Coronavirus: San Marino, the “oldest” republic in the world, is a huge 61 km2 prison

Upon arrival in San Marino, there are no border patrols. Just a sign that welcomes “the ancient land of the free”. The one that this small republic had, nestled on Italian territory, considered the oldest in the world, mythologically founded in 301. According to legend, Marino, a Dalmatian stonecutter who escaped persecution from Emperor Diocletian, hid on Mount Titano and founded a small community around him. Even today, the San Mariners revere this fabulous origin and cling to its sacred independence.

The freedom so coveted for its proud citizens is now in question because of health restrictions. Not those imposed by his own government, which allows movement and the opening of shops and restaurants, but the Italian administration of Giuseppe Conte.

With 1,756 people infected since the start of the health crisis, San Marino has one of the virus incidence rates the highest in the world. Now, its 33,000 inhabitants can only be free within the 61 square kilometers that make up the third smallest country in Europe, behind the Vatican and Monaco, and can only travel to Italy for work reasons or a demonstrable emergency. .

“We are locked up: I miss going to see my family in Rimini, ”said young Ivan in a hurry in the streets of the historic center. “There are people who are not sure whether they can go and see their boyfriends who live in Italy”, explains journalist Antonio Fabbri. “Italy? I have my whole family here, who cares about Italy,” said another retiree.

The good relations that have existed for centuries between Italy and San Marino have been confirmed with maximum collaboration due to the health crisis, but in recent weeks they have suffered a little controversy. Until now, Emilia Romagna and the Marche, the Italian regions that surround the borders of San Marino, do not allow their inhabitants to leave their municipality if they do not want to risk being arrested by the police. .

But when the risk of contagion was lower and Italian neighbors enjoyed freedom of movement, regulations required them to close restaurants there at six in the afternoon. So many people took advantage of go eat to its tiny neighboring country, angering the hotel industry in neighboring towns. “Someone has to control the tagliatelle migrants,” Il Resto del Carlino newspaper published, referring to one of the most popular dishes from this region.

“Here we have very controlled rules with a maximum of four people per table. They could come quietly: San Marino is a sovereign state which can decide to let its hotel business run,” says Claudio Lausdei, owner of the busy restaurant He climbs. Italian mayors who wrote an open letter demanding that, as the Vatican did, San Marino adopt provisions similar to Italy before the crisis.

“We are not in the same situation as Italy or Spain. We are not part of the EU, so we have no access to any help economic to face the crisis. We allow restaurants to open because we cannot pay for closings, ”explains Andrea Belluzzi, Secretary of State for Education, Culture and the University of San Marino.

The small Republic of San Marino does not have a Prime Minister, but ten Secretaries of State (ministers) who make up the Congress of State, that is to say the Government of the Republic.

In addition, for almost 800 years, they have two heads of state, the so-called captains regent, who have a six-month term – they say they don’t have time to make too many mistakes – and who are elected by Parliament from among its members. The fact that they are two heads of state is a legacy of the consuls of the Roman Republic and arouses the interest of international organizations when San Marino ask for two chairs.

“I was Captain Regent in 2015. When they saw that we were both giving the speech at the UN General Assembly, their eyes widened,” Belluzzi jokes.

The first time that the two regents are registered is in a document from 1243, the official year of San Marino’s independence. It was consolidated in the 14th century, under the papacy of Avignon, when they were gradually freed from the authority of the Bishop of Montefeltro. The Dukes of Urbino, in conflict with the Malatesta house in Rimini, protected them by guaranteeing their independence. The centuries pass and they are conquered only twice: in the 16th century by Cesare Borgia and in the 18th century by Cardinal Giulio Alberoni. At that time, the myth of the small and poor Free Republic was so well known that foreign consuls pressured the Pope to release them within a few months.

“The myth was very important,” says historian Verter Casali in his office. “So much so that we have documents from Napoleon, that when he was young he admired the republican mentality of San Marino and stipulated trade treaties that protected us and helped us financially.

San Marino even gave refuge to Giuseppe Garibaldi, which made it possible that during the unification of Italy, the first document of good neighborliness between the two countries was signed, in 1862, in which their sovereignty was recognized from facto. He remained independent even during fascism, when he had a government fully aligned with Mussolini.

“The secret of San Marino’s independence is that it has always been a very poor territory, of little strategic or demographic importance,” says Casali, recalling that only 3,000 people lived until the 18th century. “Plus, unlike other city-states, the borders have never been widened, a very smart choice. Independence is linked to a mixture of skill, patience and luck, ”he said.

San Marino’s poverty began to be left behind in the 1970s, when steps were taken that eventually made the microstate one of the tax heavens from Europe.

It ended with the banking crisis of ten years ago, and after Italy registered San Marino in the blacklist tax heavens.

To get out of it, the country made a series of commitments, such as ending business anonymity or banking secrecy, which led to a severe recession. A pandemic was the last thing they needed.

“Years ago the wages were very high and people lived very well. Now we fear that the government will not be able to pay us this month, ”laments Ms. Milena in front of the remains of San Marino in the Basilica del Santo. Under the altar are the bones of the legendary founder. “There on the right is the head. We release it every year on San Marino Day. It is intact, ”he says.

Painful commitments

They pay devotion to San Marino because, they say, it performed the miracle of founding the republic. “Now we also pray that the virus will stop,” says Pasquina, one of the few owners of souvenir shops in the historic center that is still open, because “it is very sad that it is all closed“.

There are no tourists, many hotels they are abandoned and you can count on the fingers of one hand the walkers in the heart of the capital.

The only hospital in San Marino is more frequented. There they only have twelve beds in intensive care and on Friday ten were busy.

The director of health, Sergio Rabini, confirms that at any time they were able to treat their citizens without the help of Italy. “We only sent the first infected to Rimini in February, because we did not have a unit to fight contagious diseases,” he says.

Soon after they got up to stop make your own masks, are developing their own coronavirus tests and are currently negotiating for 20,000 doses of vaccine. The explanation seems logical: “For us, it is much easier to control cases: we are a microstate”.

The author is a journalist for La Vanguardia

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