Cuba: Leal Highlights Havana’s Architectural Heritage

Havana, May 6. -City Historian Eusebio Leal Spengler on Thursday discussed the importance of restoration work underway in Old Havana, a UNESCO World Heritage site.

Leal was the center of attention at the 31st International Tourism Fair, which runs until Saturday at the historic Morro-Cabaña Fortress.

According to Leal, the experience of integrally restoring the city's architectural cultural heritage has a humanist, sustainable nature because it involves and benefits community members.

Leal showed pictures of once-deteriorated buildings that are now hotels, museums, cultural institutions, and health centers.

Housing, maternity hospitals, senior citizens' homes have been rebuilt, as have a school for disabled children and a trade school where some 600 young people are learning restoration skills, he said.

To know Havana, visitors must walk through its streets, which is why this work is so important, Leal said. (Prensa Latina)