Natalia López Moya – Page 2

Jose Marti Knocks Down the Increase in Gas Prices in Cuba

El Tángana gas station, in Havana, this Wednesday. (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Natalia López Moya, Havana, 31 January 2024 — It started as a murmur. Some drivers who were waiting with their vehicles in line to buy fuel at the El Tángana gas station in Havana shared the news. “They just said it on the news,” said a driver with shortness of breath and an almost purple face. “They backtracked on the new prices,” he concluded, before the stunned gaze of the others who had been in line for days.

A few hours before the new rates came into effect, up to five times higher than the previous rates for the sale of gasoline and diesel in Cuba, the authorities have canceled the measure. The reason for the step back has been explained on national television by Mildred Granadillo de la Torre, First Deputy Minister of Economy and Planning. The official has justified the slowdown due to the occurrence of “a cybersecurity incident in the computer systems for the marketing of fuels whose origin has been identified as a virus from abroad.”

Life stopped in each Cuban service center starting a little after two in the afternoon this Wednesday, when the announcement was broadcast on national television. In other times, it would have taken hours for those who had not been in front of the television screen to find out, but, for better or worse, the Internet has shortened the time and has accelerated reactions in today’s Cuba. A few minutes after it was announced before the news microphones, the effect of the official rectification was noticeable at the gas stations. continue reading

“I spent a very cold night in this line because I knew that starting February 1, fuel would cost more. Right now I feel like they’ve laughed at me, I don’t see this as a relief, this is a mockery”

“I spent a very cold night in this line because I knew that starting February 1, fuel would cost more. Right now I feel like they are laughing at me, I don’t see this as a relief, this is a joke,” said another driver of a Lada car who had already even “made friends” with the nearby drivers of a Polski Fiat and an old American vehicle from the beginning of the 20th century. In the face of the crisis, there is no better or worse car, what counts is whether or not the owner has access to the currency, a carte blanche that, in principle soon, will facilitate access to the precious product.

And it is precisely dollars that will begin to make the difference when the new prices are implemented, postponed by the alleged hacking of the networks of the military conglomerate Cimex, which manages the gas stations on the Island. The alleged computer attack has come to add doubt to doubt and unease to a reality that was already quite immersed in unrest.

“What’s wrong with these people?” asked the driver of a Moskvitch, who this Wednesday found out about the “step back” after more than 36 hours in line to refuel in El Tángana. Behind him, the statue of José Martí, which once served for the most recalcitrant official events held in the Anti-Imperialist Platform, was seen in a peculiar and little-known foreshortening.

The sculpture, seen from the gasoline pumps, no longer showed its haughty profile this Wednesday, carrying its small son and pointing an accusing finger at the United States Embassy in Havana. Instead, it seemed timid, humble, and more down-to-earth. It summed up the feelings of frustrated drivers who did not know whether to breathe a sigh of relief or fear the worst when the date of the new rates for gasoline and diesel changed.

“Retreat!” joked on driver, paraphrasing a popular Cuban cartoon. “The Apostle* has said it: go back, we must go back,” and the long and inflexible arm of the figure seemed to agree with him. In the foreground, the screens of the fuel pumps marked a brief message: “Err” for “error” or perhaps for “eradicating” such a disastrous measure, just before it was applied.

*Translator’s note: Cubans identify José Martí [1853-1895] as the “Apostle of Cuban Independence” and he is commonly referred to simply as “the Apostle.”

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Electricity Thefts and Blackouts Go Hand in Hand in Cuba

Most of the frauds for electricity theft are carried out with the participation of workers of the Electric Union. (Escambray)

14ymedio, Natalia López Moya, Havana, 13 January 2024 — Camila, 52 years old, checks the number on the meter up to three times a day. She leaves her apartment in the Wajay neighborhood in Havana, reaches the common area where all the devices of the five-storey building and dozens of apartments are located and takes a photo of the number shown on the screen before returning home. Four weeks ago she dropped out from a mechanism to steal electricity in complicity with an employee of the Electric Union (EU).

“When you get out of this business they punish you,” she tells 14ymedio. “I had been paying “on the left” [the informal market] for two years to get a much lower reading, but I am no longer interested in continuing. Now they are going after electricity frauds, and I don’t want to get stuck in this.” Another reason not to continue with illegal payments in exchange for a receipt with lower wattage: “My two children have emigrated, and my husband and I no longer consume so much electricity.”

For more than three years, Camila was one of the many Cubans who, in collaboration with UNE workers, received an electricity bill well below the amount of energy she actually used. “It wasn’t so much to save money, because at the end of the day I was paying; it was so I wouldn’t be noted as a high consumer,” she says. “My husband has an official position, and it is not convenient for him to get a very high reading.” continue reading

Time passed, and the couple decided to drop out of the fraud, but they fear that the employee involved in the agreement will penalize them. “When you tell him that you don’t want to continue, the next few months a high reading will arrive. It is how they can make you return to the contract and throw you to the inspectors, who suddenly see a strange increase in consumption.”

“A few weeks ago some inspectors descended on us, and it turns out that there was a cable that didn’t go through the meter clock and that we were getting our electricity from it”

Others, like Ismael, 34, entered the list of energy offenders without knowing it. “My mother and I moved from Central Havana to a larger house with a patio in the Cotorro,” he explains. “A few weeks ago some inspectors descended on us, and it turns out that there was a cable that didn’t go through the meter clock and that we were getting our electricity from it.”

Ismael says that it has nothing to do with the illegal installation of the cable. “It was left by the previous owners of the house; we didn’t even know that it existed.” But the fine came anyway. “The oversight cost me 8,000 Cuban pesos, and I did well, because in this neighborhood there are people who have had to pay more. Mine wasn’t so serious because I showed the papers for the permuta (house swap), and they saw that I had been in this house for a short time.”

Like Camila, every now and then Ismael checks his meter because he fears, this time, that some nearby neighbor will “create a bridge” and steal the electricity that he now pays for watt by watt. The crystal case, the numbers that fall as the energy passes to the house and the figure that he writes down with discipline in a notebook keep him attentive. But he warns that “in this area there are many who steal electricity by agreement with the UNE workers than those who do it on their own.”

This Friday, the official newspaper Granma revealed that 266,000 electrical crimes were detected in Cuba in 2023

This Friday, the official newspaper Granma revealed – citing the Minister of Energy and Mines Vicente de la O Levy – that 266,000 electrical crimes were detected in Cuba in 2023. “What is being stolen from the country by electrical fraud is almost as big as what is generated by the Antonio Guiteras thermal power plant, one of those with the largest generation capacity on the Island.”

The complaint came from an announcement that this Saturday there will be blackouts throughout the Island, especially in the “peak hours of night,” due to a deficit of 821 megawatts in the generation. The UNE reported that unit 5 of the thermoelectric plant of Mariel, the 1 of Santa Cruz, the 5 of Diez de octubre, the 1 and the 2 of the Felton and the 5 of the Renté were damaged, a series of key points in the electrical network throughout the country.

Determined to show the “human face” of the UNE official, the official press interviewed the technical director of the company, Lázaro Guerra, who offers a daily report on the situation in front of the cameras of the island’s information system. Graduated from the pre-university vocational Lenin school, from Havana, and with a degree in Electrical Engineering, Guerra was also a leader of the Union of Young Communists.

The official took advantage of the interview to exalt the “exceptional work” of the UNE and said that he had experienced situations of extreme difficulty as a manager. “The most tense moments in my career have come when the system has crashed. This has happened on some occasions due to the passage of cyclones and, in others, due to different causes.”

However, the most memorable line of the interview was his answer to the question of why he was “so serious” on Cuban Television: “I don’t think I can announce a blackout with a smile; I don’t think I can do it.”

Translated by Regina Anavy

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Cuba: Aguas de la Habana Surrenders in Nuevo Vedado and the Neighbors Take It Easy

They chose to put the table in the shade, and the middle of the street was the only shady place they could find. (14ymedio)

Natalia López Moya, Havana, January 02, 2024 — In the first days of January the noise of nearby Rancho Boyeros Avenue calms down, but the clacking of dominoes echoes in the neighborhood. The neighbors of Marino Street on the corner of Santa Ana, in Nuevo Vedado, take advantage of the holidays to put out the table and look for their double nine. This 2024, although diminished by emigration, they have greater reasons to get outside: after months in which an excavation prevented transit through their block, now the hole has been filled by Aguas de La Habana, although the work is a mess.

“At least we didn’t have to spend Christmas with all this full of water and mosquitoes,” acknowledges Amanda, one of the neighbors who, for more than three months, saw how the excavation was emptied of workers and became “a lagoon.” State employees repaired a leaking pipe that gets its water from the Palatino water treatment plant, built at the end of the 19th century in the municipality of Cerro.

The break in the pipe left a part of the municipality of Plaza de la Revolución without water, and, despite the triumphant official deadlines, the work lasted until December. “We were climbing the walls; on this block there is pizza business, a privately-owned business and several rental houses. All in the red because when people got to the corner they were scared looking at that hole full of water,” another neighbor confirms to this newspaper. continue reading

After months in which an excavation prevented traffic through the block, now the hole has been filled by Aguas de La Habana. (14ymedio)

Nobody knows if the breakage of the pipe was finally solved, or if, overcome by the magnitude of the damage, the workers of Aguas de La Habana only covered the hole to placate the nearby residents. “After weeks when nothing happened, one day they arrived in the morning and began to throw in dirt, but the brigades never showed up to cover it with asphalt so this now looks like a country town.”

For years, the neighbors of Marino Street had been complaining about the deterioration of the road that passed over the pipeline. The street had been sinking for a long time, and many warned of its possible collapse. In mid-2023, a pothole became so alarming that residents chose to put up a warning sign on their own, trying to avoid a misfortune.

To attract attention, they reported that many of the officials of the nearby Ministry of Agriculture parked their vehicles on that street and also evoked the imperatives of the nearby Panataxi base, the fleet of “yellows” destined to transport tourists from José Martí International Airport to Havana. Not to mention the adjoining exit point for ambulances.

The urgency didn’t much matter. Aguas de La Habana took its time and much more. This January, between red signs of “do not pass,” stones extracted from the substrate that mimicked a Martian landscape and frustration for so many months sunk in the mud and waiting, the neighbors of Marino Street decided to try their luck. They chose to set the table in a shady area, but the shade was in the street. A few meters away, the poorly-packed, soft earth warned of the danger: below the surface, nothing has been solved.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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Misogynist Graffiti in Havana Becomes an Enigmatic Message

Two men taking a break on Thursday in front of a hand-painted sign at the corner of Belascoaín and Zanja streets.

14ymedio, Natalia Lopez Moya, Havana, 4 January 2024 — “I buy women in bad shape,” the message read back in April, when 14ymedio first reported on it. As of a few days ago, all that was left were the words “in bad shape,” which now seem like a cryptic description of that corner, of the city and of Cuba itself.

On Thursday, two men were sitting in front of it, taking a break. Some passersby could not help but make a joke. “Look what you’re doing there in front of that sign criticizing the state,” a security guard from the nearby Banco Metropolitano remarked ironically. Only then did both individuals turn their heads and read the words.

One of them got up a few seconds later and continued on his way. The other wasted no time picking up the bag he had left on the ground and also walked hurriedly away from the site. This odd, green-lettered graffiti no longer carries the suggestion of mockery or harm to women but rather something worse in the eyes of many Cubans: “an anti-government slogan” in the words of a resident on nearby Tetuán Street. continue reading

That’s how it’s been for months. No one seemed to care. My prediction is that it won’t long before they erase it completely.

“That’s how it’s been for months. No one seemed to care. My prediction is that it won’t be long before it’s gone completely,” she concluded. The question for some residents is why the person who got rid the the first four words did not go to the trouble to erase the rest. “It looks like they did it with the same paint as the wall, so they must have been well-organized.”

In a country where the number of murdered women just keeps growing due to inaction by the state, this enigmatic phrase is more frightening than the previous sexist statement.

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Paying with Hard Currency Cards, A Scam for Tourists in Cuba

A ticket just to enjoy the Tropicana show regularly ranges between $75 and $95, depending on whether it is standard or premium. (Facebook)

14ymedio, Natalia López Moya, Havana, 4 January 2024 — Twinkling lights, sculptural bodies and music. The propaganda about the Tropicana cabaret in Havana has barely changed in decades. The environment has changed and customers looking for a night of relaxation will have to overcome some obstacles, including the method of payment: a convoluted and frustrating mechanism that many see as a scam.

“They told us just to come and pay the entrance, but it is more complicated,” lamented an American this Saturday, at the entrance of Havana’s most famous cabaret. The man, who traveled to the island with a group that had previously toured several Cuban evangelical communities, found that entry to the “paradise under the stars” could only be paid with magnetic cards, not cash. And the magnetic card had to be one bought in Cuba, loaded with ‘freely convertible currency’ [MLC].*

A ticket to just enjoy the Tropicana show regularly ranges between $75 and $95, depending on whether it is standard or Premium. If dinner is included, it can cost up to $120 and, this Sunday, December 31, as a special New Year’s Eve offer, with several services included, each person had to pay $300 dollars with the promise of also enjoying a special presentation of the dancers. continue reading

At the suggestion of a Tropicana employee, one of the foreigners went to a nearby hotel and bought a ’hard currency’ card on which he deposited 800 dollars

“American cards do not work, so to enter they have to buy one in freely convertible currency [MLC]”, the employee at the Tropicana access checkpoint clarified to the group. With night already falling and temperatures cool for Havana, the last thing the anxious customers wanted was to delay their entry and postpone the first drink of rum to warm up their bodies.

Prepaid cards in Cuban ‘MLC’ are purchased at airports, hotels and the Island’s exchange offices known as ’Cadecas’. The cards can then be used to pay for hotel reservations, excursions, purchase of airline tickets, in stores, to rent a car, and to eat in restaurants. Their main function is to help travelers from the United States overcome the restrictions that the embargo imposes on financial operations between both countries.

However, after its implementation in mid-2021, what should have been a convenience has become a headache due to the continuous connection problems between the businesses that use them and the Central Bank. Distrust also accompanies this form of payment, which many tourists see as a nuisance, since it involves waiting in line to get them and, in addition, any balance that is not used on the Island is lost.

At the suggestion of a Tropicana employee, one of the foreigners went to a nearby hotel and bought an MLC card on which he deposited $800, an amount that covered the cost of entry for all the members of his group. But, his problems had just begun. “When we went to swipe the card, the device did not read it. We tried, but nothing,” the saddened tourist told 14ymedio.

Once, twice, three times and the device screen always gave an error message. “We have problems communicating with the bank,” insisted another employee, who assured that the payment terminal was “working perfectly for non-US Visa or Mastercard cards,” but “since the afternoon it has been having problems with the MLC cards,” an explanation that left the customers overwhelmed.

“We are losing money, because there are people who, when they find out that they have to go back to the hotel and buy an MLC card they do not return for the show”

“We are losing money, because there are people who, when they find out that they have to return to the hotel and buy a card an MLC card, they do not return for the show,” a tourist guide who frequently takes groups of foreigners to visit the Tropicana acknowledges to this newspaper. “Everyone knows that it would be best if tourists could pay in dollars directly, but they don’t want to implement that for fear that the fulas [dollars] will end up in the workers’ pockets.”

“To prevent employees from pocketing part of the ticket money [which they do by giving a fake or recycled ticket to some tourists] they have created a mechanism that does not work and that only brings headaches to visitors,” he complains. Finally, after several attempts, the Americans paid with a Visa card from a bank in Spain that one of them, with business in that country, had on him.

“The problem is that these cards in MLC are not refundable, now they have to spend the money they deposited on it because they are not going to get it back even if the card has not worked due to problems for which they are not at all to blame,” emphasizes the official guide. “It can’t be done like that, we all lose from this.”

After obstacles at the entrance, the group of American tourists managed to access the Tropicana. But the night was no longer what they projected. Hanging over them was the question of how they were going to manage, in less than the 48 hours they had left in Cuba, to recover the 800 dollars deposited on the card. The guide, embarrassed, clarified that they could only withdraw Cuban pesos from ATMs – at the official rate of 120 CUP per dollar – or transfer the amount in MLC to the account of a relative or friend on the Island.

More than a cultural spectacle, the ‘paradise under the stars’ seemed, to the overwhelmed Americans that Saturday, a complete representation of the Cuban absurdity.

*Translator’s note: The irony is that the MLC cards must be bought with foreign credit cards, but the American cards cannot be used for anything else, and the MLC cards are worthless outside of Cuba.

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Flooded and Full of Rubbish, Havana Prepares Itself For More Storms this Weekend

This week’s winds took down one of the emblematic trees in Brotherhood Park. (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Natalia López Moya, Havana, 15 December 2023 – After the dearth of any official information or warnings prior to last weekend’s heavy rains, the Cuban authorities have been under pressure to put out warnings that this coming Saturday and Sunday there will be storms in the west of the country, and especially in Havana. In the capital, flooded after several days of rain, and with rubbish bins overflowing, residents were trying to prepare themselves, on Friday, for several coming days of being confined indoors.

In Central Havana one can see evidence of the continuous rainfall of the last few days. People queued outside bakeries, food ration stores and state-run shops that sell the so-called “free modules” which offered only detergent, vegetable oil, cigarettes and chicken picadillo. People have to get the rest of their provisions on the informal market or from private shops, at extremely higher prices.

In Plaza de Carlos III, the biggest shopping centre in the neighbourhood, the queue stretched right around the corner and one could see the desperation on the faces of many of those who were waiting. “They say things are going to get ugly”, one elderly woman feared as she waited to buy her family’s module, which is also called a “combo”. The institute of meteorology has forecast heavy coastal rain, with possibly very intense rainfall, for the weekend.

People have been becoming more worried as the morning has progressed: many fear that the city is defenceless in the face of any inclement climate effect. “All that rubbish which has accumulated over there, there’s no time to collect it, and not even bringing in the army could get rid of it in time before the weather gets worse”, says Javier, a resident who lives on the continue reading

corner of Royo and San Martín in central Havana, where a mountain of waste has been collecting over several weeks.

Rubbish on Royo and San Martín, Central Havana, on Friday. (14ymedio)

On San Francisco and San Rafael the picture is the same – the rubbish mounts up and spreads out from the corner to almost half way across the block. Much of it also blocks the drainage grates which ought to be carrying the rainwater away – another cause for concern for the locals. Although their principal fear continues to be the possibility of building collapses.

“We’re going to my mother’s house because this roof is in a very bad state”, Yamilé, a resident of Gervasio/Laguna (San Leopoldo) tells 14ymedio. “Here, there’s always the danger of seawater ingress”, notes a woman who lives just 100 metres from the Malecón sea wall. “But this time we’re leaving not because of that but because we fear the heavy rain”.

“Water up there and water down here, a terrible combination”, adds Yamilé, who lives in a building dating from the 1920’s. “As we live on the first floor*, the seawater affects us mainly by contaminating the water tank, but if it’s also raining for days on end then it’s certain that the roof is going to be leaking as well”.

The streets, awash from all the rainfall, and having faulty drains as well, wouldn’t appear to be able to take any more water if the rain continues. “I’ve had to keep trying to dodge the puddles but it’s difficult because they’re everywhere”, says a worker from a state business premises on Calle Infanta.

This week’s winds took down one of the emblematic trees in Brotherhood Park, a key passenger transport hub, given the number of bus stops and private taxi ranks nearby. “It’s been like that for more than 24 hours and they haven’t come to clear it up”, complained a local resident who not only feared even further and greater damage but she also believed that “this tree could still be saved”.

After midday, the situation became worse and the winds grew stronger across the city, which coincided with the meteorological forecast of an imminent arrival on the island of an extra-tropical cyclone.

*Translator’s note: The ’first floor’, in Cuba as in much of the world, means the floor above the ’ground floor’.

Translated by Ricardo Recluso

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‘Fama y Aplausos’, the 20 Story Havana Building That Has Become a Hell

The current description is far from what the 20-story massive structure looked like two decades ago. (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Natalia López Moya, Havana, 14 December 2023 — A quick touch with the index finger and middle finger on the shoulder is the key to knowing that the building known as Fama y Aplausos (Fame and Applause), on the corner of Infanta and Manglar in Havana, is the home of important official spokespeople who handed out national awards of various categories to figures who stood out during the ideological offensive at the beginning of this century: the Battle of Ideas.

“This is no longer what it was, nor does it look like it did when I moved here,” a plastic artist who has lived in the place since its inauguration and prefers anonymity tells 14ymedio. “Not only has the entire building deteriorated, the area, which was always a little controversial because of the neighborhoods nearby, has become very dangerous. At night no one goes out or receives visitors. They lift weights.”

A tour of the surroundings is enough to see the mountains of filth, the streets full of potholes, the peeling walls and the dirty perimeter wall with cracks. On a corner, a poster with an image of José Martí highlights one of his phrases: “This is a virtuous time and you have to melt into it.” A few meters from the exterior gardens of the building, there are only mud and weeds left.

The streets full of potholes, the peeling walls and the dirty perimeter wall with cracks. (14ymedio)

The nearby Pan-American store that even attracted residents of other neighborhoods for its “good assortment” is now a place that only sells products for the so-called ’released module’ — that is food and other items sold outside the ration system — as 14ymedio was able to verify this Wednesday. A bored custodian still remains in Fama y Aplausos, a remnant of the old team that guarded the place. continue reading

But the current description is far from what the 20-story building looked like two decades ago. Immaculate corridors, elevators that were quickly repaired when they broke, a reception area on the ground floor that made the visitor give chapter and verse about the person he was visiting, lights on the outside and an immaculate white paint on the facade stoked the curiosity of nearby neighbors.

Randy Alonso, director of Cubadebate, and Rosa Miriam Elizalde, main spokesperson for the media war against the independent press, were among the beneficiaries of an apartment in the building. They were chosen to receive the award for flattering, putting on makeup and lying. Of those “illustrious” inhabitants there are hardly any left, because they passed “to a better life” and now enjoy independent houses in more select neighborhoods.

Among the current residents, of course, there are figures of the plastic arts, outstanding filmmakers, troubadours who have supported with their music many political acts they were called to support. For them, however, the Infanta y Manglar building is not the same place “that made it seem like you were in another country,” according to a neighbor, but a real hell of accumulated garbage, dark corridors, broken elevators and a total absence of cleaning personnel.

A long text, published by art critic Jorge Rivas on Facebook, complains that “dozens of people, among these sick and disabled children and the elderly, are practically stranded in their respective apartments due to the impossibility of going down the stairs.” The breakdown, 20 days ago, of one of the elevators, and the exit from service, years ago, of the other, have left them in that situation. But moving from the bottom up is not the only problem.

“Almost all the floors are totally dark, the cleaning staff left en masse, there is trash everywhere, including a gigantic garbage dump that the Company of Comunales maintained for months in front of the place,” adds Rivas, who regrets that the management of the property passed, years ago, from the hands of the state-owned Habana Inmuebles to the Provincial Directorate of Housing of Havana, which barely has the resources to maintain it. “It only mismanages what was once a respectable building,” he says.

Rivas clarifies that although “ministers, deputy ministers and other ’important’ managers, of a high ’level,’ who in the past urged everyone to maintain order, no longer live in the place, but “great personalities of culture, journalism and sports continue to reside in the building, among them national award winners and medalists, but above all, there are human beings, women, children and the elderly who live here.”

Rivas categorizes everything that happened as a “public shame” for a building that was popularly described “as Fame and Applause and that now is called the Building from Hell.”

But this is not the first vicissitude that the property experienced. For more than a decade, the corner of Infanta and Mangrove showed an unfinished ’pile’, which was stuck with the arrival of the Special Period and the end of the microbrigades, supported by the Soviet subsidy.

The bricklayers who started by raising the foundations with the illusion of obtaining an apartment in the property saw how their project for a home was going to end. The building became one of the many modern ruins, like other unfinished works, that were seen in the Havana of the Special Period.

On a corner, a poster with an image of José Martí highlights one of his phrases. (14ymedio)

At the end of the 90s, the nearby neighbors saw the return of the cranes, the trucks with cement and some builders who would not reside there after the inauguration. Instead of the original micro-brigades, the owners would be selected for their political, artistic or journalistic merits.

In the middle of the official campaign to bring the child Elián González back to Cuba, some voices stood out that immediately saw their enthusiasm compensated with the key to a new home in the place. That’s when it began to be known as Fame and Applause, because singers, film directors, cartoonists, ministers, reporters and actors began to move in.

For many of those beneficiaries, obtaining their own home made them even more committed to the official discourse, and their public projection increased a few degrees in unconditionality. The illuminated parking lot on the ground floor of the building was quickly filled with modern cars that came to complete the already bulky privilege of an apartment.

However, the exodus in the artistic and intellectual sector, the proximity of several slums that were not to the liking of the residents and the rise in la nomenclatura that allowed some to move to El Vedado, Miramar and Siboney caused several casualties among the most illustrious inhabitants.

The other part was the passage of time, laziness and the lack of maintenance. The property that was once considered a medal for its inhabitants now has more problems than joys. Gone is the fame; not even the applause remains.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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The Havana Corner Shop ‘Lavin Mattresses’ Shows Its Endless Rubbish

On Wednesday a mountain of rubbish blocked the entrance to the building and forced the Communal Services to remove it, after weeks of accumulation. (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Natalia López Moya, Havana, 30 November, 2023 – Soft and comfortable and long-lasting, that’s how they marketed the mattresses sold by the Lavín company more than half a century ago at the central Havana corner location of calles Neptuno and Lealdad. Only a memory remains of that private concern, nationalised and converted into the Office for Consumer Registration (Oficoda). On Wednesday a mountain of rubbish blocked the entrance to the building and forced the Communal Services to remove it, after weeks of accumulation. (14ymedio)

A neighbour watched from her balcony as a truck and a bulldozer tried to remove the waste that covered the pavement and made traffic flow difficult on a street that is used by many independent taxis to connect Old Havana with El Vedado and the western districts of the Cuban capital. “Oh, they finally turned up then?” bellowed the woman from her vantage point, and a number of other nearby residents gave support with similar shouts of indignation, which fell on deaf ears as far as the workers of the state monopoly were concerned.

With a flaky shop front and ancient windows covered in cardboard and wooden boards the place is no longer recognisable even by those who used to visit it in its former splendour. With the slogan “A Lavín mattress lasts and lasts”, the shop was one of the company’s branches, whose main shop was in Calle Monte y Rastro and their factory was at 52 Pedroso in the El Cerro district. Owned by Ramón Lavín Allende and his brothers, the family business also sold hats and had shops that sold home accessories. continue reading

Few people in the area remember the era when the corner was an important commercial hub with the mattress shop on one side and a market run by the famous company Minimax on the opposite side

But few people in the area remember the era when the corner was an important commercial hub with the mattress shop on one side and a market run by the famous company Minimax on the opposite side. “There’s not many of us left now”, an elderly man told 14ymedio; on Wednesday he’d watched the rubbish removal by Communal Services, from a window in his home. “My parents bought their matrimonial bed at Lavín and they weren’t rich people, they paid in instalments”, he said.

An old receipt, bearing the name ’Consuelo Rodríguez’ bears witness to the type of credit sales made popular by the mattress company. A neighbour, from number 1011 in the nearby Calle Belascoaín, probably a customer or an employee of the hotel La Maravilla, as the document states, acquired an air mattress and a blanket from Lavín in 1945 for a total of 12 pesos. This piece of paper, which is for sale for 6 euros online on an auction site, is a relic from times gone by.

Consuelo Rodríguez probably passed away years ago; hire purchase hasn’t existed in Cuba for decades, La Maravilla became a kind of citadel and all that remains of the Lavín company are buildings which remain dilapidated or taken over by homeless families and the building of the emblematic business on Neptuno y Lealdad is now busy with the administration of the rationing system which has been imposed on the people in Cuba for more than 60 years. The mountain of rubbish which surrounded it, and which the Comunal Services was trying to clear up on Wednesday, was all that was left – the burial of a time past, for which there remain no witnesses.

Translated by Ricardo Recluso

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Luyano, Turned into Cuba’s Most Famous Garbage Dump, Screams for Help

Varias esquinas poco céntricas de Luyanó siguen dominadas por gigantescos vertederos. (14ymedio) — Several out-of-the-way corners in Luyano are still dominated by gigantic garbage dumps. (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Natalia López Moya, Havana, 25 November 2023 — In Luyanó the word has spread. If the mountains of garbage are reported in the independent media, it is very likely that Community Services will arrive shortly afterwards to collect them. The equation is clear: call a reporter to take photos and testimonies and, within 24 hours, fuel for the waste hauling trucks will magically appear.

Residents near the corner of Melones and Luyanó avenue put the formula into practice. Last Thursday they contacted 14ymedio and on Friday the huge garbage dump that had been growing in the place for weeks had already disappeared. However, a few yards away, on another street that has not appeared in the news, waste covers the sidewalk and more than half of the road, preventing the passage of vehicles.

“Come and report on the garbage!” cried a neighbor this Friday afternoon who, from her window, saw a journalist from this newspaper approaching the place. “A child who does not cry does not suck; he who does not report them gets the flies in his throat,” warned the woman who lives very close to the corner of Enna and Guasabacoa, converted into “the Cayo Cruz of the neighborhood (Havana’s most famous garbage dump).” continue reading

Los contenedores volcados y los montones de desechos señorean en todas partes. (14ymedio) — Overturned containers and mountains of waste dominate everywhere. (14ymedio)

While the “king of garbage dumps” at Rodríguez and Reforma was documented by the independent press and reduced almost to a 10th of its size by the Community Services, shortly after its publication on the internet, while other nearby streets and avenues have not experienced the same outcome. The overturned containers, the pile of plastic bags that have been broken by the sun, the wind and the fangs of stray dogs, dominate everywhere.

The smell of filth gets so deep into the houses of Luyanó that people try to keep the doors and windows closed so that it doesn’t fill everything. “My grandson is newborn and we have him in the last room, with a curtain and everything in front of the door so that this stench doesn’t spread to him,” says another resident near the corner of Infanzón and Juan Alonso. Adults, for their part, seem to have taken on the “aromas.” “Here people already smell like that, we smell like garbage and they treat us like garbage.”

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‘I Don’t Even Know Where Gaza Is,’ Says a Cuban Student Marching for Palestine

Unlike other demonstrations around the world for the same cause, the scarcity of Palestinian flags was striking. (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Nelson García and Natalia López Moya, Havana, 23 November 2023 — The march called for this Thursday in Havana by the Union of Young Communists of Cuba (UJC) “in defense of Palestine” began two hours late. Initially announced for 1:00 pm, the event began at 3:00, at G and the Malecón, to the annoyance of those marching, hundreds of young people and workers brought from their study centers and state jobs. President Miguel Díaz-Canel led the demonstration, together with the Prime Minister, Manuel Marrero, and the Palestinian ambassador to Cuba, Akram Samhan.The march toured the Malecón and culminated with an event in La Piragua, the esplanade next to the National Hotel that for years it has replaced the Anti-Imperialist Bandstand, in front of the US Embassy, as a place for pro-government rallies.

In schools of all levels in Havana, the order given was categorical: “After noon we leave for the march,” they announced in the morning assembly. Guaranteeing that volume of students added hundreds, if not thousands, of participants to the demonstration, a practice that is common in official calls but that had not been used for some time.

A strong police operation was deployed throughout the perimeter of the route from early on. (14ymedio)

Several parents consulted by 14ymedio made it clear that their teenage children were not going to add one number to the march. “I told the director that my daughter was not going to participate because she had not been able to have breakfast,” the father of a 10th grade student at the Saúl Delgado high school in El Vedado declared categorically.

Others took advantage of the march to escape in the middle of the street despite the vigilance of the teachers who accompanied the groups of students from their schools to the vicinity of Havana’s Malecón. But others, however, had no choice. continue reading

“They had told us to show up at 12:50 and there was no one there,” protested a girl with a backpack at one point during the long wait under the Girón Building, the deteriorated behemoth that at the time was the standard of experimental architecture in the Cuban capital and which has ended up being, like so many buildings in the city, another modern ruin, with stairs about to collapse and residents upset by the lack of official response to the deterioration. Another student standing next to her answered: “I won’t have time to get the rations from the bodega.” A third teenager complained: “With the kind of hunger there is here, what is all this silliness about?”

“Why do they put up these tents, if none of us students can buy anything,” a young man wondered bitterly. (14ymedio)

A strong police operation was deployed throughout the perimeter of the route from early on. Officers, both in uniform and plain clothes, were there every few yards.

By noon, they were already blocking passage along Havana’s iconic avenue that faces the sea. From the basement of the Girón Building, next to the meeting place of the march, an officer kicked out two women up to three times.

The only thing left was for the groups that were approaching G and Malecón to drag their feet. The vast majority were students, many from the UCI (University of Computer Sciences) and some from pre-university, but also employees from state and healthcare workplaces, guided under the watchful eye of teachers or bosses. If there were onlookers in the crowd, they seemed more like state security agents than anything else.

Others took advantage of the march to escape in the middle of the road despite the teachers’ vigilance. (14ymedio)

They had not arrived on foot. Between the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the José Martí Sports Park, out of sight from the Malecón, were parked the dozens of state buses the students had been transported. “There is fuel for this,” a passerby said quietly.

The annoyaned reaction of the attendees worsened when passing by a private fair installed on F and Malecón. “Why do they put up these tents, if none of us students can buy anything,” a young man wondered bitterly. “It’s a lack of respect.”

Unlike other demonstrations around the world for the same cause, the scarcity of Palestinian flags was striking. A few loomed overhead when, finally, at three in the afternoon, a Palestinian medical student spoke to begin the march.

In broken Spanish and with a strong Arabic accent, he repeated a string of misinformed slogans: that the United States supports Israel “bombing Palestine every day,” that “it is not a war, it is a genocide,” that “they are attacking children and the elderly and hospitals,” and “have dropped the equivalent of the two nuclear bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.”

Out of sight from the Malecón, were parked the dozens of state buses the students had been transported in: “There is fuel for this,” a passerby said quietly. (14ymedio)

The speech was not far from the one repeated in the official media since, on October 7, militiamen of the terrorist group Hamas infiltrated Israel from Gaza, massacred 1,200 people and kidnapped more than 200, still being held by the Islamists.

Israel’s forceful military response has claimed, according to Hamas sources, but not independently verified, more than 13,000 lives.

With the mediation of Qatar, this Friday Israel agreed to a four-day truce and Hamas is expected to release 13 hostages.

Far from recounting these events in this way, the organizers of the march denounced “the more than 70 years of subjugation of the Palestinian people,” the “Dantesque usurpation” and “the impunity with which the Government of Israel launches its war machine like a wild beast.”

In broken Spanish and with a strong Arabic accent, he repeated a string of uninformed slogans. (14ymedio)

While he spoke, numerous State Security agents made strategic movements to dissuade people from leaving the place.

This newspaper asked some teenage students: “But do you know what is happening with Israel and Palestine?” Only one daring student responded: “Dude, I don’t even know where Gaza is.”

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A Fibre Optic Cable Breakage Worsens Cuba’s Internet Connection

The poor quality of international communications from Cuba is a permanent source of complaints for users of the Cuban Telecoms Company Etecsa. (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Natalia López Moya, Havana, 14 November 2023 – Along with all their other routine problems, Cubans suffered major difficulties in connecting to the internet on Tuesday, owing to a “break in an underground fibre optic cable”, according to a brief announcement by the Cuban Telecoms Company, Etecsa.

The breakdown “has had an effect on internet services in different ways”, the state monopoly stated, recognising that “as a result users could see difficulties in accessing the service and a slowness of operation”.

Without giving any details of the location of the affected cable nor of the cause of the failure, Etecsa sought to assure the public that their specialists were working to restore service “in the shortest possible time”.

Since the early hours of the morning, Cubans began reporting the telecoms breakdown on social media across the country. “You can hardly get on the internet and your phone is constantly losing data signal”, a young resident of the Cayo Hueso district of Havana told this paper.

Nevertheless, he thought that it was just down to Etecsa’s routine problems: “As always, the connection is terrible. I didn’t think it was any continue reading

specific breakdown but just that they have congestion on the data antennae, which is what’s been happening anyway to us in this area recently”.

Many of the operations of electronic payments systems and of websites or mobile phone apps were paralized

The poor quality of international communications from Cuba is a permanent source of complaints from users, which, according to official figures, number more than 7 million in the mobile phone service.

Many of the operations of electronic payment systems and of the websites that sell products on social media, digital portals, or mobile phone apps, were paralized on Tuesday because of the fault, 14ymedio was able to confirm.

In El Vedado, the family of Siro, a Habanero of 38, couldn’t order a cake for their mother’s birthday on the popular app Mandao because “there was no way of getting a data signal”. Eventually they bought one from a private cafeteria but couldn’t hide their frustration: “The point was to be at home and get the cake delivered, but with no internet, forget it”.

In October last year this paper revealed the paradoxical situation in which Etecsa found itself: being one of the few national concerns that generates huge income, but nevertheless is in financial difficulties.

“We are joining bits of cable together to try and solve the breakages”, said José Ángel, a worker for the company, which, he said was going through “its worst crisis since its creation”. This employee, who was working in the Revolution Square district, complained that “the managers carry on getting privileges but we at technician level have no resources to help us look after the customers”.

Every fifteen days, Etecsa launches a promotion of extra bonuses payed from abroad but most of this foreign currency is not invested in telecoms infrastructure. “Around 90% of what Etecsa raises leaves the company in a big consignment called “undefined”, explained another employee based in the accounts section. “With what’s left it’s very difficult to maintain a quality service because you can hardly make any large investments”.

Translated by Ricardo Recluso

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In Cuba, Tourists Distrust Prepaid Hard Currency Cards and Prefer to Pay in Cash

Prepaid cards in hard currency can be purchased at airports, hotels and currency exchanges (Cadecas). (5 de Septiembre)

14ymedio, Natalia López Moya, Havana, 8 November 2023 — With seven years in the United States and a butcher’s trade, Yoandy returned to Cuba this October to spend a few days with his family. In addition to their embrace, this 46-year-old from Villa Clara encountered serious problems when it came to paying for products and services. The worst part of the experience was the lack of prepaid cards with low hard currency denominations.

“I stayed a couple of nights at my family’s house in Havana, but my wife preferred to go to a hotel in El Vedado,” Yoandy tells 14ymedio. The accommodation, managed by a foreign company, is one of those used by American tourists and Cuban-Americans who travel to the Island to avoid paying at the ones that the U.S. Treasury Department has blacklisted for their ties to the military.

“The third night I went to the hotel with my wife and every day we had a different problem, eating at the hotel restaurant or having a few drinks at the bar, because you can’t pay in dollars in cash; they are forbidden to charge in cash,” he recalls. “All expenses have to be paid with magnetic cards, but in Cuba those issued by the U.S. banks don’t work.” continue reading

“Everything looks very beautiful in the advertising for these cards, but in practice they are more of a stumbling block”

To circumvent that restriction, the Cuban authorities began to market, from June 2021, prepaid cards in freely convertible currency (MLC) that can be purchased at airports, hotels and Cadecas (exchange houses) throughout the Island. They can be used to pay for hotel reservations, excursions, plane fare, in stores, to rent a car and to eat in restaurants.

Tourists pay for the cards in dollars, euros, yen or pounds sterling and then can recharge them by adding more currency, but when returning to their country they will not be able to recover the foreign currency that remains on the card. They can only extract Cuban pesos from ATMs – at the official rate of 120 CUP per dollar – or transfer the amount in MLC to the account of a relative or friend on the Island.

“Everything looks very beautiful in the advertising for these cards, but in practice they are more of a stumbling block,” Yoandy reasons. Without the owner’s name embedded in them and with a validity of two years, the banking authorities assure that the buyer can keep the card to use on another trip to the Island, but Yoandy thinks those are advantages that he will not use. “This is the first time I’ve returned in seven years,” he says.

At first, the lowest denomination of the prepayment cards was 200 MLC, but then the 50 and 100 MLC cards were put into circulation. “It was much better to have these, because tourists don’t want to take a risk and buy one of 500 or 1,000 the first time, because they don’t know how much they’re going to spend. Some come with all-inclusive packages and you only use the card for dinner at a paladar (private restaurant),” acknowledges an Infotur employee in Old Havana.

“They definitely lose money because they’re not flexible. The worst thing is that as soon as the tourists learn about the twisted mechanism they have created, they have already experienced several annoyances“

“What we noticed when they came to ask us about the cards is that most preferred to buy 50 or 100 MLC and then recharge them to the extent that they needed to have more funds,” the state worker explains to this newspaper. “But to achieve that you have to always make the entire range of cards available. If someone wants to be cautious, buy the 50, and if someone wants to take a risk, buy the 1,000.”

But, the employee concludes, “the 50’s and the 100’s are always in demand.” The lack of them brings countless losses to the hotels, in the words of the Cuban-American Yoandy: “We got frustrated in the hotel because they only had cards of 500 and up, so we went out, walked around the block and ate at a paladar that accepted dollars in cash.”

In several calls to two hotels in El Vedado and another three in Old Havana, this editorial office confirmed that now the cards for sale are “the ones with more than 200 MLC.” An employee said that they were waiting for the cards with denominations “between 50 and 100” for this week.

Yoandy finds it difficult to understand that what arose to solve a problem for the tourist has ended up hindering the service at the official hotels and restaurants. “They definitely lose money, because they’re not flexible. The worst thing is that when the tourists learn about the twisted mechanism they have created, they have already experienced several annoyances.”

His wife, of American origin, “can’t believe what she saw,” the man points out. “She couldn’t understand that the hotel restaurant had food, was full of waiters, the bar full of bottles, and we couldn’t be taken care of because we couldn’t pay in dollars and refused to buy an MLC card for 500 bucks.”

Prepaid cards cannot be requested by Cuban nationals or permanent residents in Cuba. Since the cards aren’t registered to a particular person, “I also didn’t want to risk buying one at a higher price and leaving it to my mother so that she could spend the MLC when I left,” he says. “Because in foreign exchange stores they ask people for their identity card or passport to verify that the owner of the card does not live in Cuba.”

In his case, as in the case of so many others who face the same difficulty, the solution to having dinner or a few drinks has been to go to private businesses. “Dollars, euros, Cuban pesos and MLC, here we accept all those currencies,” insistently repeats the employee, who this Wednesday appealed to potential customers at the doors of a paladar near the Bay of Havana.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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With Mobile Phone Internet and Fear of Being Robbed, Cubans Abandon Open-Air Wifi

A man connecting to a wifi hotspot at a park on the corner of Infanta and San Lázaro streets in central Havana. (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Natalia López Moya and Miguel García, Havana/Holguín, 25 October 2023 — It’s 11:00 AM and the only people to be seen in the park at the corner of Infanta and San Lázaro streets in central Havana are couple of people sitting on a bench and a man with his dog. The scene was very different a few years ago when, all day long, dozens of people were enthusiastically connecting to the wifi hotspot here. Now safety concerns, technical problems and the advent of web browsing on mobile phones has left the benches empty.

Forty-three-year-old Dunia was one of those who spent many hours sitting on a sidewalk curb or in the shadow of the park’s trees. In July 2015, when the first antennas were being installed and the public squares of the Cuban capital were becoming wifi hotspots, this sociology graduate felt like she could finally breathe. Now, she says, “it bears no resemblance” to what it was back then.

On Monday morning the connection speed in the park was barely 270 Kbps (kilobits per second). A little after 1:00 PM, two more people — a man and a woman — arrived and sat down to log on. “It’s no longer like it used to be,” says Dunia of the times when the park was full of people with their eyes glued to their screens.

On Monday morning the connection speed in the park was barely 270 Kbps

“At that point, I almost didn’t know what the internet was. I had only spent a few hours online at a hotel when my brother came to visit us from Madrid and he was staying at the Presidente,” she recalls. “It was all anyone in this neighborhood talked about. Even children in their mothers’ arms were glued to screens to see what they could see.” continue reading

Dunia made her first video call from this hotspot and saw the inside of the Madrid home where her emigré family lives. From here she reconnected via Facebook or Twitter with old friends scattered around the world. And from this corner she shared with her brother the sad news that their mother, who suffered from diabetes, had died.

“We used to spend hours and hours here but I don’t come anymore,” she admits. “Now that we have internet on our phones, I have more privacy and feel safer [connecting] at home. There have been incidents in this park where someone’s phone was snatched or their computer was grabbed while they were logging on.”

In the first year of widespread internet access, official media was filled with headlines praising the new hotspots. Initially, an hour of internet browsing cost 4.50 convertible pesos but Etecsa, the state telecommunications monopoly, kept reducing the price until it was as low as 1.50 pesos.

After years of pressure, Cuban officials finally allowed customers to access the internet from their mobile phones in December of 2018. With the demise of the country’s dual currency system, and along with it the convertible peso, the fee rose to 25 pesos. The technical problems, however, only increased. Since then, the web browsing service has been marked by ups and downs, outages when authorities get nervous about social media posts, deteriorating infrastructure and the exodus of tens of thousands of customers that have left a gaping hole in Etecsa’s balance sheet.

A student using the wifi at Trillo Park in Havana’s Cayo Hueso neighborhood. (14ymedio)

The wifi phenomenon filled Havana’s squares and parks with people, who captured the gaze of photographers, whose images filled the pages of dispatches from the island’s foreign press. Now it seems something is missing on strolls through La Rampa, the park at the interection of San Rafael and Galiano, large stretches of the Malecón, and areas surrounding hotels and important sites. The hundreds of people who once occupied these spaces are gone, a situation that is repeated throughout the country.

The surrounding area is full of MicroTik wireless routers that suck up the signal

“You can’t connect,” complains Julio, who lives near a park in central Holguín. “You get there, you see the network but you can’t log on because there’s no capacity even though there’s not a soul to be found,” he adds. “The surrounding area is full of MicroTiks [a brand of wireless routers] that suck up the signal.”

Savvy businesspeople have saturated the area near the park with these routers, which allows them capture to the signal, amplify it and charge residents for a service they can enjoy from their homes.

“For 500 pesos a month, I can provide you with home-based internet,” says Dany, a Holguín resident whose name has been changed for this article. “It’s much more convenient and less dangerous. But it’s true that, if you want to connect at the park, it’s going to be difficult because we have the signal. It’s rerouted through our equipment, which is more stable and more efficient that Etecsa’s.”

Dany manages a network made up of about twenty Nano and Mikrotik routers. A significant part the city of Holguín’s digital traffic relies on it. “We cannot create capacity where there isn’t any and some days are tough,” he admits. “Etecsa has not expanded the bandwidth of these wifi hotspots, so we have to work with what there is.”

In 2018 Etecsa was talking about more than a thousand wifi hotspots across the island, seeing them as a way to computerize all of Cuban society at twice the speed. Internet users, however, complained about the precariousness of these spaces, the inclement weather that affected the technology when used outdoors, and the threat of crime. They also complained, though less vociferously, that they wanted to be able to consume content that they could not enjoy in public.

When the power goes out, everything shuts down. The park’s antennas turn off and, without electricity, Etecsa’s telephone data towers go dead

With the country’s current energy crisis, blackouts are having a severe impact on Dany and her crew. “When the power goes out, everything shuts down. The park’s antennas turn off and, without electricity, Etecsa’s telephone data towers go dead. So whether you have a Mikrotik or not, you also get disconnected.”

Jessica, a young resident of Sancti Spíritus, notes that, though there is less enthusiasm for them, people still go online at the city’s public hotspots. “They’re downloading movies and TV programs to sell as video entertainment, or to use in their computer or cell phone repair businesses. It’s not crazy like it was before, when everyone was going to the park for wifi. There are those who still use it, not so much for personal reasons but to download big files.”

Jessica believes that the mass protests of 11 July 2021 (’11J’) were the kiss of death for these public hotspots. “They’re seen as threat because they have internet and people are physically congregating there.”

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A Month After the Complaints ‘Lady Trash’ Continues to Reign in the Cuban Capital

The huge garbage dump on the corner of Perseverancia and Laguna awaited the tourists, who stopped to take a couple of photos. (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Natalia López Moya, Havana, November 3, 2023 — “It’s still there, growing every day,” Clara complains while pointing out the mountain of waste on 30th Street at the corner of 37th Street, in the Havana municipality of Playa. The woman, who contacted 14ymedio last October to report the situation, once again asks for help due to the apathy of the Community Services Company.

“It’s like Doña Basura [Lady Trash], it’s everywhere,” Clara laments, alluding to the children’s series Fraggle Rock, a part of her adolescence. “What happens is that this ‘filth lady’ is not at all nice, she is horrible, she smells bad and she has brought a battalion of flies to this neighborhood.”

Clara’s block is not a central avenue, nor is it one of those roads where tourists or official delegations pass. Frequented only by residents in the areas and a few visitors, the street is not among those prioritized by the Government of Havana to collect waste.

Something different happens in the surroundings of the nearby Cira García international clinic, where tourists and diplomats are treated, and which look cleaner of waste. A panorama that is repeated in the also upcoming Miramar House of Music, where “people with hard currency go, not like us who are Cubans with national currency,” Clara says ironically. continue reading

Those who are not lucky enough to live near the clinic or the House of Music are experiencing a true ordeal. “On this street we have been left incommunicado because of the garbage,” denounces Yantiel, a 22-year-old young man living on 17th, between 66th and 68th, also in the Havana municipality of Playa.

The pile of garbage grew so much that it knocked over the box with the telephone wires and now, in addition to the flies, we have been left without landline telephone and without being able to use Nauta Hogar’s internet connection

“The pile of garbage grew so much that it knocked over the box with the telephone lines and now, in addition to the flies, we have been left without landline telephone and without being able to use Nauta Hogar’s internet connection. It is sad,” he adds. “It’s no longer just the flies and bad smells, now it has also brought me problems with my work because I am a designer and I do everything online.”

More than five kilometers from Yantiel and Clara’s houses, the scene repeats itself. A group of European women were walking this Friday morning near the corner of Campanario and Laguna, in Centro Habana, a few meters from a mountain of garbage. The women left the retouched tourist perimeter and entered one of the poorest and dirtiest areas of Havana.

A few meters ahead, the huge garbage dump on the corner of Perseverancia and Laguna awaited the tourists, who stopped to take a couple of photos of a deteriorated art deco-style building with cracked balconies and a faded façade. A flower seller reached out to them to offer them “Cuban and top quality” sunflowers and tobacco.

Doña Basura is one of the characters in the children’s series ’Fraggle Rock’, broadcast several times on Cuban Television. (Screen capture)

“Look, I’ve seen filth in this city but never like this,” says another neighbor from nearby Lealtad. “The current situation has never been experienced here. This entire Lagunas street is a garbage dump, you can’t walk on the sidewalks, you can’t stand at the door because the plague is like a blow to the face.”

At the end of last October, the program coordinator of the capital government, Orestes Llanes Mestres, described the crisis in garbage collection as “the main challenge for the city at the moment.” In a meeting with several Havana authorities, the official announced that waste collection actions were going to be intensified with the support of companies from the Ministry of Construction and state and non-state micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs).

But the days go by and the collection efforts do not reach all the neighborhoods nor appease the spirits of the indignant Havana residents, harassed by a Doña Basura who reigns despotically, with her smells and her flies, everywhere.

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Cuba’s Decline: Where There Were Rolex, Towels Remain

If clients could access the Riviera House before, with its mix of neoclassical and baroque styles and its employees in suits and ties, now sales take place at the door and in a hurry. (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Natalia López Moya, Havana, 5 October 2023 — A woman carries a large wad of bills in her hand. She doesn’t bother to protect the thousands of Cuban pesos because, what was once a large sum of money, today barely becomes a few purchases. Adjacent to the peculiar façade, a dozen people lined up this Thursday in front of the former Casa Riviera, an exclusive store on Galiano #456 in Centro Habana, which once sold Rolex watches and jewelry, but which has now been rented to a small private company that offers sheets, cloth wipes for cleaning floors and towels.

A few meters before reaching the store, the symbols of its former class can be distinguished. The imposing entrance gate, the small stained-glass windows decorated with flowery frames where the expensive jewels used to be displayed. The rough stone columns support the entrance hall that used to have beautiful granite floors and today shows impersonal modern slabs, of poor quality and full of holes.

“My place is after the man in the blue shirt,” exclaimed an elderly woman who pledges to have “seized the rhythm” of the MSME* [small private business]. “They sell a little cheaper than elsewhere, so many people come here to buy in quantities and take them away to resell”, she explains to 14ymedio. After years of being closed due to problems with sewage pipes and lack of supplies, the old Riviera began to be managed by individuals a few weeks ago. continue reading

If previously its customers could access the property, with its mix of neoclassical and baroque styles and its employees in suits and ties, now selling takes place at the door and with haste

A bedsheet with two pillow cases, made with a high percentage of polyester and at 1,300 pesos, ($54.60) is displayed at the entrance counter. If before clients could access the property, with its mix of neoclassical and baroque style, and its employees in suits and ties, now selling takes place at the door and in a hurry. “Come on, whose turn is it?” the saleswoman tried to speed up the line, somewhat overwhelmed by the questions from those crowding the counter. Behind her, the interior of the legendary watch and jewelry store was still visible, with its light marbles, its elaborate capitals and a narrow staircase that gave way to the majestic mezzanine.

“Give me ten towels!” A customer shouted and her voice echoed through the walls of the business that initially operated under the Abislaimán e Hijos brand, the exclusive distributor of Rolex watches in Cuba. “Don’t crowd together, I can’t even breathe that way!” the employee demanded when the line got out of control and overwhelmed her. The majority of those who stood in line were humble people, who are willing to get up early to make a few pesos difference on the resale of merchandise.

A bed sheet with two pillow cases, with a high percentage of polyester priced at 1,300 pesos, is displayed at the entrance counter. (14ymedio)

Casa Riviera was not the only business of Julio Abislaimán Fade’s family. His daughter Alicia and her husband Manuel Hernández managed the also exclusive Chantilly jewelry store in a central location on San Rafael Street in Havana. When the confiscations began after Fidel Castro came to power, the clan of businessmen packed their bags and went to Puerto Rico. There, they registered the company as Chantilly Joyeros and, although a good part of the descendants of those Cuban emigrants moved to the United States, the Abislaimán Joyas firm, niece of the Casa Riviera in Havana, still operates in ”La Isla del Encanto” (Puerto Rico).

“If you don’t get organized, the sale will have to stop”, an anxious saleswoman shouted this Thursday, unable to control the customers’ disorder. Next to her, two of the armored glass and bronze-framed windows, which more than half a century ago showed the shiny Rolexes, this morning had a rusty hook for hanging pillowcases and kitchen rags.

*Translator’s note: Literally, “Micro, Small, Medium Enterprise.” The expectation is that it is also privately managed, but in Cuba this may include owners/managers who are connected to the regime.

Translated by Norma Whiting

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