Old fashioned Christian faith and socialist fervor mix easily at the shrine to Cuba's patron saint, providing a poignant glimpse at everyday Cuban life.
Neatly folded uniforms of officers of the Revolutionary Armed Forces, the official red book of the Union of Young Communists and credentials of Olympic athletes are among thousands of items placed here.The yellow pencils of students who passed their exams and a kidney stone the size of an egg, successfully removed from a Havana woman, are also among the expressions of love and faith.
The Rev. Jorge Palma, who oversees the shrine, says hundreds of Cubans from around the country and from new homes in Miami, Europe and elsewhere travel here each month to thank the Virgin for miracles: the saving of a child's life, help in finding a husband a job, granting an elderly woman her wish to see her first great-grandchild.
Anywhere from 20 to 100 people make the pilgrimage each day.
Palma expects those visits - and interest in Roman Catholicism in general - will increase in the months leading up to Pope John Paul II's first visit to Cuba in January. The pope is to stop here when he travels to the nearby eastern port city of Santiago to celebrate Mass.
"She is beloved among Cubans," said Palma. "She is ours."
Although religious practice is legal and has recently become more accepted in this communist country, believers in the past were often ridiculed by relatives, co-workers or neighbors.
In the years after the 1959 revolution, President Fidel Castro reportedly wore a medallion engraved with the Virgin of Charity given him by a little girl. He stopped wearing it after his government became increasingly Marxist.
But even his mother, Lina Ruz, offered thanks here for keeping her son safe in the Sierra Maestra mountains.
Although Catholicism has limited influence here, most Cubans still know the story of the how the Virgin of Charity appeared in the Bay of Nipe near Santiago in 1628 to brothers Rodrigo and Juan de Hoyos, mulattos of mixed white and black heritage, and Juan Moreno, a black boy of about 10.
Other versions say all three witnesses were named Juan and that one was white, one was mulatto and one was black - reflecting Cuba's racial makeup.
Struggling in a storm-tossed boat, they heard a voice declare "I am the Virgin of Charity." Across the waves they spied a wooden board carrying a statue of the Virgin Mary, dressed in a yellow gown and depicted as a mulatta.
In her left arm, she carried a mulatto baby Jesus. In her right hand, she held a cross. Her long earrings dangled past her neck.
"I am the Virgin of Charity," was inscribed on the board. What tradition says is that same board is framed and displayed on the basilica's first floor.
The statue, about 40 inches tall, is in a small chapel on the second floor. After leaving their offerings downstairs, Cubans climb the stairs to light candles and pray.
Cuban girls traditionally offer thanks here on their 15th birthday - the age of marriagability in much of Latin America. Cubans living abroad pay homage here on return visits.
"Beloved beauty, thank you for making this visit to Cuba possible," says a note left with a photograph of a young woman with a broad smile. "With all my heart."
Here, too, is a baseball left by a boy thanking the Virgin for helping his school team win the national pennant.
And there is the long, black braid snipped off by a woman in gratitude for the safe release of a jailed rebel when the revolution triumphed on New Year's Day 38 years ago.
In a mixture of religious and political language, Carla Chang offered thanks for the "miraculous" release of 1st Lt. Chang Durand. She signed it with the refrain of the Cuban revolution: "homeland or death."
A more recent offering left at the shrine tells of a harrowing journey by raft by a young man fleeing this island nation.
After arriving safely in south Florida, the young man came across another raft that arrived with no one aboard. In retrospect, he says that he probably should not have made such a dangerous voyage.
"Don't do it," said the note, accompanied by a photograph of the young man and his brother standing next to the empty raft. "Life is worth so much more. Instead, think of this beautiful sanctuary and the Virgin of Charity of Cobre."