Issue date: 05 Apr, 2004
In the series of stamps dedicated to Popular Festivals, one was issued to raise public awareness of the Festival of Painted Eggs held in the Asturias village of Pola de Siero.
This festival, which in 1968 was declared a Festival of National Tourist Interest and is held every year on the Tuesday after Easter Sunday, is thought to have been introduced in the 19th century by people from other European countries who had moved to Asturias to work in the mines. However, the custom of colouring and decorating eggs also has roots in Spanish regions such as Catalonia, Valencia, the Basque Country and Andalucía.
The Festival of Painted Eggs involves the exhibition, sale and giving as gifts of the eggs exhibited in stands around the Alfonso X park, which are previously decorated by hand with all types of drawings, scenes, phrases, names and dedications. Until the late 19th century, the eggs were cooked with sarrio (kitchen soot) which gave the shell a dark tone or colour, leading them to be called dark eggs. After the discovery of aniline, they were decorated with this quake-drying product using sharpened toothpicks. Today, oil paints and watercolours with nibs and paintbrushes are used to decorate them.
Every Tuesday after Easter Sunday, people from the village wearing the traditional regional clothes, attend the blessing of the Dark Eggs in bable, the language of Asturias, as well as the parades of floats and performances by traditional groups which provide the beauty, sound, music rich colour surrounding this unusual festival of the Dark Eggs in Pola de Siero.
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