Tomatina (Spanish. La Tomatina) — is a famous Spanish festival, also known as the Battle of Tomatoes (La Batalla del Tomate).
In the very last week of August, the annual «Tomato Festival», dedicated to the passing summer, begins in the city of Bunol, in eastern Spain.
Like all Spanish festivals, this one takes place with festive fireworks, music, dancing and free treats. But the tomato festival also has one distinctive feature that attracts crowds of tourists to Bunyol, this is the culmination of the — tomato battle of Tomatina, taking place in the city square.
The signal for the start of the battle is a special firecracker launched on Wednesday at 11 o'clock from the city hall. At this signal, several trucks appear on the streets of the city, loaded with ripe tomatoes by the main characters of the — holiday, which are throwing shells. Participants in the holiday (and this is the entire city of Bunyol), running up to their cars under a hail of tomatoes, grab shells and cheerfully take revenge on those who ran to the trucks first.
However, anyone within reach can be a target; the main task of the participants, who, by the way, are considered everyone, is to fire tomatoes at their neighbor, and who turns out to be — is not so important to them. Considering that there are more than 20 thousand people taking part in this fun, and the number of shells is in the hundreds of tons of tomatoes, it is easy to imagine what the city square and city residents are turning into just a few minutes after the start of the tomato shootout.
During the fighting, which lasts two hours, almost all bars, cafes, restaurants and any public places are closed, and special plastic panels are hung on windows and doors. The Tomatina participants themselves prefer reasonable minimalism in clothing, since it is difficult to remain clean on this day even outside the city square. The expression «tomato rivers», often used when describing tomato riot, — is not a red word at all.
The historical roots of this unusual holiday go back to the time of Franco's dictatorial rule. According to one version, throwing tomatoes at each other served as a symbolic protest to his regime. But most likely, a similar meaning was given to tomato battles later, when the local holiday had already become famous throughout Spain.
The very first tomato massacre was recorded in 1945, when, at the end of summer festival in Bunyola, a group of young people, through negligence or wanting to have fun, dropped a large figure of one of the parade participants, inside of which was the participant himself. When he got up, he did not appreciate the joke and started a brawl, which was quickly joined by his friends. The clash took place near vegetable shops, and the tomatoes immediately became projectiles. The police arrived in time and dispersed the fighters and forced them to pay for the spoiled vegetables, but exactly a year later they gathered there with their tomatoes.
Gradually, the tomato shootings became citywide, and despite police discontent, more and more people took part in them. In 1950, local authorities no longer interfered with Tomatina, as this day began to be called. But the temperamental Spaniards did not always limit themselves to throwing tomatoes at each other; sometimes influential people were also targeted for distributing vegetables, which led to the ban on the holiday in 1957. Upset by this, the Spaniards staged a crowded funeral for Tomatina, at which a huge coffin with a tomato was carried through the streets of the city, and the funeral procession, according to all the rules, was accompanied by an orchestra and mourners. Under pressure from the townspeople, in 1959 local authorities were forced to lift the ban and recognize Tomatina as the official holiday of Bunyola.
At the same time, the rules for holding this holiday were adopted, which are still in force to this day. There are only four prohibitions:
— the beginning and end of the battle are strictly determined by the signal firecracker from the city hall;
— you should not throw anything other than tomatoes, and the tomatoes themselves should be crushed before throwing to avoid injury;
— it is forbidden to tear each other's clothes;
— should not interfere with the movement of trucks with tomatoes.
Thanks to these simple rules, not a single celebration of Tomatina led to serious incidents.
Until 1975, each resident paid for their shells out of pocket, bringing tomatoes to the celebration with them, but only ripe, not green, tomatoes. And in 1975, monks from the Order of St. Louis Bertrand, the patron saint of the city, began delivering « ammunition». Five years later, the city municipality began organizing the holiday, which sharply increased the number of participants in the holiday and the volume of scattered tomatoes.
The tomato battles end with a swim in a pool filled with tomato juice and a drawing of the hams of a traditional Iberian pig. By the end of the holiday, the tomato mess underfoot reaches the ankles, and nearby houses, like the participants, are repainted red. After the battle itself, the square is washed, and then the Tomato Festival, the last festival of the outgoing summer, lasts for several more days.