Bedbugs? No, heroines!

The Ter is one of the hardest-working rivers in the country. In the Ter Mitjà alone (from Ripoll to the Sau reservoir), there are 35 factories. Have they all stopped operating? Seeing them without anyone else, it might seem so, but the answer is no. They no longer transform cotton into thread—as almost all of them did—with the power of the water, but with the same turbines, they generate electricity.

This is the case of the Rusiñol colony, which I'm visiting today. It was the last yarn factory in Ter Mitjà that was in operation until 2010. In reality, it stopped operating for many years, but a group of entrepreneurs reactivated it in 1980 as a yarn factory.

However, things have become difficult. "We have less and less water to turbine, and we generate less electricity, and less income," reveals Ernest Claramunt, one of the partners of the Rusiñol colony, which reopened it. "The problem is that the administration increases the ecological flow, and it does so in exchange for compensation... that never arrives," Claramunt tells me.

I'm in a huge warehouse on the second and upper floor of the Rusiñol factory, located on the outskirts of Manlleu. It maintains its original essence intact. It has many typical elements of the Ter industrial buildings: cobblestone walls, wooden beams, cairon floors, iron pillars, large openings, remains of the mud... Seeing it empty, it might also seem like it's no longer in use. But it is! "Weddings and many other activities are held there. Foreigners are the most popular," Ernest comments.

We tour the factory premises. Once upon a time, the noise was deafening. Now, silence reigns. We pass a "period" sign (in pre-fabricated Catalan, with rounded, modernist-style letters) that says "No entry allowed" and a small room filled with tools. How nice they are, all neatly arranged, hanging on the wall.

"The workers didn't want women to work in the factory, and the owner was also reluctant, but he saw that it was worth it... because he paid them less. By changing from self-actin to continuous, the female workforce became the majority," Pere Casas, director of the Museo del Ter, explains to me, recalling that "the dangers of osteoarthritis, sexual harassment... have been made invisible."

In the region, there's a web of paths for women who went to work in the factories (often on night shifts). And then the second day awaited them, the one at home: cooking, cleaning, taking care of the family... From Folgueroles to Roda de Ter, the path the workers took was known as "the bedbug path." Yes, one of the nicknames for these women—true heroines—was "bedbugs."

We're in a room where a collection of the factory's machines has been gathered. Here, the guides from the Museo del Ter, who lead the tours, pause for a while to explain the spinning process.

Pedro starts a spinning machine, and soon a thread breaks. Then, using a brake, which he operates with his knee, he stops the spindle where the broken thread is located and ties a knot to continue spinning. "Do you see that device above the machines?" It's the airplane, which sucked up the resulting smudge and made cleaner air, allowing different fibers to be worked with simultaneously. "The airplane takes away the smudge," it was said.

I notice a cardboard box on the floor that says "Rusiñol Hilados." Now I'm going to tell you what Rusiñol was.

We end the tour at Cau Faluga, the owners' former chalet, which housed a high-class restaurant until a few years ago. Now it's closed off. A shame, because it was a reason to go in. But I have the privilege of access. "Cae Faluga didn't even have a roof. It was in very poor condition. The entire factory was in shambles when we decided to reopen it," Claramunt tells me. "And how did you acquire it?" I ask. He waits for me to answer and then tells me: "It was a bad idea."

Fortunately, the chimney is preserved at Cau Faluga. The sculptor Enric Clarasó, following the design of his good friend Santiago (yes, the painter and writer, brilliant, scatterbrained, bohemian, insolent...), with whom he used to go hunting and shared a workshop in Barcelona, ​​sculpted this splendid chimney.

Here Santiago would hold long conversations by the fire with his friends. And his brother Albert – who took over the reins of the factory, because Santiago, the heir, chose the path of art – held meetings with "important" people, due to his status as an industrialist and prestigious politician: he became a deputy and senator," explains Casas. Indeed, Albert Rusiñol was Tarragona, National. And he was president of the Ter Manufacturers Association.

In the central frieze of the fireplace, where the four bars that symbolize Santiago Rusiñol's brain are, there are two symbols that reflect the dilemma he had: on one side there is a cogwheel and a pitcher; of a painter that symbolizes the artistic world that Rusiñol was discovering. disciplines that Santiago Rusiñol cultivated.

Despite disassociating himself from the factory, Santiago Rusiñol was closely linked to Manlleu. The factory, a painting showing the interior of a factory with women working at looms. And from Manlleu, he set off to tour Catalonia by car, with Ramon Casas and a factory worker. Yes, he toured the country, like I did this summer... in much worse conditions.