Category: Marcelo Hernandez

The black market is still an option but even informal retail networks have begun to see shortages. The situation has gotten worse with each passing week as shipments to government warehouses, where most of the merchandise is diverted to the illegal trade, fail to arrive.

Salt production has fallen in recent years according to the Statistical Annual of Cuba, published by the National Bureau of Statistics. Extraction of unrefined salt fell from a little more than 280,000 tons in 2011 to 248,000 in 2016. The official reasons for the decline have been weather-related problems and “technical obsolescence” within the industry.

The production of refined granulated salt, the kind used by consumers, has also fallen, from 93,700 tons in 2012 to 76,100 tons in 2016, according to the annual report.

Even with this fall in production, the industry should theoretically still be able to supply salt to the entire population. According to authorities, Cubans consume an average of ten grams of salt per day (twice the amount recommended by the World Health Organization), which translates into 40,800 tons per year. However, this 35,300-ton surplus somehow does not make it into stores.

“Every day people ask if I have salt but none has come into this store since January,” says Leandra, an employee of a small market on Havana’s Monte Street that distributes basic items. “We still have a little left but it’s quite damp. Other than that, it’s all gone.”

Of the island’s six salt processing plants, five are in operation and all are located in the central and eastern region of the country. Last September, Hurricane Irma seriously affected at least three of them, paralyzing production and leading to countless tons of lost production.

The director of Geominsal Business Group, Fabio Raimundo Paz, explained to the official press that the production areas that suffered the greatest damages were those of Puerto Padre in Las Tunas province, Santa Lucia in Camagüey and Bidos, located in the municipality of Martí in Matanzas.

All the salt that was still in drying beds and in so-called crystallizers was lost, while 5% of the product in storage and ready for distribution was damaged, according to the official. Weeks passed before the impact of these losses were felt on consumers’ dining tables.

Despite the fact that competent authorities have for months made assurances  that “product availability” has been returned to normal levels and that the one-kilo bags “guaranteed” by the rationing system are being distributed, supplies of the condiment have become scarce.

Recently the local press Sancti Spíritus sounded the alarm, noting that since October, deliveries of salt to private sector stores — about fifty tons per month according to the weekly newpaper El Escambray — had been interrupted. Now “only those orders intended for basic rationing and certain of areas of public consumption have been delivered,” it added.

“Normally we don’t see much turnover of this product here,” an employee at a store in Plaza de Carlos III, the city’s main hard currency shopping center, explains to 14ymedio. “The people who buy this product here are almost always foreigners who are visiting the city or owners of privately owned restaurants,” he adds.

The employee has noticed a rise in demand for bags of salt, which go for 1.50 convertible pesos (twenty-five times more than the subsidized price of rationed salt). “They started buying it in large quantities and now we’re out of it,” he says. “Until recently the problem was toilet paper; now it’s salt’s turn.”

The response on the Ministry of Domestic Commerce’s hotline are terse. “We are waiting for additional supplies to arrive,” without any indication when that might be. In the manufacturing plants themselves complaints focus on a lack of organization and difficulties in getting the merchandise to the point of sale.

We are not tackling any number of problems, especially the issue of rail transport,” says an employee at El Real, a salt producer in Camagüey, who prefers to remain anonymous. The plant, which opened in 1919, has an annual production target of 20,000 tons. “Although the salt beds are well stocked, we lost part of the roof of the storage facility in the hurricane,” he adds.

“We are now in a race against time because, when the rainy season begins, which is normally in May, we have to halt almost all production,” adds the employee “When there is a lot of rain, the brine becomes contaminated with fresh water and dust,” he points out.

In the hotel and tourism sectors, the problem also creates a greater demand for food supplies, which creates additional stresses for some employees. “Until recently we were giving customers tiny doses of domestically produced salt,” says one of the waiters at the Hotel England, which faces Central Park.

“When we put out salt shakers, we had to keep an eye on them because people would empty them. We also have to add grains of rice to the shakers because it’s very humid,” he adds. “Before, we had to be careful that customers did not take the silverware or the glasses, but now we also have to watch out for the salt.”

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The 14ymedio team is committed to serious journalism that reflects the reality of deep Cuba. Thank you for joining us on this long road. We invite you to continue supporting us, but this time by becoming a member of 14ymedio. Together we can continue to transform journalism in Cuba.

On the opening day of the exhibition, which displays photographs of how paternity is experienced in both countries, the specialist said that the low demand for paternity leave is due to the fact that on the island “stereotypes and a patriarchal and macho culture persist, which limits the participation of men in domestic chores.”

Since 2003, Cuban men can opt for paternity leave to stay at home and take care of their children during the first year of life, while their wives work. The father can benefit from postnatal leave for childcare for 90 days after the birth.

Maternity and paternity leave cannot overlap and only one of the two parents can take advantage of the benefit until the child reaches one year. Even so, both can have between two and five days off work right after the birth. More days are allowed if it is necessary to move.

Men who apply for this benefit may remain off work until the child reaches the first year, and during the period in which they do not work they receive 60% of their total salary.

The measure was approved amid a worrying demographic situation. About 20% of the population of the Island is over 60 years old and the fertility rate is only 1.72 children per woman, far from the figure of 2.1 needed to ensure population replacement.

Yusimí Campos Suárez, vice minister of the Ministry of Labor and Social Security, cataloged the new measure as a means to “stimulate the birth rate, the incorporation and reincorporation of women in the workplace, as well as the participation of other family members in the care of children.”

“The mother and father can decide which of them will take care of the son or daughter, the way in which this responsibility will be shared up to the first year of life and who will receive the social benefit (…) and they will communicate the decision in writing to the administration of each of their workplaces,” the law says.

The Family Code of 1975 already established a “shared responsibility between the mother and the father to attend, care for, protect, educate, assist, give deep affection to and prepare for life their sons and daughters, as a right and duty of both.” But in practice the situation is very different.

The persistence of sexist roles in the distribution of domestic tasks, along with a tense economic situation that makes many families prioritize male employment, are some of the causes behind the low rates of men applying for postnatal leave.

A recent survey carried out in 2014 at the national level by the Ministry of Public Health, showed that only 18% of fathers of children between 36 and 59 months participate in the care and education of their children.

During the opening of the photographic exhibition, the Swedish ambassador to Cuba, Jonas Lovén, explained that although his country took the lead in 1974 replacing postnatal maternal leave with parental leave, still today only a quarter of the men in that country take advantage of the measure.

For the diplomat it is “a slow, but necessary, journey that Cuba has already started.”

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The 14ymedio team is committed to serious journalism that reflects the reality of deep Cuba. Thank you for joining us on this long road. We invite you to continue supporting us, but this time by becoming a member of 14ymedio. Together we can continue to transform journalism in Cuba.

In this list there have also been frustrated suicides, such as that of the lawyer Augusto Martínez Sánchez, who was one of the rebels who reached the rank of commander in the Sierra Maestra. In 1959 he was appointed Military Prosecutor and was responsible for numerous executions, and later became Minister of Defense of the first revolutionary cabinet.

Martinez was the chief judge in the case against the participants in the Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961, and later he was Minister of Labor. In 1964 he shot himself in the chest but survived. After that he was removed from public life and died, ostracized, in 2013.

In 1972 Alberto Mora, son of the leader of the Authentic party, Menelao Mora, who organized the assault on the Presidential Palace in 1957, also committed suicide after having been a commander of the Revolution and director of the Foreign Trade Bank. The official press was silent.

Haydée Santamaría, one of the best known figures of the clandestine struggle and founder of the Casa de las Américas, committed suicide in July 1980 on the eve of July 26th (although some say it was on the day itself), the date of the assault on the Moncada Barracks in 1953 in which her brother Abel was killed and she was taken prisoner by the forces of Fulgencio Batista.

In 1953 Santamaría spent almost two months in a dungeon and later described those moments as “so much suffering” that she came to feel “desensitized.” Her boyfriend, Boris Luis Santa Coloma, who had not yet turned 25, also died in the Moncada assault.

At her death, Santamaría was not remembered with the honors corresponding to her historical importance. For decades Castroism has avoided giving official tributes to the figures who commit suicide. Her farewell letter explaining the reasons for her act has never been published.

“There is no room for suicides in the pantheon of the homeland,” a government leader, also associated with the cultural world, wryly commented to a group of friends at the time. The newspaper Granma, the official press of the Communist Party, reported the news only briefly.

Commander Juan Almeida commented at that moment, “In principle, we revolutionaries do not accept the decision of suicide, the life of the revolutionaries belongs to the cause of the Revolution and to the people.” Although he added that one could not “coldly judge comrade Haydée,” he said that everyone who knew her, including himself, understood that the wounds from the Moncada attack “never completely healed in her.”

In 2008, almost three decades after that event, Santamaría’s two children with Armando Hart, Celia Hart Santamaría, 45, and Abel Hart Santamaría, 48, died in a traffic crash that had all the traces of having been a suicide pact between siblings. For no apparent reason, the vehicle crashed into a tree.

The sister of Vilma Espin, one of the three most prominent female faces of the Cuban Revolution, also left this world through suicide. Nilsa Espín, sister-in-law of the current president, Raúl Castro, made a suicide pact with her husband, Rafael Rivero, in 1965. Her husband carried out the pact in a military camp in Pinar del Río, while she killed herself in Raúl Castro’s office.

In June 1983, after an intense discussion with Fidel Castro, according to witnesses, Osvaldo Dorticos, president of the Republic of Cuba from 1959 to 1976, shot himself.

Dorticós took his own life in the middle of an operation known as Toga Sucia [Dirty Robes], which the government launched to punish corrupt judges, but which many saw as a purge to leave the judiciary with only those most faithful to Castro. The official press insisted that the reason for Dorticós’ suicide had been a painful disease of the spine and depression due to the death of his wife, María Caridad Molina.

This Thursday, on the other hand, with the death of Fidel Castro Díaz-Balart – Fidel Castro’s oldest son born before the Revolution to his first wife Mirta Díaz-Balart – the official press has broken with a long tradition of covering up suicides. Were there so many witnesses that they could not hide the truth?

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A short distance from the historic center, the area of the city most visited by tourists and the most densely populated place in the country, the Zanja y Dragones station is a good barometer to measure the most common crimes in a place where poverty, criminality and opportunity meet.

Near the Inglaterra Hotel, in front of Central Park, an independent tour guide “lays down the law” to his customers. “Do not go into any hallways or stairs with strangers, especially if they offer you cigars.” Before the attentive look of the foreigners he adds: “Do not exchange money except in the Cadecas (government currency exchanges), and hold on tight to your bags and backpacks.”

The lesson also includes other tips for less dangerous situations. “If someone tells you that today is their birthday and that’s why you should give them a gift or money for a party, demand his identity card to check the date of birth. Watch out for those who say they will take you to see where the Buena Vista Social Club is because that is a very common scam.”

The list of warnings is long and ends with advice to the bewildered tourists that they should go “as soon as possible” to the police station if they are victims of any of these events. “Do not try to confront anyone if they take your purse, do not chase anyone who has stolen from you inside a house or vacant lot, instead look for a police officer.”

These warnings contrast with the recent statement by the American journalist and specialized tourist planner in the Island, Christopher P. Baker, who considers Cuba among “the safest countries for tourists,” a classification Cuba also received last week during the 38th International Tourism Fair (Fitur), in Madrid, Spain.

“It is true that we do not have many cases of tourists wounded with knives, or firearms or murdered,” a police captain, who preferred anonymity, told 14ymedio, “but the rates of robbery and fraud have grown in recent years because more and more visitors are entering the country.”

The official believes that “more work should be done on awareness so that agencies and guides alert foreigners not to make certain mistakes such as going into neighborhoods that are not recommended at night, and not walking the streets with large sums of money or trusting the first person who smiles at them. They should not carry their passports, just a photocopy.”

The Germans at the police station had to go through a long interrogation separately. “What did the man look like, what clothes was he wearing, what model was the camera, why did you go to that place at that time, do you have any proof that you entered the country with that camera?” were some of the questions asked of the travelers. On the day of the robbery, it was already night when they left the  Zanja y Dragones Police Station after trying to identify a face from a book full of suspects.

When they returned to the rental house where they were staying in Centro Habana they breathed a sigh of relief when they noticed something they did not notice on the night of their arrival in the city: the bars and railings on the doors and windows, next to a double bolt at the entrance that the owner closed with zeal every time he entered or left.

The houses that rent rooms to tourists, the families that have a relative abroad, the more prosperous self-employed, the musicians who travel abroad and the new Cuban rich also suffer the pressure of robberies. The “emptying” of a house is one of the recurring nightmares of this emerging social class.

“They entered through the roof and took the video player, the flat screen TV and the rice cooker,” says Ricardo, a neighbor of a tall building in Nuevo Vedado who thought he would “be safe” because his apartment was more than 40 feet above street level.

“They were like ninjas and they risked their lives to steal those things,” the victim comments. Ricardo reported the theft, but a year later “they have not caught anyone.” When the police arrived at the house, after the crime was committed, the fingerprints of the thieves were found in several places because they got their hands dirty on the roof.

“When I told the cops to take the prints to check against the database, they laughed and told me I was watching a lot of CSI.” Shortly afterwards Ricardo withdrew the complaint because the police began to question the ownership of a computer that the thieves did not steal, which had been augmented with parts purchased on the black market.” They saw that and I immediately went from victim to victimizer.”

Last December, the president of the People’s Supreme Court, Rubén Remigio Ferro, confirmed to Parliament that the crimes most prosecuted on the island continue to be cases of “robbery with force, theft, injury, possession and illegal possession of weapons, among others.”

Remigio Ferro did not give figures, perhaps because he did not have them since the Government has hidden them for decades. In Cuba there are no official reports on crime levels and the official press lacks a police blotter, as if crime did not exist.

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The 14ymedio team is committed to serious journalism that reflects the reality of deep Cuba. Thank you for joining us on this long road. We invite you to continue supporting us, but this time by becoming a member of 14ymedio. Together we can continue to transform journalism in Cuba.

“These are things that I can do without and that I only buy once a year for a special occasion, but I could not do it frequently“

Now, with the arrival of the Spanish giant, there are cans of tuna, cans of the typical piquillo peppers, canned pasta and chickpeas. Customers walk up and down the aisles where the green triangle with cursive letters appears that announces the merchandise coming from the other side of the Atlantic. This Tuesday nobody put anything in a cart, they just looked, as if in a museum.

The effect has been seen immediately on market shelves. “We have had hard months because when there is toilet paper, there is no chicken or milk,” points out a customer of the shopping center who preferred anonymity. “I come to Miramar, although I live in Centro Habana, because this is an area of ​​diplomats, so sometimes the stores are better stocked.”

The shopper was surprised to see the new product line but declined to buy anything. “These are things that I can do without and that I only buy once a year for a special occasion, but I could not do it frequently,” he says.

At the end of a shelf, an employee was still stacking some of the newly arrived products. “This is a type of merchandise that is usually slow-moving,” she says. “You can see that they are of good quality but not of first necessity and here people are looking for basically the most important ingredients to cook: oil, tomato sauce and canned meat or fish,” she says.

The prices do not help much either. “This can of tuna in sunflower oil costs more than what I get as a monthly pension,” says Irma Junco. However, this pensioner says she can allow herself a “taste” because she has just sold her apartment and moved to a smaller property and “the difference in money is for me to eat better, because I am bored eating rice with hot dogs and chicken.”

If in a market of El Corte Inglés in Spain a box of pasta Farfalle costs 1.46 euros, in Havana its price of 2.50 CUC is equivalent to 2.11 euros

The prices of the new products have also “swelled” quite a lot in their long journey from their origin. If in El Corte Inglés market in Spain a box of Farfalle pasta costs 1.46 euros, in Havana its price of 2.50 CUC is equivalent to 2.11 euros. Something similar happens with a 6-portion package of yeast powder, which has gone from 0.63 euros in Spain to 1.65 in Cuba.

The contrast becomes greater in those products that in Madrid are presented in packages and in Havana are sold by the unit. If a package of three cans of sweet corn costs Spaniards 2.09 euros, Cubans must pay 1.10 for each can. When the administration of La Puntilla is asked about this the answer is always: “We do not choose the prices, they are already determined,” in a clear reference to the management of the Hard Currency Collection Stores (TRD).

Cuban consumers have complained repeatedly about the lack of transparency with regards to the percentage of profit that the State takes on the products it sells in the TRDs. However, studies done independently put the amount at between 50% and 240% of the initial purchase cost in the international market.

As excessive regulations stifle the agricultural production of the island, the country must import more than 80% of the food that it consumes, which means an expense to the national coffers of more than 2 billion a year.

The canned corn, canned fruit, or ground coffee that are now marketed in La Puntilla are part of a huge bill that the island spends on the purchase of cereals, rice, beans, corn, soybeans, milk powder and chicken to sustain both the rationed market and the retail network.

In the last two years, with the economic crisis in Venezuela and the decline in oil shipments at a preferential price from that country, paying for this flow of imports has become very difficult. The lack of liquidity, in the face of the loss of profits from the resale of the oil, has caused Raúl Castro’s government to have to cut imports.

The name Aliada, another of the private labels of El Corte Inglés, is also printed on several packages of pasta that fill the shelves. Products of both private labels come to the island through the Italian company Farmavenda and are sold exclusively in the TRDs managed by the Revolutionary Armed Forces. So far only two stores in the Cuban capital offer their products, although there are plans to extend them to others this year.

Also arriving in Cuba in recent months, with less media hype, is another brand of food, this one marketed by Alcampo, the Spanish subsidiary of the French group Auchan.

The arrival of El Corte Inglés in Cuba via its imported food is an event charged with symbolism. The establishment was inspired by the sales techniques of the new El Encanto stores, founded on the island by the Spanish brothers José and Bernardo Solís.

The establishment was inspired by the sales techniques of the new El Encanto stores, founded on the island by the Spanish brothers José and Bernardo Solís

Two of their employees from Asturias, César Rodríguez and Ramón Areces, settled in Madrid after working for decades in the famous Havana store. There they founded, in 1935, the great department stores, to which they brought their experience in selling by departments, advertising campaigns and the design of the stained glass windows that had so much success among Cuban customers. To this day, the giant is still the most powerful in Spain despite its falling profits and its problems with the Treasury.

Its predecessor in Havana suffered a different fate. With the coming to power of Fidel Castro in January 1959, El Encanto was nationalized and in 1961 two firebombs burned it down. The Revolutionary government accused the CIA of being behind the action, in which the famous militia woman Fe del Valle died. The place where the property had been was turned into a park that now bears her name.

Despite its sudden end, El Encanto is still a recurring memory that comes up when talking about the island’s republican past.

“Now they are the ones who send products to us,” laments Irma Junco, a 78-year-old retiree who inspected the shelves of La Puntilla on Tuesday after learning about the arrival of the products from El Corte Inglés. “We were pioneers in a lot of things and now we are in the caboose of the train,” she says sarcastically, while holding a can of fruit cocktail with the logo of the Spanish brand.

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The 14ymedio team is committed to serious journalism that reflects the reality of deep Cuba. Thank you for joining us on this long road. We invite you to continue supporting us, but this time by becoming a member of 14ymedio. Together we can continue to transform journalism in Cuba.

The equipment, with tinted windows against the sun and lightly padded seats, was the target of jokes and speculations throughout the day.

At the first stop, near the Vía Blanca, the young people at a nearby high school gathered to enter as a group through its wide doors. The E12 bus is eco-friendly with Zero Emission, moves at a maximum speed of 40 miles per hour and has Michelin tubeless tires.

But none of this seemed to matter too much to the teenagers. Their conversation after sitting down wasn’t about the batteries or the fact that the bus does not consume fossil fuel, but about the efficient air conditioning that keeps the interior cool.

In a country where most of the year the thermometer climbs over 80 degrees Fahrenheit, it is no small thing to be able to move around the city without fat drops of sweat trickling down in a sweltering public bus. The lack of crowding in the aisles and the fact that on the walls of the vehicle no one has yet marked it with phrases in the style of “Claudia loves Maikel” also seems strange.

“Soon there will be some self-employed guy renting out overcoats,” jokes a young woman. Beside her, in the blue high school uniform, a classmate is skeptical: “This will not last long.” Most of the conversations passengers share across the seats are expressions of regret for the deterioration that, inevitably, the vehicle will suffer.

The suspicion that cleanliness, air conditioning and comfort cannot withstand the passage of time, in the face of apathy and the lack of control that reigns on the island, dominates the conversations. “Here everything starts well and ends badly,” says an old woman who pinches the seat covering to see what it is made of.

“They say it has cameras and sensors in the back door,” warns a dark-haired man. “That is so that nobody leaves without paying,” the young woman who travels next to her responds. “And the seat is intelligent,” he adds, “that means you sit and it takes care of you, you can pass your hand over it and other things…” he says with a mischievous look.

A woman comes on with a string of onions she just got after “walking all over Havana.” From the bundle, thin layers fall off and land on the spotless floor. “Compañera, be careful, you have already started messing it up,” her seatmate scolds her, asking her where she bought the onions, because “they’re impossible to find.”

The driver’s assistant, in addition to collecting the fares, insists that nobody travel standing up and stares across the bus from one side to the other like a police officer. In the middle of the trip a lady climbs on with a ten-year-old girl and gets upset because she can’t stand next to her daughter. “Are you going to take care of the depraved ones who want to take advantage of her?” she asks the employee, who insists that she cannot stand in the aisle.

The first discussion of the day begins with an incident involving a dozen neighbors all willing to explain the dangers of a minor traveling alone and “the squaring of the circle,” according to a young man, who talks about bureaucratic regulations. “Coming or going here, now it is forbidden to travel standing,” he mocks.

A gentleman of advanced age, with worn out clothes, can’t bear even three minutes inside the vehicle. “Let me get off, it is very cold,” he says, yelling at the driver to open the door. “Get used to it, this will be the public transport of 2020,” the driver manages to tell him before a man gets on with a wireless speaker blasting reggaeton.

The bus runs without incident along Calzada del Cerro. When all the seats are occupied it does not even slow down at the bus stops, always crowded at that time of the morning. As they pass by, people on the street open their eyes, point and comment about the shiny body. “That, that’s the one they put on the television,” one hears when the door opens.

A couple of tourists take a photo at the insistence of their informal guide who “sells” the wonder of being able to spot the first bus of that type in all of Cuba. “You will not see this anywhere else in this country, it’s pure novelty,” he emphasizes.

The vehicle is about 40-feet long, 8 feet wide and 10 feet high, with 35 seats, five of them for people with disabilities, and a wider aisle that allows 70 passengers to stand, despite the ban from yesterday.

At the top of Infanta Street, a young mother approaches with her seven-year-old son, loaded with packages. “Mommy, this bus is new,” exclaims the boy excitedly. “This really is a bus,” he repeats as he runs his hand over the handrails and the edge of the seats.

The euphoria is painted on his little face, until a man who travels two stops further shouts: “I’ll trade you the bus for your mother.” A collective laugh fills the interior of the gleaming bus before the driver’s grim gaze. “No, because the mother is mine and this bus is not yours,” the boy replies, adding a curse that remains floating in the air.

When it reaches the end of the route, there is another line of people waiting on Avenida del Puerto to make the return trip. New comments emerge as the passengers board. No one comments on the benefits of this transport to the environment or the fuel savings. The first one to board starts off with a joke: “How much do I have to pay for the electricity?”

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The 14ymedio team is committed to serious journalism that reflects the reality of deep Cuba. Thank you for joining us on this long road. We invite you to continue supporting us, but this time by becoming a member of 14ymedio. Together we can continue to transform journalism in Cuba.

Last December, officialdom finally put number to the Cubans who live in “illegal” situations on the Island: 107,200, of which 52,800 have been doing so for more than two decades, according to comments from Samuel Rodiles Planas, the president of Physical Planning, speaking to the Cuban Parliament.

These illegals are people who reside in a dwelling different from the registered address that appears on their identity card; as a result, many have difficulties in qualifying for their quotas in the rationed market, especially when they are far from their province of origin, because each nuclear family is assigned to one and only one bodega.

Roberto Macías has been “illegal” in Havana for seven years. He arrived from the distant city of Guantánamo, the province that loses the greatest numberof inhabitants every year due to internal migration: 9.1 per 1,000 people. Since then he has lived “without a ration booklet,” although his mother, back in Guantánamo, collects sugar and rice from the rationed quota to send him every three months.

The majority of Cuban migrants within the island choose the capital as their destination – where an average of 15,000 new residents arrive each year – followed by Matanzas, Artemisa and Mayabeque, according to data from the 2015 Cuban Population Yearbook and published by the National Office of Statistics and Information (ONEI).

Not only must these internal migrants say goodbye to their homes and family members in search of opportunities, but many of them have to give up the products from the rationed market. “I have not managed to have an address in Havana that is not provisional, and without that I can’t transfer my ration book here,” laments Macias.

The Guantanameran was born in 1963, just one year after the creation of the Ration Book as a system of subsidies and food rationing intended to guarantee a basket of affordable basic products for all Cubans. It was almost an emergency measure, like the one that was taken in some European countries after the Second World War, but in the Cuban case it may soon become a system that has lasted for six decades.

At that time, the imposition of a rationed market was justified based on the “imperialist” threat of the United States and its trade embargo. However, economist and professor Carmelo Mesa-Lago, in his studies, also attributes it to the collectivization of the means of production and the freezing of the prices of consumer goods carried out by Fidel Castro’s government.

Macías has visited the Consumers Registry Office (OFICODA) in Havana’s Cerro neighborhood where he currently resides, but the answer is always the same: “If you do not have the address on your identity card we can not sign you up for the ration book,” they respond.

Although over the years the variety and quantity of products offered through rationing has been significantly decreasing, the State still spends more than one billion pesos a year in subsidies for these foods which are barely enough for a third of the month; in a country that imports about 80% of the food consumed, the cost figure is not negligible.

With meager portions of rice, chicken, sugar, milk, oil, eggs, beans and the daily quota of bread provided on the ration book, it is difficult to survive, but many families use it as a basic support to which they add the products they must buy at high prices in hard currency stores, agricultural markets or through informal trading networks.

Macias, however, does not have even that base. “It’s very hard because every day I have to invent what my family is going to eat and when I can’t find a peso I’m totally at sea,” he says.

This week, he has to go and look for “the box” with the quarterly shipment that arrives for him by rail from Guantanamo with the quota of grains and rice that were allocated to him for October, November and December. His mother has warned him that on this occasion “she had to take a little for herself during the end of the year,” he says.

A few yards away from the place where the Guantanameran resides in Havana lives another family that does not buy the products on the ration book, but for a very different reason. The husband is a musician with a salsa orchestra, the wife is a nationalized Spanish citizen, and the couple has an economic affluence that allows them to dispense with subsidized food.

“Years ago I handed over to an aunt of mine the right to buy my shares on the ration book because she needs it much more,” says Katia Lucia, 48. Among the reasons she gives is that she doesn’t want to “keep standing in line to buy at the bodega” and “the quality has fallen a lot,” so she “spends a little more on food but eats better.”

La cubañola travels frequently to Cancun to stock up on products. “The ticket is cheap and I bring everything from concentrated tomato puree to small soup cubes, as well as cheese, butter and toilet paper.” With three trips a year, plus what her husband earns as a musician, she says they can “resolve” their needs “without appealing to the ration book.”

But the family of Katia Lucia and her husband continue to qualify for the same products every month as do the most destitute. A contradiction that Raul Castro himself lamented in 2010 when he said that “several of the problems we face today have their origin in this measure of distribution that (…) constitutes a manifest expression of egalitarianism that benefits equally those who work and those who do not.”

“What they give you, take it,” laughs Katia Lucia recalling a very popular phrase that reflects like no other the cronyism that rationed distribution has generated. “I’m not going to leave those foods in the bodega. What for? To be picked up by someone else?” she explains to 14ymedio. “I prefer to give it to my aunt or give it to the dogs, but if it ‘belongs’ to me I will not leave it behind.”

During the public debates on the Guidelines for Economic and Social Policy, in 2010 and 2011, the possible elimination of the ration book was the topic that provoked the most comments and fears.

Maintaining it is like dragging a weight that the stagnant economy can barely sustain due to the heavy subsidies involved in selling food at very low prices. Some experts suggest limiting access to the ration book to the people most in need so that everyone can have a greater amount of food.

The economist Pedro Monreal believes this is the way to go and he proposes in his blog “a shrewder budgetary redistribution.” For example, if the number of beneficiary households is reduced to 3 million instead of the current 3,853,000, the subsidy for each family increases by 28.5%. With 2.5 million households, the subsidy for each one grows by 54%, and with 2 million, the increase is 92.6%.

There remains a question in the air, which Monreal has not yet addressed in his blog: what will be the criteria to reduce the number of beneficiaries “without setting off an extended social unrest”?

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The 14ymedio team is committed to serious journalism that reflects the reality of deep Cuba. Thank you for joining us on this long road. We invite you to continue supporting us, but this time by becoming a member of 14ymedio. Together we can continue to transform journalism in Cuba.

“I have had patients who use and abuse these pills as if they were eating candy, just because they think they need more vitamins or because one of their children sent them some ‘nice’ pills from over there,” the doctor complains. “People think they can get healthy just by taking this every day, but it’s the lifestyle that they maintain that really influences their health.”

The World Health Organization (WHO) recommends strict limits on the consumption of nutritional supplements and vitamins. It also warns that raising the doses can cause serious problems, including birth defects and increased mortality among adults.

However, most Cubans on the island seem to be unaware of these warnings and the consumption of vitamins is increasing, according to several specialists consulted by this newspaper. The intake of these supplements has become one of today’s visible status symbols in Cuban society.

“You will feel like new, happier and more vigorous,” reads a classified ad in one of the numerous digital pages where thousands of Cubans go to buy both aspirin and cars. “If you want to be more active every day and full of life call me,” invites the text in an ad that offers everything from “vitamin C gummies for children” to “flavored tablets for adults,” all “very colorful and high quality.”

The informal market has an extensive variety of vitamins and nutritional complexes that contrast with the empty shelves of state pharmacies to which many continue to go in search of the old and tired standby Polivit, which has been taken to alleviate the population’s malnutrition for almost 25 years.

Several medical studies undertaken starting in the great recession — the so-called Special period — that was set off with the fall of the Soviet bloc revealed that Cubans suffered serious deficiencies of vitamin A, thiamine and niacin, in addition to the entire group of B vitamins. Those deficiencies were announced through the independent and foreign press, despite the Government’s attempts to silence the problem.

The Ministry of Public Health began distributing multivitamin tablets, which during the first year were delivered free of charge through family doctor’s offices but later became a part of the regular inventory of pharmacies at subsidized prices. The supplements leant their names — Polivit or Multivit — as a symbol of the scarcity of those hard years.

The nutritional complex includes folic acid, in addition to vitamins A and B, and has an intense yellow color, to the point that some used it to dye rice at the time when food dyes disappeared from store shelves. There were also jokes about the Polivit and even the suspicion of some who renamed the pills as “soul stealers,” in the midst of social paranoia due to excessive government controls.

In 2003, a study by the Institute of Nutrition and Food Hygiene (INHA) revealed that 26.4% of the population consumed vitamin supplements. From a sample of almost 50,000 people interviewed, almost three-quarters of those who reported that they did not take these nutrients, said it was because of “lack of the habit” or because they felt they the supplements made them more hungry.

In the families that did consume vitamins, the INHA found that children and the elderly were almost always prioritized. The study also reported the dissatisfaction of Polivit consumers due to the variations in the supply that prevented many of them from taking them regularly.

“I have been taking it for almost 20 years because I have had many health problems and I need to strengthen my diet, which is not very varied either,” says Azucena, 68, who sat outside the Carlos III Street pharmacy this Saturday, asking if Polivit had arrived.

Last December, the Ministry of Public Health and the state-owned Biotechnology and Pharmaceutical Industries Group (BioCubaFarma) admitted the “instability” in the supply of medicines and supplements. Delivery failures from raw material suppliers affected production, as more than 85% of the compounds must be imported.

Azucena also regrets that the Polivit has “an unattractive presentation” and hard tablets. “To convince a child to take it, a little grace is needed.”

To alleviate the shortage and the “grayness” of Polivit, many families turn to their relatives abroad or buy supplements in the informal market.

Customs allows the importation of up to 10 kilos of medicines, which “are exempt from paying customs duties, provided that they come in their original containers and are separated from the rest of the articles,” so that a good part of the “business of vitality” is nourished by travelers’ personal imports.

“Every time I come, I bring my 10 kilograms of medicines and most of them are vitamins for my family,” says Rebeca Orizondo, a Cuban woman who has lived in Miami since she left the island during the Rafter Crisis in 1994. “My mother, who is already very old, can’t miss taking Omega 3 and calcium, so I keep her supplied.”

These small pills also are an expression of the growing social differences across the country and their use is often linked to access to convertible currency or simply contacts with people living abroad.

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The 14ymedio team is committed to serious journalism that reflects the reality of deep Cuba. Thank you for joining us on this long road. We invite you to continue supporting us, but this time by becoming a member of 14ymedio. Together we can continue to transform journalism in Cuba.

To get to the place you have to cross the living room of the house where the grandmother is watching a boring program on national television and Roger’s grandchildren are listening to music from a wireless speaker. Down the hallway, towards the kitchen, you enter a large room that seems to belong to a different dimension.

Roger was ten years old when “the bearded ones came to power and banned casinos and gambling.” Since then, gambling and bets have been submerged in the illegality from which not even police operations, denunciations and fear have been able to eradicate them. “Cubans carry this in their genes, they can’t take it from us,” he reflects. A betting promoter faces fines or penalties of between one to three years in prison that can increase to as much eight years if there are minors involved.

Several screens show even the smallest details of each challenge. There are eight small tables with four chairs each, a bar and all kinds of posters with sports glories on the walls. A small door leads to a bathroom usually overwhelmed by the amount of beer consumed.

Before entering the room, all guests must leave their mobile phones on the kitchen sideboard, among the containers of sugar, salt and a half-empty bottle of oil. “This is a complicated and I can’t even chance going out on the roof because someone might think of taking a picture,” explains the tanned manager.

Roger met Rigondeaux when “he was a boy who did not even know what he was worth,” he says. He saw him grow in the long hours of training, take to the ring, and earn several gold medals and fall into the abyss. “That boxer had the best and worst of things that could happen to a Cuban athlete.”

In July 2007, during the Pan-American Games in Rio de Janeiro, Rigondeaux and his colleague Erislandy Lara left the Island delegation. “They were knocked out with a direct blow to the chin, bought with American bills,” said former President Fidel Castro in one of his convalescent Reflections [a newspaper column].

Fidel Castro’s political ally in the form of Brazil’s President Dilma Rousseff, deployed an operation to capture both athletes until they were pushed back to Cuba. The fate of the fighters was sealed and Castro warned that they would not get back into the ring. Rigondeaux lived long months of exclusion in which even his friends did not dare to approach him.

In 2009, he managed to escape from the island to Miami and there he began a professional career on the rise that, this Saturday, took him face-to-face with Vasyl “Hi-Tech” Lomachenko to compete in the Superfeatherweight World Championship at Madison Square Gardens in New York, in front of more than 5,000 spectators. Many miles away, in Havana, Roger’s place was the scene of pure tension.

Although people gathered throughout the city to watch the fight through illegal satellite dishes, for the official press the Santiaguan born in the same year as the Mariel Boatlift, 1980, is still a “traitor,” and so it kept a stubborn silence.

While the sports publications all over the world announced it as one of the most important matches in the last century, Cuban national television ignored its importance and preferred to dedicate its sports commentaries to the National Baseball Series. “If Fidel Castro ever cursed you, you stay cursed,” explains an local clandestine assiduous bettor.

Indoors, the clash between the Cuban and the Ukrainian was watched with great intensity. During the time the match was broadcast, passersby on the streets of the most populated municipalities of the capital, such as Central Havana, Old Havana or Diez de Octubre, could string together the trajectory of the fight from the sounds of televisions coming from doors and windows.

“Here, there is profit to be made not only on the bets, but also on the consumption,” explains Roger’s wife, who moves stealthily between the tables and the bar, serving drinks and plates with goodies to snack on. Almost all those who have arrived are men, although a couple of them are accompanied by their wives who get bored in front of the screens.

Before it starts, the bets are taken. Everything is written on a long piece of paper that bears names, quantities and other details. Each possibility is considered: number of attacks by one fighter or the other, possible counts of protection, a KO favoring the Ukrainian or the Cuban and even the number of blows against the opponent.

Both pugilists are known for their different styles but also for being “enchanted” and that adds tension among the bettors. They prepare for a transmission dotted with good times and some can barely stay seated, threatening to punch the TV as soon as the match begins.

Roger serves two Cuba Libres while periodically looking at the scoreboard. His boy is losing ground in front of the Ukrainian, but that does not worry him. Sympathy is one thing and money is another. “I bet Lomachenko since he is a safer boxer and youth is on his side because it makes him more daring,” he says.

The room is divided. Some whistle when the Cuban begins to show signs of having been dominated by the Ukrainian, others encourage him to hit harder and to not let himself “eat the coconut” with the rapid movements of his rival. The support for their compatriot is yielding before the bitter evidence that the fight is slipping away from him.

Rigondeaux, El Chacal (The Jackal), 37, came to the fight with two titles as Olympic champion, and 247 amateur fights, of which he lost only four. In his career as a professional he has fought 17 matches with an equal number of victories, 11 of them by KO. He is the world champion in super bantamweight and for Saturday’s bout he had to climb two weight classes.

The 29-year-old Ukrainian also has an impressive professional record of 10 fights, 9 wins and 7 knockouts. From the first attack this Saturday he dominated. He is faster, hits more cleanly and he can decipher the signs of his adversary, whom he pushes to the limit.

The glasses with rum and vodka pass from one side to the other in Roger’s place. One man chews his fingernails and another does not take his hands off his face as he sees how the Cuban is losing to his opponent. Nobody gets up to go to the bathroom, nobody talks. A heavy silence has settled in the room.

The fight ends in failure for Rigondeaux, who can’t fight in the seventh round due to a broken hand. The Santiagiaguan was well below his usual level and showed flaws in his technique, characterized by the power of his left foot and a great defensive capacity. He did not even manage to impress with the movement of his feet, one of the most distinctive features of his “sports choreography.”

Lomachenko rises with the triumph and consolidates his place among the best fighters in the world by defeating the Cuban in an unquestionable way. Roger smiles behind the bar and calculates that he has won about 1,000 CUC between the bets and the products he has sold.

The customers who had no luck pay out their money, one takes a ring from his finger and leaves it on the bar, while the winners smile and ask for another round. When it all ends they pick up their phones and go out one by one through the living room, where the grandmother is sleeping in front of the television.

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The 14ymedio team is committed to serious journalism that reflects the reality of deep Cuba. Thank you for joining us on this long road. We invite you to continue supporting us, but this time by becoming a member of 14ymedio. Together we can continue to transform journalism in Cuba.

“I never thought I would end up living in the United States,” she confesses in a recording she sent to 14ymedio.

“At one point we were everywhere in Cuba, but now you have to look hard to find a Russian,” Valentina says, with a vocabulary filled with Cubanisms. The official data confirm this perception: according to the Russian consulate on the island there are just over 1,000 nationals, although this figure is tripled if descendants are included.

Lately, as the centenary of the Russian Revolution approached, the official press has remarked on the friendship with Russia since 1973, when Cuba joined the Council of Mutual Economic Assistance (CAME), which led to the presence of the “comrades” dispersed throughout the country. “In most of the ministries there was a Soviet adviser who reported directly to Moscow and could intervene in the decisions,” says Valentina.

Such intense contract highlights that there are no more traces left in gastronomy, popular speech or cultural tastes. Perhaps because the differences were so many, in the words of an academic and writer, “Cubans and Russians beat on different wavelengths,” and sometimes they simply do not agree on anything.

“They welcomed me with affection but also there was some conflict from time to time because I had a very different way of looking at life and confronting problems,” recalls Valentina. “For me, my first months were marvelous, but with time it was a daily struggle with my Cuban family, the neighbors and even on the street.”

Not only were the Russians everywhere, the emblems and symbols of the Soviet Union filled the Cuban reality for more than three decades. Thousands of Lada cars were passing through the streets alongside the noisy Kamaz trucks, devourers of huge amounts of fuel, but strong as war tanks.

In Cuban homes, there were Aurika washing machines and Orbit fans while Krim TVs, all arriving from the distant country, played an infinity of cartoons and films made in the USSR. After the fall of the Soviet Union these appliances were replaced by others from China, South Korea and even the United States, while Hollywood productions filled the television schedule.

“They were ugly but long-lasting,” a home repairman who specialized in repairing Soviet washing machines told 14ymedio. “I have many customers who continue to use them.” The technician thinks that Cubans never valued the things that came from the Soviet Union because they cost very little and in addition were seen as rough or ugly. “But they were very good,” he says.

The nickname received by the Russians during their presence on the island and which is still in use today refers precisely to that rough image that the nationals captured in them. They were called bolos – bowling pins – in reference to their lack of sophistication and their tendency to prioritize operations before the aesthetic details.

While the political discourse was filled with phrases that spoke of sovereignty and national independence, behind the scenes the Soviets supported the entire economy of the island. Fidel Castro received more than 4 billion dollars a year from the USSR for his revolutionary project. the facilities of payment and trade with other nations of the socialist camp.

The country received some 200 million dollars that Russia paid each year for the rent of the Lourdes Radar Center, in the province of Pinar del Río, a military enclave that some voices within the Committee of Defense and Security of the Council of the Russian Federation is asking to be reopened.

The economist Óscar Espinosa Chepe, who died in 2013, was very clear about the economic weight that the Island represented for the USSR: “Actually, it was not Gorbachev. Cuba put an end the Soviet Union!” he told the Spanish press six years ago. “In unpaid credits alone the Russians estimate that they lost about 20 billion dollars over the time.”

The aid sustained the systems of health and education of which the Cuban government boasted for years in international forums. “But it did not help to develop the country, neither the countryside nor industry survived the collapse of the Soviet Union,” added Espinosa Chepe.

The economic support of the Kremlin diminished towards the end of the 1980s and stopped soon after, triggering the so-called Special Period on the Island, an unprecedented economic crisis. Cuba was then left with a debt of 35 billion dollars to Russia, which the Government of Vladimir Putin later canceled 90% of.

In the last edition of the Havana International Fair, last week, the Russian presence was again remarkable, but this time under other rules. Both countries made progress in the negotiations for the reconstruction of the rail network, a project that covers more than 680 miles of railway track, and also for the supply of construction, road and transportation equipment.

Polina Martínez Shviétosova, a writer of Russian origin living in Havana, believes that in recent years “the Russians have returned, they have been coming as entrepreneurs and it would be good if more came.” Although the ideal, she thinks, is that Cuban entrepreneurs, as individuals, could present a portfolio of business without state interference.

However, she acknowledges that this moment seems distant and that for now the greatest commercial relationship between the people of both countries is marked by the trips of the ‘mules’ who “go to Russia to buy the many products that are missing here.”

Martínez Shviétosova dreams of returning to live in Russia. “I wish my passport were an airplane,” she says. The writer prefers not to be pigeonholed into a nationality. “I want to be free of the idea that I’m Cuban or that I’m Russian,” but she likes to call herself polovina.

The writer recommends some places in the Cuban capital that offer Russian dishes. TaBARich opened its doors in October 2013 and its manager, Pavel, assures that it is “for the Russian community that lives in Cuba and also the nostalgic Cubans of the Soviet era.”

Last week, a cycle of Russian films was screened in a Havana cinema. “They are not like before,” warned a newspaper seller at the entrance to the theater. “They do not make me cry so much,” he joked. “They are not Soviet, they are Russian,” he repeated several times while only about four people bought tickets for the evening showing.

Edel Fernández Izquierdo does not hide his relief at having left prison and being able to resume his food service business, which has been rated as excellent by Tripadvisor. The small businessman was arrested along with 11 other people investigated for alleged economic crimes, but ultimately no charges were lodged against him.

The arrest last year of several owners of very successful private restaurants in Las Tunas and Camagüey, including the owner of 1800, was interpreted by some citizens as a sign of a government plan to put the brakes on the private sector.

The situation escalated to a point of uncertainty among the 33 private restaurant license holders in Camagüey, where in November of last year a meeting was convened between the owners of private restaurants and representatives of the government, together with officials from various state agencies.

At that meeting, the authorities reported that irregularities were detected in the inspections carried out in the sector, such as the presence of uncontracted workers in the establishments, delays or underreporting in the payment of taxes to the National Office of Tax Administration (ONAT), illegal construction, and trade in unauthorized merchandise.

Jesús Polo Vázquez, Economic Vice-President of the Provincial Council Administration, also told the official press that the searches and arrests were simply actions targeted to problems of “legality in the exercise of non-state management,” and that as long as the premises comply with established law no facility would be “unjustifiably closed.”

Now, Hernández Izquierdo is happy to be able to continue the business in his name, unlike other owners who were investigated and who ceded the ownership of their restaurants to a relative to keep them open. This is the case with the restaurant La Herradura in the Villa Mariana neighborhood, whose previous owner, Papito Rizo, was also arrested.

Hernández Izquierdo resumed his business after spending two months in Cerámica Roja prison in Camagüey and the police investigation, which ultimately never went to court, continued after his release.

Since its reopening the Hernandez Izquierdo’s restaurant does not have “half of the drinks” it had available before because during the police search some of the bottles were seized and that still have not been returned, although the owner does not give up the dream that someday he will know “what became of them.”

Outside, under the intense October sun, a tourist guide explained to a group of Canadians this weekend that 1800 serves the best Cuban food in the area. One of the visitors was also interested in the architecture of the large house on Plaza San Juan de Dios, the tourist heart of the city.

The paladar is visited mainly by foreign tourists and Cubans living abroad, but there are local diners who come looking for quality and good service.

Hernández Izquierdo is licensed as a “food and beverage vendor” to work in the hospitality industry.

The limits of the license are strict and Hernandez Izquierdo does not even want to know about exceeding what he is allowed. “If I want to have a man here to make cigars to sell them that is not allowed, among other things because there is no such license,” reflects the owner.

Local authorities have redoubled inspections in recent months to ensure strict compliance with the rules governing the operation of these premises. None can have more than 50 chairs, they must respect the defined opening and closing hours, and be supplied exclusively by products bought in the state stores – backed up by invoices – according to what several owners consulted by this newspaper have confirmed.

Last August, the Cuban government temporarily halted the issuing of licenses to private restaurants and rental houses for tourists, among other activities, in order to “regulate self-employment.” So far the issuance of these permits has not been resumed

Edel Hernández Izquierdo plans to “forget the negative moments” and to return to position himself in Camagüey as a prestigious restaurant. “It is no coincidence that we are well recommended in all the guides and by all travel agencies,” he says with pride. “To keep the name and to make up the lost time, that is my goal.”

“We will continue to serve and generate employment, despite the misunderstandings we are subject to,” confirms the owner of 1800. He smiles and adds, “I like what I do and I will continue to fight.”

“With that name, could it be anything else?” says a customer on his third mojito, laughing. “They call it that for Mulata rum,” adds the guy, although he confesses that “it’s sweet, nobody knows where it came from.” Three other men with their elbows on the bar smirk as they make sexual allusions about the origin of the adjective.

Recently, a Regional Conference on Women in Latin America and the Caribbean finished in Cuba. In the main session, Congresswoman Yolanda Ferrer said that “the concept of the feminine began to change from the day the Revolution triumphed.” However, she avoided referring to the sexist use that continues to be made of the image of women, not only in popular music, but also in tourist advertising and political propaganda.

The conference, convened by the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), had room only to extol the situation of women in Cuba, to recall the late Vilma Espín, president of the Federation of Cuban Women, and to slip in another line from Fidel Castro. During the days of the event, tourists continued to arrive at the La Dulce Mulata bar asking, “How much does a woman like the one in the photo cost in Cuba?”

*The Sweet Mixed-Race Woman