi­cinas, metales, piezas mecánicas o armas. Por cada fardo de alimentos que lograban colar cobraban unas 49 pesetas. Si lo transportado era chatarra o materiales de obra, el pago as­ cendía a 300 pesetas, el equivalente al sueldo de un obrero gallego de la época. 

La facilidad con la que la mercancía fluía de un lado a otro de a raia seca se explica, entre otras cosas, por la complici­dad de la Guardia Civil. En las tabernas de las aldeas fronte­ rizas coincidían contrabandistas y guardias civiles tomando chatos de vino y jugando al dominó. Luego, unos pasaban mercancía y otros los perseguían. Este matrimonio de conve­ niencia se repetirá calcado en los tiempos del contrabando de tabaco y, a veces, con el narcotráfico. 

La actividad solo se detenía cuando llegaban los inspecto­ res de Madrid. Era entonces cuando los trenes que atravesa­ban la frontera discurrían a su velocidad normal y no a los 15 kilómetros por hora a los que se solía descargar la mercancía. Cuando estaban los guardias de Madrid, los vecinos no saca­ban pañuelos blancos por las ventanas para avisar de que el camino estaba despejado. La mercancía dejaba de fluir por unos días, pero cuando regresaban a la capital, los gallegos volvían a contar con penicilina (que Portugal traía desde Bra­sil), café, jabón, bacalao o aceite. Hasta pañoletas provenien­tes de Inglaterra pasaban por la frontera con destino a las cabelleras de las señoras de Ourense y Vigo. El contrabando, sobra decirlo, no es que no estuviera mal visto: es que era una actividad respetada y prestigiosa. En la Galicia subdesarro­llada de posguerra, el contrabando era también una medida de supervivencia. 

Durante la Segunda Guerra Mundial se consolidó una ruta internacional del wolframio, material que los alemanes codi­ciaban para armamento e iluminación bélica. Los arraianos (habitantes de A Raia) se especializaron en sacar de las minas gallegas el preciado metal y venderlo a peso de oro a «los ru­ bios», como llamaban a los emisarios del ejército nazi que aparecían por las aldeas de Ourense. Antes de la guerra, los gallegos extraían el wolframio a 13 pesetas el kilo, pero el apetito del Tercer Reich lo elevó a las 300 pesetas. Decenas de familias ourensanas se hicieron ricas en aquellos años. Un negocio redondo que el escritor y director gallego Héctor Carré plasmó en la novela Febre, donde se presenta la frontera gallega como una suerte de El Dorado en el que compiten los buscadores de wolframio. Por cierto, los soldados «arios» se paseaban no lejos de los maquis de la guerra civil escon­didos en los montes gallegos, a quienes, adivinen, los vecinos vendían comida de contrabando traída de Portugal. Actual­mente la memoria de aquella singular época pelea por ser rescatada. La Xunta de Galicia y el Instituto de Turismo de Oporto trabajan en un proyecto para recuperar las rutas del contrabando de wolframio con museos y excursiones. Una buena idea en un lugar, Galicia, en el que la desmemoria es deporte nacional.

The Spanish-Portuguese border acquires difuse profiles in Ourense. This is due to the close cultural and linguistic link between both parties and to the very topographical vagueness of the border line. Until the beginning of the 19th century, there were remote villages between Verín and Chaves whose neighbours did not know which country they belonged to. They were not too interested either. The most extreme case of this stateless situation occurred in an area called the Mixed Couto.

Santiago, Meaus and Rubiás were the three villages that formed the Couto Mixto, a triangle of about 27 square kilometers lost between mountains and stuck to the Portuguese border. This semi-abandoned area was declared a "homicide preserve" in the Middle Ages. This was the status that some border areas received or razed by plague or war to be forcibly repopulated with released prisoners. Some

1000 people settled in the Mixed Couto in the 11th century, and over the years it became an autonomous territory. Neither the County of Portugal nor the Kingdom of Galicia wanted that piece of land for themselves, so their inhabitants built a kind of territorial limbo.

When Galicia joined the Kingdom of León and later Castilla, the peculiar indefinition of the Mixed Couto was consolidated. From the 13th century, faced with the passivity of the two crowns, the inhabitants of this region began to function as independent subjects: they elected their leaders, did not pay taxes to either of the two kingdoms and their neighbours were not called up to ranks. Without any official documents in between, all parties accepted the de facto independence of the small territory. El Couto Mixto became a free trade zone between Spain and Portugal. Neither the Guardia Ci vil nor the Portuguese Guarda de Finanzas supervised the merchandise that ran along the so-called "privileged way". That was a smuggler's highway, a dream come true.

The Couto remained in geopolitical limbo until Spain and Portugal signed the Treaty of Limits in 1864, included in the Treaty of Lisbon1. The Mixed Couto was divided between the two countries. It was the end of Galician Andorra, an independent territory that lasted eight centuries and that was reflected in the cinema, in a somewhat dreamlike way, in Rodolfo Gon zález Veloso's film "Rayanos: los últimos gallegos indómitos".

The division of the Mixed Couto officially traced the border line that still separates Ourense from Portugal today. Some families were divided, others simply ignored the signed borders and were guided by the boundaries that had always fixed the neighbors. In several border co marks, such as Geres-Xurés, neighbourhood meetings were held once a year to redefine the border between Galicia and Portugal according to the cultivated land or the new houses in the villages. Thus, while the official stipulated a border, the neighbors were governed by other limits decided by themselves. After the Civil War, the Franco regime blindfolded the border, ended the permeability and prohibited the exchange and trade of goods. The shepherds were the only ones who had permission to cross freely. Some, once crossed to raia, did not return.

The solid frontier clearly drew two cruelly uneven areas in the Spanish post-war period: while Portugal maintained an acceptable standard of living, rural Galicia suffered from extreme poverty. Not only were medicines or gasoline lacking, there was a lack of food, light and electrical spare parts. Products such as coffee or objects such as a lighter were luxuries within the reach of a few. From the Galician houses with oil lamps were distinguished with envy the bulbs portugue sas illuminating the differences. Smuggling came almost by inertia, as a direct consequence of this inequality on both sides of the border.

Food ("contraband of the belly"), medicines, metals, mechanical pieces or weapons circulated. For each bundle of food that they were able to strain, they charged about 49 pesetas. If what was transported was junk or work materials, the payment as cendía to 300 pesetas, the equivalent to the salary of a Galician worker of the time.

The ease with which the goods flowed from one side to the other from a raia seca can be explained, among other things, by the complicity of the Guardia Civil. In the taverns of the frontier villages, smugglers and civil guards would meet, drinking wine and playing dominoes. Then, some passed merchandise and others chased them. This marriage of conviviality will be repeated in the times of tobacco smuggling and, at times, drug trafficking.

The activity only stopped when the inspectors arrived from Madrid. It was then that the trains that crossed the border ran at their normal speed and not at the 15 kilometres per hour at which the goods were usually unloaded. When the guards of Madrid were there, the neighbors did not take out white handkerchiefs through the windows to warn that the road was clear. The goods stopped flowing for a few days, but when they returned to the capital, the Galicians again had penicillin (which Portugal brought from Brazil), coffee, soap, cod or oil. Even scarves from England crossed the border to the hair of the ladies of Ourense and Vigo. Smuggling, it goes without saying, is not that it was not frowned upon: it was a respected and prestigious activity. In underdeveloped post-war Galicia, smuggling was also a measure of survival.

During the Second World War an international wolfram route was consolidated, material that the Germans coveted for armament and war illumination. The Arraians (inhabitants of A Raia) specialised in taking the precious metal out of the Galician mines and selling it in gold weight to "los rubios", as they called the emissaries of the Nazi army that appeared in the villages of Ourense. Before the war, the Galicians extracted the tungsten at 13 pesetas a kilo, but the The Third Reich's appetite raised it to 300 pesetas. Dozens of families in Ourense became rich in those years. A round business that the Galician writer and director Héctor Carré captured in the novel 'Febre', where the Galician border is presented as a sort of El Dorado in which tungsten seekers compete. By the way, the "Aryan" soldiers walked not far from the civil war maquis hidden in the Galician mountains, to whom, guess what, the neighbors sold contraband food brought from Portugal. Nowadays, the memory of that singular epoch fights to be rescued. The Xunta de Galicia and the Institute of Tourism of Oporto are working on a project to recover the wolfram smuggling routes with museums and excursions. A good idea in a place, Galicia, where the memory is a national sport.

Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator