The creativeness and ingenuity the cigar world has been marked by have a special place in Old Havana’s historic core, home to Cuba’s only museum dedicated to Habanos.

Perhaps the most adventurous piece the Habano Museum treasures is the only astronautic cigar the world has ever known. That famed Habano –rolled by expert Cuban hands- traveled to outer space in the pocket of cosmonaut Arnando Tamayo Mendez, the first and only Cuban who has ever ventured beyond the limits of the Earth.

However, just a handful of other pieces can be green with envy toward the astronautic cigar. Not even the replica of the Cemi or Tobacco Idol –the original one is in display at the Havana University’s Montane Museum- has reasons to be so jealous.

In this reserved and intimate location of Old Havana, that exhibits the print stones that served to make the first cigar stamps and seals, and the snuff boxes that once made the rounds in European courts, any of the 1,000-plus artifacts and items there has a rich history of its own to tell.

It’s amazing to see that so many efforts and imagination have been poured into so fleeting a moment like the smoking of a Habano. Nonetheless, each fantasy at the museum proves that human creativeness is simply unlimited when it comes to making the smoking of a Cuban cigar an endless moment in time.

There are all kinds of lighters from different times and in a variety of shapes. There’s one that resembles an aircraft, another one embedded in a flower, and others mounted inside a tiny cannon or machine-gun designed to fire up cigars instead of shooting bullets.

It’s been 15 years since the Habano Museum opened its doors. A small 20-step flight of stairs leads to the mansion in Mercaderes Street, just a stone’s throw from the Ambos Mundos (Both Worlds) Hotel, where Hemingway, trapped in billowing cigar smoke, finished his books For Whom the Bells Toll and The Old Man and the Sea.

Since February 26, 1993 when the 19th-century tobacco press at the entrance of the museum started counting visitors, thousands and thousands of people have walked past the turnstiles, all of them lured by the curious history of the Habano or drawn by the array of activities that are organized there on a regular basis in a bid to dig out the cultural roots of Cuba’s cigar-making traditions.

That’s why, as museum director Zoe Nocedo Primo explains, this institution plans international workshops like Havana-Habanos, a biannual event that gathers dozens of people from around the globe, all coming together for their love for Cuban cigars.

Connoisseurs, historians, businesspeople, cigar aficionados or passersby share views and experiences during this event, just as much as professors teaching master courses or workshops on matching at the Museum do, or similar to those who come to watch artistic exhibits mounted there every month.

That’s also why it’s possible to find foreigners who find out that smoking cigars is a whole lot more than just inhaling smoke, children who stare in awe at some of the lovely gilt-threaded lithographs hanging on the walls, or old cigar rollers who swing by to steal a glimpse at the tobacco press they once used to make their very first Cuban cigars.

For many of the attendants to the Tenth Habano Festival, the chance to celebrate the 15th birthday of Cuba’s only museum devoted to extol tobacco will be no doubt a special privilege and an opportunity to both have fun and learn history.

A few of them might even discover the existence of this place that had remained unknown to them and would likely love to tour its halls and take a closer look at the collected items.

But we suggest you to do that in a hushed and watchful manner because that’ll maybe give you a chance, as the bustling noise of Old Havana dies down a little bit, to overhear the artifacts arguing among themselves for the right to be picked the most valuable piece of the museum.