After his death on November 25, 2016, people’s interest grew to visit the site, where this figure of Cuban history was born on August 13, 1926.

Those who come to the place receive explanations from the head of the department of history and museology, a senior specialist of the museum and master in conservation and restoration, Yosbani Rodriguez. The expert pointed out that the museum was inaugurated in 2002, while the Cuban revolutionary leader was alive, and is part of the large hacienda created by Angel Castro, Fidel’s father, who was born in Galicia, Spain, in 1875.

Angel traveled to Cuba as a soldier during the country’s war of independence from the Spanish metropolis, and later he returned as an immigrant in 1915, when he bought the land with savings and with the help of a friend named Fidel.

That is why he named one of his children after him. Angel Castro did not have sufficient economic resources, so he built up the hacienda little by little: butcher shop, post office and telegraph, billiard bar, bakery, candy store, movie theater, an important set of commercial activities.

The farm reached 13,000 hectares of land where sugar cane, timber and cattle became the main business.

The museum shows several houses that make up the history of the place, a fence for cockfighting, the house that was built for Fidel and was never inhabited, and other buildings. This complex in Biran used to have 27 buildings, but currently there are only 11, nine of which are original.

An average of 100 people visit the museum and complex every day, a figure that sometimes rises to 500, and some days up to 1,500 people, both Cubans and foreigners, come to visit Birán, although these days there are many more.

jg/arm/mem/may/rfc