It is difficult to describe a city like Brazzaville, if not for symbolic places, monuments or common buildings that are simple ballistic points of reference in a city where the neighbourhoods become small universes, whose true protagonists are the inhabitants, with their savoir vivre that creates ‘ambiance‘, the quintessence of vibrant contemporary popular cultures, such as that of the SAPE, a true identity life philosophy of the urbanised Bakongo people.
Brazzaville, the capital mirrored in the Stanley Pool, whose reflection mingles with that of the buildings in Kinshasa, on the other side of the Congo River bank, but where it is the latter that is defined with detachment, the capital of Congo ‘en face‘.
Brazzaville is the city of the futuristic Corniche Bridge that has characterised its skyline for a few years now, or of the Nabemba tower that stands 106 metres tall on a horizontally developed urban plan; it is the city of Central Africa’s oldest cathedral, the 19th-century Sacre-Coeur, or of the geometric Saint-Anne-du-Congo Basilica, a modernist architectural prototype on African soil; it is the city where the remains of its founder Pierre Savorgnan de Brazza, who laid the foundation stone after signing an agreement with the local king Makoko, are preserved in a Memorial, in homage to a character who was experienced more as a liberator than a coloniser.
But Brazzaville is above all the city of vibrant atmospheres, of the chaotic Total market in Bacongo, or the night market of Dragage in Talangai, with its fish and game stalls; it is the capital of a long Central African artistic tradition, of historic schools of contemporary painting and sculpture, still active today in the main ateliers of the Poto-Poto and Moungali neighbourhoods, the beating hearts of the city’s social, cultural and economic life, which quiver with commerce during the day and explode with nightlife at sunset.
Bars and ngandas, enlivened by the sound of rumba, backed by cola nuts and rivers of beer, are also the focus of the evenings in Bacongo, the city’s identity soul, the historic headquarters where the colourful urban culture of SAPE was born in the 1960s, or perhaps earlier, ‘Société des Ambianceurs et Personnes Elégantes’, a true philosophy of life, all Congolese, of knowing how to live and how to dress, to distinguish oneself in elegance and behaviour, through a theatricality and exhibitionism that accompany the existence of the ‘sapologists’. The apotheosis of this lifestyle are the eccentric fashion shows that are staged every Sunday afternoon on Avenue Matsua, amidst the boutiques of refined and extravagant clothes, the bouvettes and a crowd in curious admiration.
If the capital is connected to the north-west by a single major asphalted artery, and to the north along the border with the DRC, by the river ‘highway’, the south is nowadays traversed by a new asphalted road, but until a few years ago, due to a lack of decent alternatives, the only means of transport for goods and passengers was the CFCO train, the historic railway linking Brazzaville to Pointe Noire, the country’s second city and main commercial port on the Atlantic.
Pointe-Noire‘s strategic position was immediately noticed by the first Portuguese navigators at the end of the 15th century, who christened it ‘Punta Negra’ for its spur of dark rocks. But Bantu peoples had inhabited the region since time immemorial, grouped under the aegis of the local Kingdom of Ma-Loango, a rib of the powerful Kingdom of Kongo.
Today, the economic capital of the country, it is a populous city, whose existence revolves around the port, but which retains the atmosphere and dimension of a pleasant holiday resort, with its wild beaches and spectacular seascapes, enriched by ancient traces of a past that at the time was a different unhappy trade, that of slaves, managed by the ancient local kingdom with European representatives, until the actual French colonisation.
If the train crossing, which ploughs through the green lands and natural scenery of the southern Congo, still retains the dimension of a pioneer’s adventure lasting about 15 hours for a 450 km journey (the train is however equipped with all comforts, with couchettes and a restaurant car), once you arrive at your destination, the reality is that of a seaside destination that offers an infinity of tourist accommodations, suitable for all needs, and much in demand by holidaymakers arriving for the weekend in search of fun, relaxation, some luxury, but also genuine eco-tourist contact with Atlantic nature.
Undoubtedly not to be missed are the Ma-Loango Historical Museum and the nearby ‘slave route’, a symbolic path of remembrance, which deportees had to take to be embarked on ships at anchor; the wild surroundings of Pointe Indienne, between palm-fringed beaches and mangrove lagoons, where lute turtles come to lay their eggs; the spectacular laterite gorges of Diosso.
