The protest sign against the Cuban Communist Party on a wall in Aguirre Park, in the Havana district of Revolution Square. (Screen capture)
14ymedio, Juan Diego Rodríguez, Havana, 23 March 2023 – A new protest sign against the dictatorship caused surprise among Havana residents on Thursday. This time it had the words “No to the PCC” (Cuban Communist Party), written in giant capitals on the wall at the back of Aguirre Park, in the Revolution Square district.
The action took place in the early hours, judging by videos posted on social media by an organisation calling itself The New Governing Body, which alludes to the University Student Governing Body (DEU) which confronted Gerardo Machado in the Cuban republic of the 1930’s.
During the morning, 14ymedio confirmed that the protest sign was still there, as there was no means of instantly cleaning it off, like there had been on previous occasions. What was present though was an enormous State Security operation, with dozens of Interior Ministry motorcycles visible or concealed between the bushes.
“They must be on the lookout for anyone taking pictures”, said a local woman through clenched teeth, as she passed by, surprised. “Don’t get your phone out, not even to make a call, because they’re everywhere”.
A new protest sign against the dictatorship caused surprise among Havana residents on Thursday.
This kind of action, unprecedented in the history of the dictatorship, became frequent after the mass protests of 11 July 2021. In February 2022 an enormous sign appeared in Calle Gervasio / Enrique Barnet (Estrella) — also in central Havana — which read “Patria y vida” (Homeland and Life). That one also appeared during nighttime hours and was removed in the midst of a massive police presence.
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The actor Edel Carrero claims to have witnessed someone creating the sign a little before three in the afternoon. (Captura)
14ymedio, Juan Diego Rodriguez, Havana, March 14,2023 — “Down with the dictatorship, the murderous Castros.” That was the slogan someone had written in sand, in broad daylight, near the intersection of Crespo and Trocadero streets in Central Havana. Its broad letters can be seen stretching across the roadway in a video recorded sometime before three o’clock Tuesday afternoon. The video was posted online by the actor Edel Carrero, who claims to have witnessed the incident.
“I was heading home and saw him doing it,” says Carrero.”I waited for him to finish before recording so that he wouldn’t appear in the video, so that they wouldn’t catch him.” Carrero fears that might happen anyway because, as he notes, “There were other cameras at that corner, too.”
An hour later, a local resident could be seen sweeping up the sand after throwing several buckets of water onto the street from a balcony. The man, who was going about the task indifferently, did not bother responding when an elderly passerby asked, “Who you ordered to throw water on it?”
#Cuba "Abajo la dictadura, los Castros asesinos", escriben a plena luz en La Habana https://t.co/YastBoY6DR 👉Agentes policiales supervisan la limpieza del cartel, escrito con arena sobre el asfalto | Video: Edel Carrero (@CarreroEdel)/Twitter pic.twitter.com/1hAJYHkvDo
#Cuba “Down with the dictatorship, the murderous Castros,” written in broad daylight in Havana. Police agents supervise cleanup of the sign, written in sand on the asphalt
Meanwhile, the cleanup was being monitored by two policemen, a State Security agent and two people who appeared to be local officials of some sort.
Unlike at other such incidents, local residents distanced themselves from the site, though some could be seen whispering, making critical comments and even laughing from doorways and windows. “For this, they can find water,” said one woman sarcastically to a neighbor, with whom she was discussing the area’s supply problems.
It has been more than a year since anti-government graffiti has been scrawled anywhere, and act which had become common in the aftermath of mass protests on July 11, 2021. In February 2022, a huge sign appeared, painted on the asphalt with the slogan “Patria y Vida” on Gervasio and Enrique Barnet streets in Central Havana. It was erased during a large deployment of police at the site. The incident occurred at dawn.
A few weeks earlier, an entire mob of police as well as military and civilian agents on Suzuki motorcycles, plus a criminology vehicle, were mobilized in response to a sign of considerable size that had been painted on a wall on General Serrano Street, near the corner of Via Blanca, in the Havana district of Santos Suarez. The sign read: “Down with Canel singao [motherfucker].”
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The mural of Eusebio Leal, which decorates the wall of a collapsed building in Calle Teniente Rey, has deteriorated in a very short time. (14ymedio)
14ymedio, Juan Diego Rodríguez, Havana, 16 March 2023 – The mural which has decorated for years the empty space left by a building collapse in Calle Teniente Rey (almost on the corner of Monserrate and next to the paladar [private restaurant] Kilómetro Cero) has deteriorated in a very short time. The portrait of the ’Historian of the City’, Eusebio Leal — with its caption “My footsteps still look after your streets, Havana my heart, because I have not left you. I will live with you forever” — was still bright and colourful barely only a year ago.
These days, a one-eyed Leal — one-eyed because of the peeling paint — appears to give passers-by a grimace of disgust.
Eusebio Leal was the grand author of the restoration of Old Havana — in large part with the help of public funds from other countries such as Spain — and he continued the work of Emilio Roig de Leuchsenring, as head of the Office of Historiography.
Under his command, that state organisation became a powerful instrument for the promotion of culture and tourism. In his charge, for example, he had the company Habaguanex, which managed some 300 tourist sites, including restaurants, shops, markets, cafes and accommodation (totalling 546 rooms). Among these, of course, was the unfortunate Hotel Saratoga, destroyed by an explosion on 6 May 2022.
All the glory ended in 2016, when the Ministry for Armed Forces put Habaguanex under the charge of the Gaviota group, which belongs to the all-powerful Grupo de Administración Empersarial (Gaesa) [Management Administration Group], at that time led by Raúl Castro’s ex son-in-law, the late Luis Alberto Rodríguez López-Calleja.
From that moment on, everything in the historic centre of the capital went into decline — a district where many inhabitants have felt themselves orphaned by the death, on 31 July 2020, of the historian who delivered to them, and on time, a number of benefits, such as improved primary school meals.
Translated by Ricardo Recluso
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The logo of Russia’s Mir payment system on a Cuban ATM screen. Its card will allow Russian tourists to withdraw cash, converting their rubles to pesos.
14ymedio, Juan Diego Rodriguez, Havana, 14 March 2023 — Cuban ATMs have started accepting the Mir card, part of a Russian payment system akin to Visa or Mastercard, that was launched by the Kremlin in 2016 to get around looming economic sanctions. Mir’s press office told the Russian news agency Sputnik that it is working on getting the cards accepted in “friendly countries, including Cuba, which is very popular with Russian tourists.”
When asked about this by 14ymedio, an employee at a branch of Banco Metropolitano in Havana said she believed this was the case but was not sure.
What is certain is that the Mir logo can now be seen on Cuban ATMs. The payment system will allow Russians to withdraw cash, converting their rubles into pesos.
Cuba’s ambassador to Moscow, Julio Garmendía, said on Tuesday that he hoped Russian tourists would be able to use this type of card to make purchases on the island by this summer. According to an article by the state-run Prensa Latina news agency, the ambassador hopes that “all the difficulties with the introduction of the Russian payment system will be resolved soon.”
In any case, users will still face the same problem that Visa and Mastercard holders have had in many small private businesses in Cuba: these establishments do not have the POS terminals needed to read the cards, forcing their customers to pay for their purchases in cash. continue reading
For now, at least, most high-end establishments do not seem to be aware of this new system. At the Grand Aston, for example, 14ymedio was told that the hotel does not accept Mir cards. The problem, they say, is not on their end. It is because “Russian banks are blocked worldwide.”
Russia created the Mir system after the annexation of Crimea in 2014 and two years later began issuing cards for use within the country. In 2022 it tried to expand Mir’s reach beyond the country’s borders after Russia was locked out of the international banking system following Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.
Among the countries that accept the cards are South Korea, Uzbekistan, Vietnam, Armenia, Belarus, Turkey and Tajikistan. However, the service was suspended in the latter two countries last September because ATMs and card readers were not working.
Cuba has advocated for the use of Mir cards since sanctions on Russia were tightened last year and has promised to accelerate implementation of the system. In early March, Russia’s ambassador to Havana, Andrei Guskov, said that the adoption of Mir is part of a significant number of financial and energy projects the two countries agreed upon during Miguel Díaz-Canel’s visit in November 2022.
In an interview with Sputnik, Guskov stated that plans are being discussed for the construction of new operating units at the Maximo Gomez and Habana del Este electric power plants. Cuba has been in the midst of a severe energy crisis, experiencing ongoing blackouts of up to twelve hours in 2022, with more expected this year.
Russia also has a presence in the automotive sector, with the GAZ automotive company assembling its GAZelle, Ural and PAZ vehicles in Cuba. Among the new projects, Guskov added, are plans to set up an import/export company to promote Russian products in the Cuban market.
Guskov also indicated that a project to modernize the Antillana de Acero metallurgical plant, made possible by a 111-million-dollar loan from Russia in 2017, is in its final stage .
During the pandemic, when many countries’ borders were closed, Russia supplied the bulk of the island’s foreign tourists. The numbers plunged, however, after the invasion of Ukraine due to sanctions, which closed European air space to Russian carriers. Figures from Cuba’s National Statistics and Information Office [ONEI] indicate that, by the end of 2022, only 6,623 Russian travellers had visited Cuba, a drop of 54.7% from 2021.
An article by the organization Cuba Siglo 21 [Cuba 21st Century] suggests that a visit to Cuba and Venezuela in early March by Nikolai Patrushev, secretary of the Russian Security Council, was essentially military in nature and not related to economic and scientific development projects, as reported by state media.
The article, authored by former Cuban general Rafael del Pino, speculates that Russia is edging ever closer to a humiliating defeat in Ukraine and is, therefore, trying to burnish its image in the region by establishing a naval military presence in the Caribbean, as happened during the 1962 Missile Crisis.
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Both drivers – each over sixty years old – emerged unhurt but extremely nervous. (14ymedio)
14ymedio, Juan Diego Rodríguez, Havana, 7 March 2023 – A traffic accident in Havana on Tuesday left two people with light injuries: the drivers of cars which collided at the intersection of Calle 17 and Avenida de los Presidentes (Calle G) on El Vedado.
During a power cut — and consequent loss of traffic light functionality — one of the drivers, travelling on Calle G in a white VW hit an orange Fiat 126 travelling towards calle 17 and ended up on its side in the middle of the road. Both drivers – each over sixty years old — emerged unhurt but extremely nervous.
As reported to this paper the driver of the orange vehicle was bleeding as he hung onto his spectacles and the other driver of the white car was limping. The former was helped by a nurse — a friend of the family. The other — from Ciego de Ávila — was just on his way back from the nearby Heart Surgery and Cardiology institute — from a meeting where they had reviewed his recent open heart surgery.
The little orange Fiat 126 which was travelling on Calle 17 and ended up on its side. (14ymedio)
Both parties had additional problems though: The Fiat driver, faces the problem of getting replacement parts for a car that was first imported to the island in times of business with Eastern European communist countries. The driver from Ciego de Ávila couldn’t even get home because of the lack of available public transport.
“It was the power-cut’s fault”, said one of the rubberneckers at the scene. “But the drivers themselves were a bit negligent — one of them for not respecting the right of way on Calle G and the other for not driving slowly enough and stopping”.
“The main cause was the power cut”, said one of the rubberneckers at the scene, “but the drivers themselves were also to blame”. (14ymedio)
Translated by Ricardo Recluso
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Several years ago, the now disappeared Pyramids Kiosk stood on this spot, where they sold goods in CUC (convertible pesos) before the Tarea Ordenamiento law came into force. (14ymedio)
14ymedio, Juan Diego Rodríguez, Havana, 6 March 2023 — The outer wall of an old building on Calle Zapata, between calles Infanta and Basarrate, is just one of countless structures in the capital which is threatening to collapse. Each day local residents nervously check on its dangerous angle of inclination.
“Does anyone think that these old wooden poles they’ve put up are going to keep this wall standing upright?”, murmured a passer-by this morning. “It’s tremendously irresponsible. They should just demolish it as soon as possible”, a bread vendor replied. “In Monte a wall just like this one collapsed and killed a colleague of mine”.
Zapata, which starts in the middle of Calle Infanta, is a mainly circulatory route, and although some while ago the line/queue outside the H. Upmann store disappeared on this street, there are still cars and pedestrians travelling through here daily, unaware of the danger.
Several years ago, the now disappeared Pyramids Kiosk stood on this spot, where they sold goods in CUC (convertible pesos) before the TareaOrdenamiento* law came into force.
Today all that remains is this troubling facade, which seems certain to cause an accident. It’s yet another one in a city whose buildings keep falling down without the authorities doing anything about it.
*Translator’s note: The “Ordering Task” [Tarea Ordenamiento] is a collection of measures that include eliminating the Cuban Convertible Peso (CUC), leaving the Cuban peso as the only national currency, raising prices, raising salaries (but not as much as prices), opening stores that take payment only in hard currency which must be in the form of specially issued pre-paid debit cards, and a broad range of other measures targeted to different elements of the Cuban economy.
Translated by Ricardo Recluso
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The residential building next door to the Saratoga continues to look like an empty dolls’ house. (14ymedio)
14ymedio, Juan Diego Rodríguez/Juan Izquierdo, Havana, 23 February 2023 — The members of the Cuban Parliament who are elected on 26 March will not be able to avoid the sight of the ruin of the Hotel Saratoga, right opposite the Capitolio Nacional building. Habaneros, however, are already well accustomed to seeing the state of the building, which exploded on 6 May 2022, killing 47 people, and which today evokes a sickly-looking house of cards.
The top floor is the only one which remains intact, like a grotesque reminder of what the Saratoga used to be, surrounded as it is today by sheets of red zinc. But the hotel is barely the centre of gravity of the collapse: its neighbouring residential building, which features in some of the most dramatic photos of the disaster, continues to look like an empty dolls’ house.
A comparison between the first photographs of the building, taken just after the explosion, and the scene which is presented to any pedestrian today, shows that the building has been systematically ransacked, not only by its former residents but by criminals and random passers-by. Where there used to be a mounted picture frame, a piece of furniture or a kitchen appliance, now there is only a stark bare wall. continue reading
Various parts of the structure which survived the explosion have been removed by the construction workers, or have collapsed under their own weight. Nevertheless, the aura is not one of a reconstruction site, rather one of just another building which has been abandoned to its own fate.
A comparison between the first photographs of the building, taken just after the explosion, and the scene which is presented to any pedestrian today, shows that the building has been systematically ransacked. (14ymedio)
The people who lived at Prado 609, an annex of the hotel, were rehoused in the precarious Havana street of Vives, between Carmen and Figuras. It’s been a double tragedy for them: not only have they lost their homes but the new ones given to them by the government not only lack any charm but were constructed from cast concrete in one of the most “troubled” areas of the capital.
“They have no plans yet about what they’re going to do with the Saratoga. They’re not going to demolish it completely, only what’s necessary to stabilise the structure. The timetable is for 8 to 10 months”, a resident of the area told 14ymedio in December.
The company that the government commissioned for the work is Almest, a property developer linked to the Armed Forces, and a hitherto unknown French company, although evidence suggests that it’s the construction company Bouygues, which has worked on the construction of 22 luxury hotels on the island.
If one thing is clear it is that the fate of the Saratoga is bound up with that of the neighbouring buildings, among which there is also a baptist church. It would seem that the Cuban government has not yet decided on the move that will resolve the problem of one of the most central blocks of Havana.
Translated by Ricardo Recluso
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The few items for sale are prepared with ready-made products, such as chocolate-covered apples. (14ymedio)
14ymedio, Juan Diego Rodriguez, Havana, 24 February 2023 — La Dulce Habana, where one would normally see a crowd of people on any given day, has no sugar. On Friday the bakery, located on the corner of 25th and L streets in the Habana Libre Hotel in the heart of the Cuban capital, was eerily quiet.
One employee had to repeat the same line over and over to anyone who came in and asked the same questions. When are you going to be selling cake? When will you have sugar? When? “I wish I knew when. They still haven’t let us know. At least they’ve closed the front door,” said the employee. The bakery is one of the few places in the city where customers can still buy good-quality cakes for pesos, although at high prices. (The so-called “special cake” costs 3,000 pesos.)
The few items for sale are prepared with ready-made products, such as apples covered in chocolate cream (at 150 pesos), donuts also dipped in chocolate and tartlets made with canned fruit.
“I’m sick of hearing about the sugar situation,” says one frustrated woman as she leaves the store.
The fact that the country’s most iconic raw material has been largely unavailable to consumers for decades raises people’s ire. A little less than a month ago the government announced that sugar deliveries in 2023 would be meager given the disastrous results of the most recent harvest, to date the worst in history. Of the 911,000 tons of sugar forecast, only 480,000 were produced, a shortfall of 60,000, which will have serious a impact on both national consumption and the export market. The 2022-2023 harvest follows in the footsteps of the previous year’s poor results, with no improvement in sight. continue reading
Although the government announced in May of 2020 that sugar would be available on a rationed basis, food stores have found it necessary to find a solution to ongoing shortages of the product.
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La Bodeguita de San Rafael, on the Boulevard of the same name, in Havana. (14ymedio)
14ymedio, Juan Diego Rodríguez/Olea Gallardo, Havana, 20 February 2023 — A new market in the heart of Centro Habana, a ration store with various items, a stationery store in the Miramar Trade Center, a fabric and upholstery store in El Vedado, a re-opened Italian pizzeria in the same neighborhood… these establishments have three things in common: they have recently opened or reopened in the capital, they have very high prices, and now — with a new or former name — they are in private hands.
In the middle of Boulevard de San Rafael, the colorful poster of a large and well-stocked shop, inaugurated this Saturday, La Bodeguita de San Rafael, is a surprise. “The best of all I’ve seen so far; it’s one of the most beautiful,” said a customer, surprised at what the state clothing store that used to exist in that place had become.
But what left most people speechless were the prices: 34-oz. soft drinks at 450 pesos ($19), condensed milk at 550 ($23), a small tetrapack of tomato puree at 380 ($16), a pound of lentils at 400 ($17), a kilo of wheat flour at 590 ($25), two pounds of rice at 650 ($27), a simple glass of yogurt at 120 ($5).
“A woman spent almost 33,000 pesos ($1,375) in front of me,” said another man who went shopping. “I don’t know what she had in her shopping bags.”
Inside the store, a couple, a foreigner and a Cuban woman were talking. He asked her: continue reading
“Why do you go to the store in MLC [freely convertible currency] if they sell here in pesos?” She replied: “Because the prices are much higher; they are inflated. For example, that package of rice will cost 2 MLC or $1.90, and here it costs 600 Cuban pesos ($25).”
“It looks like they are reselling things from the MLC stores, but that’s not supposed to happen because it’s not allowed,” speculated an old man.
What seems clear is that, once again, the same scheme of the recently inaugurated grocery store of the Miramar Trade Center is being repeated, the same as what happened with the branches of the Sylvain chain and before that, the Fress. A variety of businesses have now gone from state hands to private hands overnight, without competition or prior notice.
Therefore, the inauguration the same Saturday of a “sodería-hamburger” shop called Complejo Zapata y 12, in that same municipality of Plaza de la Revolución, was striking. It was attended by Luis Antonio Torres Iríbar, first secretary of the Provincial Committee of the Party, and Reinaldo García Zapata, Governor of Havana.
Tribuna de La Habana reflected the same thing in a note published this Sunday. The initiative, reports the official press, is due to the “productive chain” between the state Provincial Company of the Food Industry (EPIA) and the private company Epcc, “with one person responsible.”
In this association, the text released by the director general of the EPIA, Abdelín González Mesa, explains, “The state entity provides the premises, the labor force and the technological infrastructure, while the private company supplies all the imported raw material and is involved in the manufacturing process.”
With this joint production, Tribuna continues, “the private actor has fewer costs and therefore can set more affordable prices for customers,” alluding to the surprising financing of the private company with public resources.
As stated with pomp, the establishment offers “several varieties of ice cream made in the unit itself, using natural fruits collected in the country and from imported components (chocolate, lemon, strawberry, orange and pineapple).” In addition, they boast that the offer “is marketed at prices lower than those currently set by other forms of private management”: the ice cream scoop costs 35 pesos ($1.45), and the simple hamburger costs 150 ($6.25).
This is one of the few occasions in which the official press publishes something related to new private businesses, whose proliferation was ratified by the meeting, last January, between Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel and Kremlin adviser Boris Titov.
As revealed by Russian media at the time — not by Cuban officials — both parties agreed to transform Cuba’s economy into a “private enterprise” one. For voices in exile such as the Cuba Siglo XXI ideas laboratory, this means an imminent transition from a “state-controlled economy model” to the “old elite oligarchic Soviet scheme” of taking control of numerous businesses.
Translated by Regina Anavy
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The soot from the fire in the garage had reached part of the floor immediately above and the sign spelling out the name of the building, which has long been missing letters. (14ymedio)
14ymedio, Juan Diego Rodríguez, Havana, 16 February 2023 — The explosion of an electric motorcycle caused a fire in the early hours of this Thursday in the garage of the Hermanas Giralt Building, in El Vedado, Havana. The event occurred around one in the morning, according to local residents speaking to 14ymedio.
“Thanks to the fact that the firefighters came immediately it was put out, but it was scary to hear the screams. It felt like saying ’fire, fire, help, help!’” recounts a woman residing near the damaged property. Another young man commented, referring to the frequent accidents with this type of vehicle: “The motorcycles are tremendously dangerous, they are time bombs, wherever you put them, you are playing with people’s lives.”
The neighbors, who reported that the electricity was cut off during the early hours of the morning in the vicinity –including the Habana Libre hotel and the so-called Torre K – feared for the electricity cables and gas pipes, but apparently, they were not affected. There were also no injuries.
The Havana fire department itself published on its Facebook page images of its actions at the building, located in the heart of the once luxurious Calle 23, between D and E.
Around noon, agents from the Ministry of the Interior were still at the scene collecting evidence. The soot from the fire in the garage had reached part of the floor immediately above and the sign spelling out the name of the building, which has long been missing letters.
In fact, the building, visible with its 17 floors from many parts of Havana, has been falling apart for years, despite having been one of the most luxurious in the capital.
Construction started in 1958 onthe project by the architect Óscar Fernández Tauler – who was inspired by the clean style of Frank Lloyd Wright. Under the Vazarta Territorial company, construction ended in 1961, two years after the triumph of the Revolution, when, already in the hands of the National Institute of Savings and Housing, the building was baptized with the name of Hermanas [Sisters] Giralt*, a symbol of the fight against Batista.
Its spacious apartments and its view of the sea made it a privileged enclave, and various cultural and entertainment personalities resided in its homes. When private accommodations began to be allowed in Cuba in the mid-1990s, it was also a magnet for tourists.
However, the deterioration of the façade and the balconies has turned it into a danger, and there have been complaints from the residents themselves, who published on social networks, last October, that the previous May the repair of the property had begun property, although the post regretted the “interruptions due to lack of allocations of economic resources.”
“The only thing missing is that the Copextel SA Technical Management entity fulfills the legally established commitment in a contract to repair the deteriorated roof terrace and its perimeter wall, a place where they have facilities and work equipment,” the post denounced. “For a year now they have been failing to comply despite the alerts from the owners’ board, who are already considering going to a legal claim.”
*Translator’s note: The Giralt Sisters were famous for having been tortured and killed by the Batista regime. Currently, some of the units in the building are in use as luxury vacation rentals.
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A space like the Havana Zoo could be the propitious scenario for spread between species and possible contagion to humans. (14ymedio)
14ymedio, Juan Diego Rodríguez, Havana, 16 February 2023 — “You approach and it seems nice, a green rectangle, but it immediately jumps out that it’s a place with many hidden things,” says María Elena Valdivia, designer and neighbor of the 26th Avenue Zoo in Havana, the place where lions roar and the first case of avian flu has been detected. If someone had thought about the worst point on the Island for the virus to land, reality has just surpassed it.
This Thursday the main entrance of the park remained closed, although the movement of workers could be seen inside. A faded poster with a painted zebra welcomes people, but there is no sign of the line of families with children that is usually nearby. The park has been in quarantine since the H5N1 subtype of avian influenza was detected in wild birds.
“This has been a health problem for our community for a long time and we are very concerned about this,” says Valdivia, who lives a few meters from the bus stop near the main entrance of the zoo. “I grew up in this neighborhood and went to the zoo many times as a child. I have pleasant memories, but living nearby is something else; this place has to be closed.”
She lists the problems. “The animals are hungry, overcrowded and cry all the time. We live 24 hours a day with roars, bellows and bleats that make you sad. It’s very difficult to sit at your table at home and eat hearing those sounds of beings that are starving. I can’t do it anymore.”
Overcrowding and the presence of mammals near the areas intended for birds or in contact with wild birds increases the risk posed by the Havana zoo of a jump of the virus between species. The disease, first detected in 1996, has spread among free birds and those in captivity, but in recent decades it has also affected humans.
Migratory birds carry the four strains of this influenza that has already reached Central and South America. Avian influenza is still rare in people “but we cannot assume that this is always the case, and we must prepare for any change in situation,” warned the director general of the World Health Organization (WHO), Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. Between 2003 and March 2022, there have been 864 cases in humans and 456 deaths. continue reading
Recently, the alarm went off even more when in Peru it was confirmed that the death of hundreds of sea lions was due to the virus, and researchers warn that there may already be contagion among mammals. “What happened in Peru is the first case in all of Latin America of massive mammal mortality,” acknowledges Víctor Gamarra-Toledo, an ornithologist and researcher in the Andean country.
A space like the Havana zoo could be the ideal scenario for the spread among species and possible contagion to humans. The authorities have not updated the situation and insist that everything is controlled, but the traditional secrecy of the official Cuban media generates more suspicion than certainty. In previous epidemics, reality has far surpassed the information disseminated by the national media.
A few years ago, the presence of the giant African snail was detected at the 26th Avenue zoo. After being closed during the COVID-19 pandemic, the park reopened with a panorama of malnourished animals, without water, with their cages full of dirt and excrement, in addition to the prominence of the snail, one of the 100 most invasive species internationally.
People focused on Covid and masks, but we have also had to live with the African snail; no one told us that they eat everything.” A neighbor close to the Zoo says that he has seen how his small garden with succulents and banana bushes has been devoured by “slow but crushing beings like the elephant.”
Apes confined in tiny cages, employees who profit by taking out lion cubs for photographs, workers who sell anything from peacock feathers to hyena excrement, in high demand in certain religious rituals: the zoo on 26th Avenue is old-style, with caged animals and lack of hygiene.
However, fears that the virus will affect national poultry production seem much lower in a country with decimated production due to the lack of animal feed, the deterioration of farms and the increasing import of chicken meat from nations in the region, especially the United States. The “disease” that seems to have ended the poultry industry on the Island does not spread among birds but is born from the inefficiency of the system.
The main fears with the current situation are focused, then, on the impact on wild birds and the possible zoonotic jump, a scenario that would aggravate the delicate situation of the public health system, which has a deficit of professionals and drugs and a very deteriorated infrastructure.
This week, private sellers of trinkets and toys have disappeared. The zoo, a state-run monopoly, is a frequent target of resellers who take advantage of their increasingly poor subsidized offers to buy and then offer those same products to the families who come to visit the premises. But between the closure and the fear of contagion, visitors are dissuaded from even approaching their kiosks.
It’s funny because you can hear a lot of birds singing, most of them passing through or wild. They like this area because of the many trees in the middle of the city,” says another neighbor whose patio is barely separated by a street from the back of the zoo. “This sound has always been there, but now with the arrival of avian flu, you notice it more because you don’t know what’s going to happen to the birds.”
Through one of the trees whose branches come out of the zoo and almost touch the roof of this resident’s house, an agile mockingbird jumps and sings his song, a melody of hope in the midst of worry.
Translated by Regina Anavy
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The answer of “500 pesos each” was enough for a murmur of indignation to run through the line. (14ymedio)
14ymedio, Juan Diego Rodríguez, Havana, 6 February 2023 — On the facade the English word “Grocery” is printed, and the line extends to the area outside the small private market recently opened on the ground floor of the Miramar Trade Center in Havana. Among airline offices, foreign companies and bank branches, the Pelegrin store, managed by a small business, had more curious than potential customers this Monday.
“And that milk? How much is it?” a woman asked a young man who left the premises with two packages of the product that carried a seal with the colors of the French flag and the clarification “Whole.” The answer of “500 pesos each” was enough for a murmur of indignation to run through the crowd. Despite the high price, no one moved from the line until they were able to access the market.
“I found out because I read on the internet that this store had opened,” a woman who bought some sweet vanilla cookies explained to 14ymedio. “They told me that it was only an assortment but it’s not that bad. There is more than in state stores in Cuban pesos, but it’s not a wonder either. I think they’ve made a mistake with the zeros on the right,” she said about the prices. continue reading
Small private companies engaged in the sale of imported food have been noticed in recent months in Cuba. (14ymedio)
Small private companies engaged in the sale of imported food have been noticed in recent months in Cuba with goods that they bring from countries in the region, such as Panama, Colombia, Mexico and the Dominican Republic. Given the low productivity of the national industry, beer, malt, soft drinks and sweets with foreign brands cross the path of private trade.
The phenomenon has not escaped the popular humor that has already reinterpreted the acronyms that make up micro, small and medium-sized enterprises [mipyme (or SMEs)] with the acronym of import markets at high prices manicheados [managed] by the State. So far, the new form of management, which is presented in the official discourse as the key to getting out of the crisis, seems to be more for resale than for production of goods.
Hence, no one seemed surprised this Monday in Pelegrin that the 10-ounce packages of soda cookies cost 335 pesos. The price did not cause a great fuss because “the self-employed businesses are more expensive,” said a man who calculated that each one contains 15 sachets with three cookies inside, at “22 pesos per package and 7 per cookie.”
The store has a small area to serve customers, but behind the windows you can see a large warehouse where they accumulate the merchandise. (14ymedio)
The store has a small area to serve customers, but behind the windows you can see a large warehouse where they accumulate the merchandise they sell. “The cafeteria on the ground floor of my house in Centro Habana is better stocked but it’s true that it is a little cheaper here, but getting to this place costs the difference,” stressed a man who was “by chance” at the Miramar Trade Center looking for a plane ticket to Panama.
Among Pelegrin’s most expensive products, a 35-pound bag of dry dog food stands out, a mixture of salmon and potato, for a whopping 20,600 pesos. The product, of the Kirkland brand marketed by the international chain of Costco supermarkets, has the “Made in USA” letterhead. It has been imported to a country where official stores, specialized in the sector, have not sold pet food for more than a year.
This morning, the Siberian husky printed on the package seemed to look with some arrogance at the customers who let their jaws drop in front of the market counter when they heard the price, more than three times what it costs in the stores of the American chain, if calculated at the official rate of the dollar exchange in Cuba. “This is animalistic, for sure,” concluded an old woman.
“My dog doesn’t look like that, and I’m not going to spend half a year’s salary buying that food for him. Mine will keep eating leftovers and whatever else appears,” said another customer who, in the end, only bought a can of imported Coca Cola for 155 pesos. “I think they put ’Grocery’ outside so that people won’t confuse it with a state store,” he added before leaving the premises.
Among Pelegrin’s most expensive products, a 35-pound sack of dry dog food stands out, a mixture of salmon and potato, for a whopping 20,600 pesos. (14ymedio)The use of the word in English, instead of its Hispanic variants of “food store” or “ration store” is not accidental. Both Spanish terms are marked on the Island by the negative shadow that more than 60 years of rationed markets and centralism have projected on trade. The foreign term could seek to move away from the known and evoke another type of more assorted and efficient bazaar.
But whatever it is called and in whatever language, Pelegrin has prices that are triple that of a box of milk in Madrid or of pet food in Miami. Like other stores managed by SMEs, it seems to be oriented to a social class with enough money to spend 180 pesos on a tiny glass container of yogurt, the daily salary of an engineer.
Translated by Regina Anavy
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COLLABORATE WITH OUR WORK: The 14ymedio team is committed to practicing serious journalism that reflects Cuba’s reality in all its depth. Thank you for joining us on this long journey. We invite you to continue supporting us by becoming a member of 14ymedio now. Together we can continue transforming journalism in Cuba.
Sylvain de Zanja and Belascoaín, in Centro Habana. (14ymedio)
14ymedio, Juan Diego Rodríguez/Olea Gallardo, Havana, 26 January 2023 — A tetrapak of fried tomato sauce weighing 8 ounces for 630 pesos, some even smaller containers of mayonnaise at 280 pesos, and packet of cookies for 380 pesos, a 3.5 ounce bag of chips for 150 pesos… All imported and at reasonable prices unattainable for the average Cuba, is the new product line at the Sylvain establishments, which used to sell sweets and bread. And on some vague day at the end of the year they went from being state-owned to ending up in private hands.
Or at least, in part. The store on Zanja and Belascoaín, in Centro Habana, located on the ground floor of the famous building known as Super Cake – for the pastry shop it housed before 1959 – is divided into two, according to an employee speaking to 14ymedio: one state-owned and the other private.
In the first, the only thing for sale is garlic paste and the occasional spice for seasoning, but it is closed. “It’s empty because we don’t have materials or products to work with,” explained the worker, who, like other women, is working in the private area “to guarantee us a job while supplies arrive on the other side.”
On the private side, “there is everything,” as the neighbors marvel, “but we cannot afford it.” Not even the powdered milk: at 1,800 pesos for 2.2 pounds.
The Sylvain store on San Rafael Boulevard, in the same Havana municipality, has also been “privatized,” offering imported and expensive products similar to those at Super Cake, and the the store at San Lázaro and Hospital, which sold food before, now offers office supplies, as does as the Belascoaín branch between Monte and Campanario.
The case of the Sylvain chain is not unique, and it is part of a list that has been growing for months: that of state establishments that become rented by individuals overnight, without any kind of notice. continue reading
The same thing happened in the so-called Mercadito Ideal at 23rd and C, in El Vedado, whose outdoor area is occupied by a private stall where the items are, according to the visitors, “for the elements.” Namely: umbrellas at 2,300 pesos, soda bottles at 350 pesos or shopping bags at 850.
The Sylvain de San Lázaro y Hospital branch now offers office supplies, as does the Belascoaín branch between Monte and Campanario. (14ymedio)
Another example is the Coppelita ice cream parlor within the Hola, Ola complex, reopened last July, which a few months later accumulated several complaints on=line about the high prices of ice cream – 170 pesos for two scoops – the turbidity of having “reemployed” state workers and the scarcity of products to sell.
“How do they give that place, in a privileged area, just fixed up, to people who have nothing, who offer nothing?” some onlookers wondered at the time.
But if there is a place that has passed to a private owner and offers a service with stratospheric costs, it is the Palacio de los Matrimonios [Wedding Palace] in El Vedado. Nestled at 25th and N, in an old mansion from the early 20th century that fell into disrepair little by little, a couple could get married at the cost of just a 5-peso stamp.
Now, and after a slight remodeling that, according to the neighbors, was carried out by a foreigner to whom they “gave” the business, the place is called ModaHabana Novias, and sold as “Havana’s Italian atelier.” It offers the following, according to information sent to its clients: “We are dedicated to the rental of wedding dresses and men’s suits, the organization and coordination of the entire wedding, venue management, we also offer micro-wedding services in private residences, photography and photoshooting around the city, makeup and hairdressing, catering services, buffets, wedding cakes, management of alliances in jewelry stores, among other options.”
Mercado Ideal at 23rd and C, another of the state premises leased to private hands. (14ymedio)
The firm’s offers range from an “economic line,” which consists of a wedding dress between 8,000 and 10,000 pesos and the “maid of honor” dress included, to a “luxury” line: a wedding dress for 70,000 CUP and, “free”, an “Italian” suit for the groom, from the Carlo Pignatelli brand, the tornadoda (reception) dress, those for the bridesmaids and the ladies and gentlemen, make-up and hairstyle service at home, the bouquet with imported flowers and a garter belt.
In addition, the company offers a hairdressing service for 4,000 pesos and a bouquet with five imported roses for 5,000 pesos, prices that are equivalent to the monthly salary of a state worker.
“They are privatizing the country little by little and silently,” lamented a client who left the place in terror after asking about prices. “What worries me is that they are the ones keeping things for themselves. Nothing is said in the state media or on television.”
Last week’s meeting between Miguel Díaz-Canel and the Kremlin adviser Boris Titov confirms this trend that has been seen on the street for months. The meeting showed not only that Cuba wants to take its relationship with Russia to “a higher moment,” as the island’s president declared, but this consists of letting Moscow guide in a future opening.
Coppelita ice cream parlor, inside the Hola, Ola recreation center, in Havana. (14ymedio)
As revealed by the Russian media – in no case by the Cuban officials – both parties agreed to create a center to transform the Cuban economy “from private companies.” This means, for voices in exile such as the Cuba Siglo XXI [21st Century Cuba] think tank, the imminent transition from a “model with a nationalized economy” to the “Russian market mafia scheme,” in which the old Soviet oligarchic elite took control of numerous companies.
In reality, there are rules on the Island that regulate the bidding for the rental of state premises by individuals, but the truth is that the official press, always given to propagating any trifle that suits the regime, has not publicized this.
The Official Gazette of April 21, 2022 specifically establishes the procedure in detail. Among its articles, there is the one that indicates which principles should govern the tender: transparency (“the knowledge of the actions and decisions of the tender that the participants have for an effective social and popular control”), equality (“that the participants have equal rights and opportunities”), publicity (“that the different actions and decisions of the bidding procedure are public”), concurrence (“all those who meet the general conditions that are established have the right to participate in the bidding”), competition (” the possibility is guaranteed to all potential bidders to participate in the process, without being able to introduce limitations that have no technical, legal or economic basis”) and “reasonable efficiency” (“that the selection is most convenient for the public interest”).
The process, in any case, requires the “existence of establishments that it is decided to lease, working or closed” and that “the Council of the Municipal Administration or the Governor, as appropriate, make the call for the start of the bidding process for the lease of the establishment,” according to an official website in May. Everything can take a minimum of 15 business days.
Curiously, the day after the publication of that Gazette, and to date, no public tender or the name of its owner has been known, Fress reopened in the Plaza de Carlos III as a restaurant and store in Cuban pesos.
Three days after the publication in this newspaper of that news and of numerous complaints on-line due to the high prices of the premises, the establishment was closed “due to technical problems,” and the company’s premises in Playa, a restaurant with home delivery, also suspended activities.
Wedding Palace, in the Havana neighborhood of El Vedado. (14ymedio)
“They held an emergency meeting here in Carlos III because of the criticism on social networks, and starting tomorrow they can only sell processed food,” some workers explained to 14ymedio, which collected the testimony of several customers during those days.
The general opinion was summed up in the following: “I have nothing against the privates, but the problem is not that it is private, but that it was impudent. Why some yes and others not?”
The questions remain unanswered. Last August, the newspaper Sierra Maestra published a list of state premises that were going up for tender in Santiago de Cuba, the results of which is unknown. Some of them were Soditos, the state-owned cafeterias spread over various neighborhoods that sold everything from ice cream to condoms, including bread, tea, juices and soft drinks, with great success among the population.
Just a few weeks ago, the Habana Radio website reported the tender for three other properties by Gestión del Patrimonio: Obispo 328, O’Reilly 107 and Obrapía 107. All of them are historic buildings located in Old Havana.
The call for the first, however, expired on November 24, 2022. The second expires on February 5 and corresponds to the establishment where the Sargadelos store was located, a Spanish firm from Galicia that disassociated itself from that project on the Island about five years ago. Finally, the term of the third call ends on February 8.
To find out all these details – property, conditions, dates – it is necessary to opt for the tender, and to follow the intricacies of several clicks, something far from the “transparency” and “publicity” that the law establishes.
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It is not strange to find in the informal market, or in advertisements for ’online’ sales sites, the same essences that the colonies of La Filosofía lack. (14ymedio)
14ymedio, Juan Diego Rodríguez, Havana, 28 January 2023 — No customer dared to pay this weekend the more than three MLC (freely convertible currency) that a bottle of Suchel cologne costs at the La Filosofía store in Centro Habana. “They got out of hand with the alcohol,” warned one of the sales clerks as she discouraged shoppers from taking a “fragrance-free” product.
“You have to take care of your customers’ pockets,” she explained, in a display of good faith, but later, with less honesty, she qualified: “I have to avoid the paperwork for the return.” According to the worker, the Suchel company had sent the entire batch damaged. “Most likely, the same thing is happening in other stores,” she assumed.
The employee invited customers to check the problem themselves. She would offer them the bottle, she would uncover it and then, satisfied, she would ask: “Tell me if they are not just alcohol?” A girl raised the vial to her nose and nodded.
“Whoever wants to take them is at their own risk,” insisted the worker. “I am alerting you now. Later I am not going to return the money to anyone.” Nor does Suchel, she clarifies, accept the return of the product. “They will stay there forever,” she said, with the recommendation to ask, in other establishments, if the colognes had been affected by the same situation. continue reading
“I don’t like to sell things that don’t work,” she said, but she is aware that other stores do not have the same sales “policy” and do not want a discussion with Suchel representatives. According to the clerk, the company always wants everything to be sold, even if the product is deficient.
The company, associated with the Dutch giant Unilever, has had a long-standing reputation for failing to meet quality standards. Adulteration, theft, corruption, delays and substitution of compounds are some of the factors that characterize its operation.
It is not strange to find in the informal market, or in advertisements of online sales sites, the same essences that La Filosofía lacks. The same thing happens with the components of the detergent manufactured by the company, the shavings with which the soap is made and flavorings in which the fragrances taken from the Suchel warehouses are dissolved.
Given the mistrust generated by these products, Cubans usually look for imported perfumes, shampoos, hygiene products and cosmetics. Even if they are of the worst quality or from a brand they do not know, the purchase will not have the same risk as trusting Suchel.
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COLLABORATE WITH OUR WORK: The 14ymedio team is committed to practicing serious journalism that reflects Cuba’s reality in all its depth. Thank you for joining us on this long journey. We invite you to continue supporting us by becoming a member of 14ymedio now. Together we can continue transforming journalism in Cuba.
A package of powdered eggs from Argentina (14ymedio)
14ymedio, Juan Diego Rodriguez, Havana, 20 January 2023 — The the powdered eggs she bought last month are past their April expiration date. They also cost her 1,000 pesos for a one-kilogram package on the black market but Lucy doesn’t care. This is the only option for housewives who want to provide their families with this particular source of protein. When they are available, the cheapest price for fresh eggs is never less than 1,700 pesos for a thirty-egg carton.
Two tablespoons mixed with six tablespoons of water is the equivalent one egg. The unusual flavor, which Lucy describes as having a “packaged” aftertaste, can be corrected, she says, “with a lot of seasoning.” The Central Havana resident cooks it like scrambled eggs. She first sautés onion, chili pepper and rosemary, dissolves the powder egg in water and adds it to the pan, finishing it with a little tomato sauce. “It is delicious though I know some people only add a little salt.”
Powdered eggs are not available in any store — neither state-run nor private, neither for pesos nor for hard currency — because they are reserved for the Cuban processed food industry. Rather than an ingredient for omelettes, they are used in pastries or other preparations such as pancakes, croquettes and panetelas [cakes]. The goal is to prevent contamination from salmonella, which fresh eggs can carry.
Lucy points out that only the reason she able to get her hands on the Argentina-made product — the expired expiration date being a clue — was because someone “diverted” it to the black market, which provides some relief from the island’s endless shortages. To save money, she bought only half a package and split it with her sister.
“I remember there were eggs during the Special Period. People called them ‘life vests’,” she says. “Things have gotten so bad that now they come powdered and expired.”
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COLLABORATE WITH OUR WORK: The 14ymedio team is committed to practicing serious journalism that reflects Cuba’s reality in all its depth. Thank you for joining us on this long journey. We invite you to continue supporting us by becoming a member of 14ymedio now. Together we can continue transforming journalism in Cuba.
14ymedio, Juan Diego Rodríguez, Havana, 23 March 2023 – A new protest sign against the dictatorship caused surprise among Havana residents on Thursday. This time it had the words “No to the PCC” (Cuban Communist Party), written in giant capitals on the wall at the back of Aguirre Park, in the Revolution Square district.
