Olea Gallardo – Translating Cuba

Richmeat Brings Dollarization to the Plaza de Cuatro Caminos in Havana

The mysterious company, falsely Mexican, opened a La Favorita butcher shop in the central market

New butcher shop sells in dollars at La Favorita by Richmeat on Cuatro Caminos / 14ymedio

14ymedio, Juan Diego Rodríguez / Olea Gallardo, Havana, June 20, 2025 — A new business has just joined the fever of dollarization in Havana. And not just anywhere, but in the largest and oldest market of the capital, Cuatro Caminos, in Centro Habana. This is a butcher shop of the firm Richmeat, which three months ago signed an agreement with Cimex to manage a whole complex of shops under the name of La Favorita, as some of its products are called.

Just a few days after opening, the place looks pristine, clean and perfectly air conditioned. A blue and yellow balloon decoration shows that the opening is recent. All of the employees address anyone who enters with the same question: “Can I help you with something?”

The variety of the offers – pork, boneless or seasoned chicken, house brand picadillo (El Cocinerito), sausages, burgers… – contrast with the freely convertible currency (MLC) part of the Plaza, only a few years ago well stocked and now languishing.

While the store was previously accessed through a door in front of the MLC products, it is now accessed through the main facade on Cuatro Caminos. / 14ymedio

As if to separate the new venue from the old, which is gradually being abandoned, they changed the entrance. Previously accessed through a door in front of the products in MLC, clients now enter through the main facade of Cuatro Caminos. “The hard currency gets the red carpet,” an old man mocked in front of the new butcher shop.

“Here there is almost nothing, but look there, girl, in dollars,” indicated a custodian of the place to a client. Nothing was said about the poor quality of continue reading

Richmeat’s products, which does not prevent the company from becoming increasingly prosperous.

La Favorita will soon open a branch in a privileged enclave, the Náutico de La Habana, a shopping center close to the exclusive club of the same name, in the municipality of Playa. That was going to be the first of the shops according to the agreement between Richmeat and Tiendas Caribe, announced by the authorities, but the one of Cuatro Caminos has advanced without explanations.

An employee confirmed to this newspaper that the plan to open that butcher shop in the western part of the city is still ongoing, predictably also in dollars.

The poor quality of the products of the Richmeat factory does not prevent the company from becoming more and more prosperous

The official press indicated last March that in a “first stage” of the agreement with Cimex they would have not only the Playa store, but three more. As “the project progresses,” said Cubadebate, “its expansion to other territories of the country will be planned.” They did not say at that time, however, that the sale of products would be in dollars.

This agreement was the second of its kind by the state corporation belonging to the Group of Business Administration (Gaesa), after the one signed with Vima for the store at Infanta and Santa Marta, in Centro Habana, inaugurated last January.

This is not the only similarity between the two brands. Like the one founded by the Spaniard Víctor Moro Suárez, Richmeat products are little appreciated by Cubans, although they often represent the only protein option in the basket amid perpetual scarcity. “No one wants to eat the picadillo” is the comment of many consumers when they receive those tubes of 400 and 800 grams, which are marketed under the brand of El Cocinerito and La Favorita, respectively.

Another coincidence with Vima is that both companies are registered abroad, in Mexico in the case of Richmeat, but neither is known in their respective countries. In Cuba they have preeminence and receive all kinds of hospitality.

There is no indication that Richmeat is a truly Mexican company and not a Cuban firm “disguised” as foreign

Beyond its legal registration, effectively in Mexico, and the nationality of both its president, Luis Alberto González Hernández, and its vice president, Alejandra Chapela Díaz – both present at the signing of the recent agreement with Tiendas Caribe – there is no indication that Richmeat is a truly Mexican company and not a Cuban firm “disguised” as foreign.

As 14ymedio found, the most important Mexican meat industry agencies do not have this company registered: neither the National Agri-Food Certification and Verification Agency, nor the National Association of Establishments Type Federal Inspection (ANETIF) or the Mexican Meat Council.

Even more significant is that the National Service of Health, Safety and Agri-food Quality (Senasica), the Mexican authority responsible for issuing animal health certificates for exporting meat and products derived from it, has no news of Richmeat. “This must be because it operates directly in Cuba, and its products do not come from Mexico,” an official of that agency who asked for anonymity told this newspaper.

According to a knowledgeable source, Richmeat sources its meat on the island, not in Mexico. / 14ymedio

According to a knowledgeable source, Richmeat purchases the meat in Cuba, not in Mexico. This would explain the poor quality of the products. Meat in Mexico has an established reputation, and it’s no wonder the country is one of the world’s leading exporters of beef. According to this source, Richmeat buys the meat on the island, and one of the sites where they buy is the Rigoberto Corcho Credit and Service Cooperative (CCS), in Artemisa.

That it is truly Cuban and not Mexican would explain the “constant presence” of Richmeat “for more than eight years,” which the official press often emphasizes, “even in the most critical periods during the covid-19 pandemic”.

What is clear are the privileges received by the firm. It is often praised by the authorities and now has a location in Havana’s main market. This suggests that it is most likely a company controlled by the Cuban leadership, and the view is that it is expanding.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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‘After Difficult Negotiations.’ Bahamas Cancels Medical Contracts With Havana

Cuban health workers interested in staying will sign a new employment contract with the country’s Ministry of Health.

Bahamas Health Minister Michael Darville speaking to Parliament on Monday / Screen capture

14ymedio, Olea Gallardo, Havana, June 17, 2025 — As announced, the Bahamas will directly hire Cuban doctors who are serving on the islands and cancel its agreements with the regime. This was announced by the Bahamian Minister of Health, Michael Darville, in a speech to Parliament on Monday about the government budget for 2025.

Darville said he was in Havana two weeks ago to “review the hiring protocols” of health workers with Cuban recruitment agencies. “After difficult negotiations, we are ready to announce the cancelation of all existing contracts with the Government of Havana and the signing of direct contracts with Cuban health workers,” he said.

Health workers who agree with the new terms, said the minister, will “sign a new employment contract with my ministry” and be able to stay in the country, deployed on the Family Islands (the myriad of islands that are not Grand Bahama and New Providence, whose capital is Nassau). “Those who are not interested in this new agreement will have time to settle their affairs and return to Cuba,” he emphasized.

The Cuban health staff currently consists of 35 persons: 3 ophthalmologists, 3 nurses, 10 biomedical engineers, 8 laboratory technicians and 11 x-ray technicians

As specified by the minister, the Cuban health staff currently consists of 35 people: 3 ophthalmologists, 3 nurses, 10 biomedical engineers, 8 laboratory technicians and 11 x-ray technicians, who, he said, “have recently completed a new training program at Princess Margaret Hospital” in Nassau. Most of them, he said, are willing to serve on the Family Islands.

Darville emphasized that all Cuban workers “receive the same benefits” as local workers. “They are well treated, they are respected in our country, we are grateful for their service,” he declared, while assuring that the contracts between both countries were articulating the changes.

In his address to Parliament, the Minister highlighted the shortage of health professionals in the country, including doctors and nurses from Ghana. At the same time, he promised that they will train and hire Bahamians to “fill in the gaps.” continue reading

He also said that the recruitment of Cuban teachers and health workers is suspended pending the outcome of talks with the US, which last February threatened to restrict visas for officials from foreign countries involved in what it called “labor exploitation” of Cuban workers abroad, including health workers.

“They are well treated, they are respected in our country, we are grateful their service”

Two days after the Bahamian Prime Minister, Philip Davis, held a meeting with US Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, on May 6, Davis told the press that he would renegotiate the labor agreements with Havana and that, from then on, he would pay all the Cuban health workers directly.

At the meeting, according to Davis, he explained the situation to US officials and denied that the Cuban doctors were being exploited for their labor. “We were able to communicate this to them, and I think they were satisfied that we are not involved in any forced labor that we know of,” he said.

“If forced labor is occurring in our country with the Cubans, we have no record of it,” he added, while indicating that an exhaustive analysis was being carried out to determine whether there was any “element” of this type present in the employment relationship. “If we discover something like this, it will be corrected,” he said.

Davis argued, with relevance, that the method of payment through the Cuban government was not extraordinary. The Prime Minister resorted to recalling how the US paid part of the wages of Bahamian seasonal workers to the UK before the islands became independent. “That is not an unknown concept or construct. But it is now considered an ingredient of forced labor. So we will address that and say to anyone we hire, ’Look, we’ll pay you directly into your account’.”

Archivo Cuba, at the end of April, published an investigation showing that the professionals on mission to the Bahamas receive only between 8% and 16% of what the Bahamian government pays to Havana or them – between 5,000 and 12,000 dollars a month. It added that the Bahamian statements were mainly for the US State Department, and it urged Nassau to hire the Cubans directly.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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From a Prison in Cuba, the Owner of the Havana ‘Costco’ Denounces Deception and Torture

Cuban-American Frank Cuspinera accuses his lawyer of colluding with State Security to “keep me in prison, defenseless.”

Frank Cuspinera was arrested on June 20, 2024, and his Diplomarket was closed / Facebook

14ymedio, Olea Gallardo, Havana, 28 May 2025 — Almost a year after his arrest and lack of information about his whereabouts, Frank Cuspinera, owner of the Diplomarket, the “Cuban Costco” of Havana, has reappeared. He did so through a handwritten letter from prison signed on May 21, whose authenticity was confirmed by a family member this Wednesday, hours after it was broadcast by the ‘influencer’ Alexander Otaola.

In it, he makes “an appeal to the international community, to international and human rights organizations,” as well as to the United States Department of State, “to intervene with Cuban institutions for the constant violations of my rights and the denial of legal guarantees for my defense by Cuban state institutions and their representatives.”

Cuspinera says that he was manipulated by Cuban State Security (DSE) and the Cuban judicial apparatus, “which were cruelly activated against me” and which managed, with “multiple falsehoods,” to accuse me” without the right to a defense. “They have limited my access to justice. I was denied my rights to communication and legal defense from the start,” he claims in the letter. continue reading

Cuspinera announces he will go on a hunger strike on June 1

Therefore, he announces that he will go on a hunger strike -“to plantarme [stand firm]” he specifies, using the term of political prisoners – on June 1. “I will be willing to go to extreme consequences,” he says, until his rights to prompt defense and bail are guaranteed, “to be able to prove the injustice.” The Cuban-American businessman says that there was “premeditation by the DSE in conspiracy with the DTI [Technical Directorate of Investigations] and other institutions, including my defense attorney, who has worked against me.”

“Everything was planned even before my arrest, on June 20, 2024, almost a year ago,” he continues, confirming the date spread on social networks and never mentioned by the government. In those days, the La Tijera Facebook page said that a State Security operative arrived at the supermarket – located at kilometer 8 1⁄2 of the Carretera Monumenta, in the neighborhood of Berroa, more than 10 kilometers east of the center of the capital – along with two buses carrying auditors from Gaesa (Grupo de Administración Empresarial S.A.), the conglomerate of the Armed Forces and owner of the land where the establishment was located.

A day earlier, in the WhatsApp group managed by Diplomarket, a message announced that they were “closed until further notice,” explaining: “We are having problems operating because our commercial license has to be renewed.” The app could still be visited and had a caption: “We are offline. Send us an email.”

“The Frank Cuspinera and Diplomarket case was premeditated and planned because it developed the private sector and was registered as a company in the United States”

The La Tijera post pondered, referring to Raúl Guillermo Rodríguez Castro, son of the late Luis Alberto Rodríguez López-Calleja and Déborah Castro Espín, and bodyguard of his grandfather, Raúl: “It seems that now El Cangrejo [The Crab, a nickname for López-Calleja], grandson of the dictator Raúl Castro, no longer needs his Miami figurehead Frank Cuspinera Medina.” The brief text also recalled that Cuspinera Medina was vice president of Las Americas TCC Corporation, based in Pompano Beach (Florida), and that for years he had been residing in El Vedado, where he had bought “a mansion thanks to his relationship with the dictatorial elite.”

The next day, La Tijera disclosed more details of the case from an email received. According to this anonymous source, the “Cuban military forces” intervened in the business of the Cuban-American, and both he and his wife have been “incommunicado” since that day, accused of “tax evasion, currency trafficking and money laundering.” These accusations, the email claimed, were “nothing more than a pretext for the regime to appropriate their assets.”

“The authorities waited until the closing of the day to break into the company and take everything, a sale that the owners had previously authorized themselves,” continued the text. On the day after these events, “they began to confiscate all the assets of his company and distribute them among the members of the Castro elite.”

La Tijera’s source framed the operation within a “repetitive pattern” in which “the Castro regime attacks those who try to create opportunities and prosperity outside of State control.” However, this was not the case of Cuspinera, well established on both sides of the straits of Florida for years.

In his letter from prison, Cuspinera does not mention any of these names, but he states: “The Frank Cuspinera and Diplomarket case was premeditated and planned because it developed the private sector, and as a company registered in the United States with approval and federal licenses that competed with Cuban State enterprises, it brought into question the reach of the blockade.” In this regard, he also does not specify what type of license he has from the US Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), without which it is impossible to trade with Cuba under the laws of the embargo.

Las Americas TCC, among other activities, was in charge of supplying Diplomarket, inaugurated at the end of 2022

Las Américas TCC, among other activities, was responsible for supplying Diplomarket, inaugurated at the end of 2022. The supermarket, which before opening was already functioning physically for online shopping, started operating discreetly until a tweet by CNN correspondent Patrick Oppmann, who did not mention its name, focused on it almost a year later.

On that occasion, this newspaper visited the business and could see the strong surveillance to which it was subjected. In a first booth, they were taking the data of vehicles at the time of entry, and later there was another guard booth, before entering the store. At the door, two individuals looked everyone up and down, and a large screen showed the movement of the security cameras, placed everywhere. A regular customer called it a “military unit.”

Not even 12 months had passed when Cuspinera fell into disgrace, in a case that recalled the former Minister of Economy Alejandro Gil Fernández, arrested in March 2024, weeks after being dismissed for “mistakes made in the exercise of his office,” and about whom nothing has been known since.

When Diplomarket came to light it was not easy to find out who owned it, as the firm was not on the list of micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) approved by the Ministry of Economy and Planning, and the name of Cuspinera did not appear on the supermarket’s website.

“Of the crimes they charge me with, they have manipulated contradictory statements of workers, without their knowledge and contact”

On the other hand, he was listed as vice president of Las Americas TCC. Consulting specialized pages, this newspaper verified that he had been domiciled in the United States and in El Vedado (Havana). In 2021 he appeared as a “specialist” at a meeting between self-employed workers and the National Association of Economists and Accountants of Cuba.

That same year, his name also appeared in a letter sent by several Cuban entrepreneurs to US President Joe Biden asking him to lift the sanctions against the island’s government, which were damaging to their businesses. In the letter he was not listed as a member of Las Américas TCC but rather as part of Iderod Servicios Constructivos.

This last firm was not on the list of MSMEs of the regime, although a company with its name, Cuspinera SURL LVI, is listed as dedicated to “providing services of electronic commerce platform,” as a branch of Las Americas TCC.

The businessman does not name in his letter either Las Americas or Iderod but does present himself as a “citizen, lawyer, Cuban-American entrepreneur” of Cuspinera SURL [Unipersonal Limited Liability Company], both in Florida and in Havana, “under the Diplomarket brand, known as the Cuban Costco.”

Cuspinera also states that he will not try to “evade the action of justice, but only ask that I can defend myself”

The text does not detail the charges against Cuspinera, but he claims: “Of the crimes I am accused of, they have manipulated contradictory statements of workers, outside their knowledge and contact.” The employer claims that he was accused of crimes by workers who “may have been able to leave the country.”

He says that, among other vicissitudes, “they have confiscated millions of dollars in goods, equipment, money from purchases and bank accounts,” without giving him a copy of those seizures. And he claims that the authorities “do not show evidence of alleged fraudulent goods, evasions or amounts, misrepresenting and manipulating information” which, he says, would prove his innocence. In addition, he accuses the prosecutors: “They have taken my statements by deception, trickery and torture.”

“They have denied all possibility based on an absurd social injury, without proof (there is no such danger from me to society), and by manipulating my statements and those of my employees.”

The appeal by his defense attorney to Court Complaints and Petitions was “riddled with errors, lacking in available evidence and all with the purpose of keeping me in prison, defenseless. He did not allow me access to my file and prevented other defense attorneys from being able to act.”

Giving names, he points to “instructor Yisset Oliva Betancourt,” the provincial director of the National Office of Tax Administration (ONAT), Yoandra Cruz Dovales, and his official lawyer, Luis Alberto Martínez Suárez, for having “taken unlawful actions to hold me in provisional detention unlawfully, without defense.”

Cuspinera also states that he will not try to “evade the action of justice but ask that I can defend myself through a bond so that the truth about my responsibility and that of the institutions comes out.”

Before finishing his letter, in which he also says that his mother is ill with cancer, the entrepreneur reaffirms his intention to stand firm. “I am ready to go to extreme consequences with my hunger strike to prove my innocence,” he concludes, after having warned that “the organs of the DSE” cut off “any possibility of defense.”

Translated by Regina Anavy

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Neighbors of the Saratoga Hotel in Limbo Three Years after an Accident that killed 47 People

“We remain unsheltered, homeless, and seeing no real progress in the reconstruction of our building.”

El hueco que ocupaba Prado 609, entre el hotel Saratoga y el edificio Yoruba, en La Habana, este martes. / 14ymedio

14ymedio, Juan Diego Rodríguez/Olea Gallardo, Havana, May 6, 2025 — A massive police presence could be observed around the former Saratoga Hotel and an adjacent building on Tuesday, three years after an explosion destroyed both structures and left forty-seven people dead. The resources employed by authorities to monitor the site on the anniversary of the accident were inversely proportional to the attention given to the demands of the evacuated residents, who took advantage of the opportunity to publicly express their grievances.

“As a resident of 609 Prado Street, I am posting this message to denounce the complete neglect of the victims by authorities,” writes Bárbara del Carmen Tenreyro Pérez on her Facebook page, summing up the situation of the building’s former residents. “We have been unsheltered and homeless for the last three years, and have seen no real progress in the reconstruction of our building.” In fact, residents say, work has been at a standstill for the last six months.

What remained of the building after the explosion was demolished in May 2023. A few months later, the government assured residents they would be able to return to their homes in 2025, claiming they would be rebuilt in the same location. “What they promised were just empty words. The official date for the building’s completion.

Nor has there ever been a full explanation of what happened. Authorities initially attributed the incident to possible leaks in the hose of a tanker truck that was supplying liquefied natural gas to the hotel at the time of the explosion. An investigation was promised but no findings were ever released. “What is most painful is the silence,” said Tenreyro. “No one tells us anything, no one helps us, no one responds to our concerns.” Her post included several photos showing the scene before and after the incident.

Using the same images to illustrate her own comments on the situation, Katherine T. Gavilán writes, “Another May 6th [has come around] and they are still homeless. Some have decided to leave the country while most are still living in Villa Panamericana. The relatives of those killed in the incident and everyone else are still awaiting the results of an investigation but there continue reading

is no news.”

Gavilán notes that, two years ago, families who had been living in the building’s twenty-seven apartments were informed that “they would be able to return to their homes by August 2025.” She adds that residents delivered letters to the local government, the National Assembly and the hotel’s owner, the Business Administration Group (GAESA), last year.

GAESA, the owner of the hotel, told residents that it “had nothing to do with matter”

GAESA, a business conglomerate run by the Cuban military, has owned the hotel since 2016, when it was seized from Habaguanex, a business subsidiary of Havana’s once all-powerful Office of the Historian, headed by the late Eusebio Leal. According to Gavilán, GAESA told residents that it “had nothing to do with the matter.” They received no response from the other two government entities other than to say that “the person in charge of the issue was the Havana government’s head of construction.”

Gavilán adds, “A little less than a month ago, one of the residents, acting on behalf of the entire building, requested a meeting with Namán Morales, the official in charge. Morales’s aide said she would discuss the matter with him and would call back in a few days. The following week, the aide said that she had not been able to speak with him. Gavilán got the same response fifteen days days after her initial contact.”

If the authorities had taken any steps, we would have heard about it. It has been well over a year since they have given us any information,” she complains, adding that none of the various government agencies responded to letters that one resident delivered to them in person.

“Initially, they provided a bus for us here but took it away because there was no fuel

They tried to deliver another letter to the Communist Party Central Committee on Monday but were unable to do so due to lack of transportation from the area where they are being housed. “Initially, we had a bus. It took us from the Villa every day and brought us back in the evening. But they took it away because they they didn’t have the fuel to keep it running,” she says.

The biggest problem in Villa Panamericana is not transportation, however, but running water. “Here, water here is only available here one or two times a day, for an hour. That’s when we have to fill tanks, jars and plastic jugs to last us the whole day. It’s what we use for the bathroom, for bathing, cooking, cleaning, for everything.”

Living conditions for the former residents vary, along with their complaints. “One neighbor had a swarm of rats. To shut her up, they sent an exterminator but no one fixed the furniture the rats had been eating. Others have had serious problems with leaks. Others with termites, even in the doors and windows.”

Work stopped last November, “after they poured the foundation,” she says. “There was never an explanation as to what caused the accident. They have never given us that information and we’re tired of asking for it.”

Residents were told that “construction would begin on February 24 and would be completed by December 25, that the building would go up quickly. Now look at where we are.” Work has been stalled since November, “after they poured the foundation,” she says.

A photo posted by residents on social media on Tuesday shows a hole in the foundation of 609 Prado Street, with bare concrete and stacks of rebars left here and there. Gavilán estimates it was taken in late December or early January” from the roof of the adjoining building, the Yoruba Cultural Association of Cuba. “No one else has been able to take photos [since then] because they covered up that little hole.”

A hole of the slab of 609 Prado Street as seen from the rooftop of the Yoruba Building Facebook

Located a few yards from Havana’s Capitol building, the site would normally be considered very desirable. Before the explosion, several families made money by renting out rooms to tourists but have been unable to do so for the last three years. The move to East Havana has not only deprived them of this economic opportunity, it has also completely cut them off from the retail network they relied upon and from the schools their children attended.

Meanwhile, reconstruction on the iconic Saratoga has also come to a standstill. Almest, a real estate developer affiliated with the the Armed Forces ministry, was tasked by the government to carry out the work in conjunction with an an unnamed French company, widely believed to be based in the city of Bouygues and to have worked on the construction of twenty-two luxury hotels on the island.

On the first anniversary of accident last year, Cuban architect Luis Ángel Gil, who now lives in Spain, shared a proposal on social media for renovating the hotel. He proposed a new name, Kairós Saratoga, after the classical Greek words for “opportune moment.”

His basic idea was that the building would act “like a horizontal opening” so that “users would not feel enclosed by walls and could enjoy the excellent views the site has to offer.” To achieve this, he proposed incorporating “a vertical park” that would serve as “a natural extension of the existing public space,” enveloping the building and “strengthening the connection between architecture and nature.”

This proposal, ignored by authorities like the still unknown plan that officials might have, seems to being lying dormant in a drawer somewhere.

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Nostalgia for Radio Martí in Cuba, the Soundtrack of the Longing for Freedom of Information for Decades

“It’s where I first heard the real truth,” Tomás recalls
Numerous voices inside and outside the Island speak out against Trump’s decision to paralyze the station

Radio Martí was for at least a decade the only alternative source of news in a country where the Communist Party had a strict monopoly on information / Al Jazeera

14ymedio, Olea Gallardo, Havana, 17 March 2025 — During the Rafter Crisis unleashed in Cuba between August and September 1994, after the so-called Maleconazo, thousands of inhabitants of the Island tuned in to Radio Martí for one main reason: every day, the names of those rescued at sea were read there. It was, for many, the only way to know if their relatives were alive.

Years earlier, the station widely covered Case number 1 of 1989, when Arnaldo Ochoa and other high-ranking soldiers were executed, accused of drug trafficking and high treason. “If it had not been for Radio Martí, very little or nothing would have been known about the true involvement of the Castro regime in drug trafficking, ivory trafficking in Africa and other excesses,” says María, a resident of El Vedado in Havana. Like so many compatriots, she is dumbfounded that the current US president, Donald Trump, has suspended, by an executive order that includes other federal projects, the operations of the media, which this Monday is no longer broadcasting live.

Radio Martí – later called Radio and Television Martí when it had its own channel – was for at least a decade, since its inauguration on May 20, 1985, the only alternative source of news in a country where the Communist Party had a strict monopoly on information, until independent media appeared in the late 90s. As a part of Radio Broadcasting to Cuba, created in 1981 by then-President Ronald Reagan at the behest of anti-Castro leader Jorge Mas Canosa, it transmitted by short wave, and its signal could be heard in several Caribbean countries.

“Very few on the Island dared to give statements directly to Radio Martí, and those who did were repressed”

“At that time there were very few on the Island who dared to give statements directly to Radio Martí, and those who did were automatically stigmatized and repressed,” recalls María, who remembers the maneuvers that had to be done in the houses to tune in. “You had to have a certain type of radio and put it in a certain place. My father discovered that if he lay down on the bathroom floor and put it on the tiles, he picked up the station better, so the bathroom became a very busy place.”

Aware of the power of providing information other than the official one, the regime immediately jammed the signal with an annoying interference. “It continue reading

could barely be heard and had a noise, brbrbrbr,” imitates Tomás, a resident of Centro Habana, who claims to be a listener of the station since he was a teenager. “The neighbor next door put it on and taught me how to look for it on the radio and I put it on too.” At that time, says the man, there was no other universe than the one presented on national television. “We were completely oblivious. Here we thought that the world was a disaster and that Cuba was paradise.”

In its programs at that time, you could learn about the consequences of hurricanes crossing the Island – something that official propaganda always tried to minimize – or officials who had deserted on a trip abroad, or even international sanctions against the Havana regime. Tomás concludes: “Where I first heard the real truth was on Radio Martí.”

It also served, for example, to know what number came up in the “bolita,” the illegal lottery that is played on Cuban streets

The musical theme at the beginning of the broadcasts was repeated several times during the day and in some way became the soundtrack of our desire for freedom of information. “When you heard that cadence coming from a home in some tenement, you knew that the family was listening to the forbidden station,” María continues.

When I was little and heard it for the first time, it was in the middle of the Special Period,” says Josiel, an immigrant in Florida. “I soon sensed that it was something forbidden because in the neighborhood many spoke quietly when they mentioned this station.” Josiel says that he was not very aware of what was happening, but he associates Radio Martí with some neighbors who “made rafts with truck bodies” and reached the Guantánamo Naval Base.

As an adult, the young man continues, he visited the house of an uncle in Santiago de Cuba, who was very critical of the regime and a “faithful listener of Las Noticias Como Son (The News as it is).” In a similar way, María believes that the political transformation of her father, who ended up denying the Communist Party of which he had been a member, “was partly due to Radio Martí, which he greatly admired.”

There were consequences to getting involved in some way with the station. In the repression of the Black Spring, the mere possession of a shortwave radio to capture the signal or having ever spoken through microphones, via phone call, were considered incriminating evidence against the activists and independent journalists who were tried in those days of 2003.

“It can be reactivated with fewer staff, but nothing guarantees us employment”

The medium did not always have such a serious task. It also served, for example, to know what number came up in the “bolita,” the illegal lottery that is played on Cuban streets. “There were people on my block who only tuned in for that,” explains Gabriel, now a resident of Miami. His first memory of Radio Martí was not as a listener of the station but as a student, at the beginning of what was called the “Battle of Ideas“: “The first thing I heard were attacks made by teachers against that medium, which they called an enemy. In the classrooms we were constantly bombarded with rants against everything related to the Cubans in Miami.”

This 35-year-old father, a Trump supporter, does not believe that the closure of Radio Martí will be definitive. In this regard, he mentions the president’s own order, issued as “temporary,” and the promise of Cuban-American Republican congressmen Carlos Giménez, María Elvira Salazar and Mario Díaz-Balart to “work” to guarantee the continuity of broadcasting.

“Radio Martí has been key to counter the propaganda of the Castro/Díaz-Canel regime. While the programs and agencies of the federal government are restructured, I will continue to work with President Trump to ensure that the Cuban people have access to the uncensored news they need and deserve,” Salazar wrote on his social networks.

Martí Radio Television workers who a few days ago maintained optimism, this Monday were more hopeless. “It can be reactivated with fewer staff, but nothing guarantees employment,” one of them told 14ymedio on condition of anonymity.

“The freedom and democratization of Cuba is not only of interest and benefit to Cubans but also to the United States”

For the time being, numerous voices inside and outside the Island have spoken out against the presidential decision. On Monday, the Assembly of the Cuban Resistance urged Trump on Monday to help, instead of ending Radio and Television Martí. “The preservation and strengthening of this means of communication is indispensable for the Cuban people,” the Miami-based coalition, composed of 53 groups, stressed in a statement. It also reiterated: “The freedom and democratization of Cuba is not only of interest and benefit to Cubans but also to the United States.” It recalled that the Havana regime “has installed on its territory military and espionage bases of the adversarial regimes of the United States and has consistently undermined US national security.”

For its part, the Council for the Democratic Transition in Cuba, based in Madrid, expressed its “deep concern about the order to dismantle the United States Agency for Global Media (USAGM), which includes the temporary suspension of funding for Radio and Television Martí. ” This “has already brought negative consequences, such as the receipt of dismissal letters by workers, who are in a situation of uncertainty.”

In a statement made public on Monday, the organization emphasizes that these media “have played an essential role in offering truthful information to the Cuban population, breaking the regime’s information monopoly and acting as a necessary counterweight to state propaganda.” In addition, it points out that they have also been “key elements to promote independent journalism, peaceful resistance against repression and censorship of the Cuban regime.”

And they warn: “The disappearance of Radio and Television Martí would represent a significant setback, benefiting exclusively the Cuban regime in its propaganda discourse both inside and outside the Island. In addition, it would strengthen the propaganda and misinformation of other authoritarian regimes that already have a presence in Cuba and in the rest of the world, such as the Russian media, Russia Today (RT), CGTN of China, HispanTV of Iran and Telesur of Venezuela, which would also affect the democratic interests of the United States and the West in general.”

José Daniel Ferrer, leader of the Patriotic Union of Cuba (UNPACU), spoke along the same line. In repeated posts on his social networks, he highlighted that Radio and Television Martí is “a necessary and inseparable symbol of the cause in favor of freedom and democracy in Cuba.” He understands “any necessary restructuring” so that “these platforms constantly improve and are more effective and of greater scope,” but affirms that “they must not cease to exist.”

“Its total absence would greatly benefit the discourse and propaganda of the Cuban communist regime and the anti-democratic media increasingly present on our continent”

“Its total absence would greatly benefit the discourse and propaganda of the Cuban communist regime and the anti-democratic media increasingly present on our continent,” insisted the historical opponent. He asks that the president of the United States allow Radio and Television Martí “to continue to give voice to our people, oppressed and silenced by a brutal and tyrannical enemy of the United States and the entire West.”

Miriam Leiva also lashed out against the measure. In a post published on Facebook, the independent journalist recalled her collaboration, over more than 20 years, with Las Noticias Como Son, the program presented by José Luis Ramos, Amado Gil and her husband, Oscar Espinosa Chepe, which cost him the regime’s reprisal. “In his trial as part of the 75 of the Black Spring of 2003, the prosecutor used his participation in that program. Chepe replied that if they didn’t want him to do it, ’give me space on national radio’. The response to him was harsh and offensive.”

In the same publication, Leiva recalled, in capital letters, that Radio and Television Martí never paid them (something, by the way, that other collaborators expose as a criticism and that has been a frequent source of discomfort among reporters living in Cuba, who did not even benefit from phone recharges by the station). Not in vain, the journalist relates how the regime has recently congratulated itself on the cancellation of the programs that help independent media and human rights activists. Leiva concludes: “With this dismantling, the Cuban government has won.”

Translated by Regina Anavy

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The Official Press Denounces the Situation of a Neighborhood That Has Been Without Water for Three Years

Municipal authorities acknowledge that the problem has no solution at the moment and express their concern about the coming months of drought

Two neighbors from the Jesús María neighborhood, in Sancti Spíritus, attach a hose to capture water from a leak. / Capture/Escambray

14ymedio, Olea Gallardo, Havana, 31 January 2025 – Several streets in the Jesús María neighborhood of Sancti Spíritus have been without water for three years. This time the complaint is not being made, as is usual in Cuba, by anonymous users on social networks or independent media, but by the official newspaper Escambray. Last Friday on its video newscast, VisionEs, it showed one of its reporters, Elsa Ramos, visiting the place she had gone six months earlier, and found that the situation was the same: still no water service.

One of the neighbors interviewed explained to the journalist the strategies they use to get water. “We’re going to put the pump in now, we put in the cables and the hose and a man there lends us a little tube, and we connect the pump there and get the water,” he said. “Because here on this block, from this corner to La Gloria, nobody has gotten even a drop of water for three or four years.”

Another resident confirmed: “It’s been more than three years since the water came in here, without any explanation offered. It’s impossible that this pipe here has water, that one over there has water, all the pipes in the block have water, and that this little section here does not have water. I don’t know how that is, it doesn’t make sense.”

A third resident hedged: “Since the construction of Reparto 26, the area around this neighborhood has been greatly affected.” There is water at her doorstep – “It’s a small stream, with little force, but with luck, there is no shortage,” the reporter noted. But this caused other neighbors to point out that it took from “early morning until all hours” to fill containers.

In her report, Elsa Ramos confronted “the government’s representation,” Ariel Muñoz Hidalgo, deputy mayor of Transportation and Energy for Sancti Spíritus, and Yusmeiky Mendoza Muro, director of the state Aquaduct and Sewage Company for the same city.

Asked about the reason why some parts of the neighborhood have water and others do not, Muñoz Hidalgo pointed to the “continuous increase in illegal connections to the hydraulic networks.” The reporter pointed out: “There are illegal connections because they don’t have water.” The official agreed and added, “because they don’t have water or because they have made new constructions.” continue reading

Thus, she attributed a good part of the problem to the increase in the population “without a projection, without an increase in the hydraulic systems as well.” The deputy mayor assured that they have a pumping system “with new pumps, with good water distribution capacities,” but that it could not be used “one hundred percent” because, he explained again, about the leaks, which prevent good pressure in all places.

Tank leaking water on the roof next to a house in Jesús María that does not have the service. / Capture/Escambray

The reporter persisted in asking why one segment in the heart of Jesús María does not have water while the surrounding streets do. The official replied that the street she referred to, Guillermón Moncada, is “very old.” But he didn’t go into detail about the reasons, and in fact, blamed the residents who get water by their own means: “We say it is illegal because it is not approved to do so, but people do it in search of the benefit of the resource.”

When the journalist asked Yusmeiky Mendoza Muro if Aquaduct has a solution and within what time frame, the company manager admitted: “No.” He and the deputy mayor enumerated numerous problems: a shortage of hoses, materials, fuel, and personnel. “We have almost no plumbers,” Mendoza Muro added.

Sealing the leaks and repairing the tanks on the houses are the next solutions that Muñoz Hidalgo promised, but at the same time, he warned that the situation will worsen in the coming months. “At this stage we do have to say that it is much more complex for us because we are already entering the dry season,” the official said, explaining that there are areas that are supplied by the Yayabo River, “which is losing all its capacity.”

“From early February,” he continued, “they will activate the groups to confront the drought and will draw up a calendar for the distribution of water in tanker trucks.” Then Elsa Ramos scolded him that, according to the residents, the tanker trucks don’t comply with the delivery schedules.

“That will always depend on the amount of fuel we have, the availability of tanker trucks we have, the neighborhoods that are growing,” answered Muñoz Hidalgo.

“In order not to create false expectations, will this segment of Jesús Mar continue to be thirsty?” the journalist pressed. Despite all the disasters previously enumerated, the director of the Aqueduct responded emphatically: “No, no, no.” Ramos asked again: “When will we be able to quench this thirst? Are we talking about months, years, centuries?” “No, no, months,” the official answered. The reporter replied that she would return in a while to check on the progress.

Just then, from the roof of a house, a woman didn’t miss the opportunity to point out “the contradiction” that the water tank on a neighboring roof was leaking drinking water. The official responded in a lowered voice: “That’s because of indiscipline.”

Translated by Tomás A.

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The Mysterious A&M Bazaar Opens its Third Shop in a Ruined Building in Havana

The supermarket is located where the state cafeteria Las Avenidas used to be, on Infanta and Carlos III

Since the supermarket was opened on 11 November there have been crowds thronging through its doors hoping to buy. / 14ymedio

14ymedio, Juan Diego Rodríguez/Olea Gallardo, 8 January 2024 — Number 909 Calle Infanta / Carlos III, central Havana, appears to be bipolar. The upper storeys, where the majority of apartments continue to be inhabited, are falling apart, whilst the ground floor, which used to house the state operated cafeteria Las Avenidas – which gave its name to the building among the locals – with its prosperous, recently opened private store, is all bright and shiny new.

Since the supermarket was opened on 11 November there have been crowds thronging through its doors hoping to buy. Beneath its newly painted arches there are ornamental plants and powerful air conditioning units, and there’s no sign of the ruined state of the rest of the building, which has been denounced by its residents on numerous occasions. On the contrary, it feels like another place entirely.

Number 909 Calle Infanta / Carlos III, central Havana, appears to be bipolar. / 14ymedio

Items of ironmongery, decor, articles for the home and white goods, along with other objects such as oriental smoking pipes, all mingle with foodstuffs, themselves also wide ranging, such as tinned foods, sauces and jams and even fresh produce, including dairy and meat. Everything is priced in pesos, and, as is usually the case with private shops, it’s all well stocked but at prices beyond the reach of most people’s pockets, and of poor quality.

A ’kitchen’-based toy, 1,000 pesos; a plastic container with two scouring pads, 450; two packets of incense, 900; a small pack of nuggets, more than 1,000; a tin of beans, 900; a small carton of juice, 700, and straws for 200 pesos – these are some of the products that you can find from day to day. The activity of loading and unloading is feverish. continue reading

Everything is priced in pesos, and, as is usually the case with private shops, it’s all well stocked but at prices beyond the reach of most people’s pockets, and of poor quality. / 14ymedio

The business doesn’t display any name plate outside, but pink letters on the employees’ black sweaters reveal that it belongs to Bazar A&M. The company, which already has two other stores in the same Havana district – on Neptuno/Lealdad and on Neptuno/Gervasio – has made the most of this third branch’s launch by opening a WhatsApp group where it announces new products and prices.

The products advertised on Sunday, the eve of the Epiphany / Three Kings day, are all toys, made in China. A toy truck fitted with beach-rakes at 2,500 pesos, a Jenga puzzle at 1,100 and a game with hoops for babies at 1,950. The company doesn’t allow public comments to be made, and someone who goes by the name of Valentina Vale is in charge; she is also the person who promotes the shops on Facebook.

The business doesn’t display any name plate outside, but pink letters on the employees’ black sweaters reveal its name: it belongs to Bazar A&M. / 14ymedio

Its owners are, beyond this detail, mysterious. In contrast to other micro, small or medium sized businesses (’mipymes’ or ’MSMEs’ in English), they don’t have a website, and, although they sell just about anything, they are registered with the Ministry of Economy and Planning as “producers of paper and cardboard goods” as their principal activity.

“I don’t know who they are, but not just anyone gets to use this logo”, one customer told this journal as she was waiting to get into the store, pointing to the message printed on the door: “Havana lives in me” – a logo created by the authorities for the 505th anniversary of the capital and distributed to government institutions. “What you can see, is that they’ve spent quite a lot of money here…”, the woman observed.

“I don’t know who they are, but not just anyone gets to use this logo”, one customer told this journal. / 14ymedio

Vigilance inside the store is also very noticeable. The staff don’t just visually monitor those who have made purchases, but they check the goods at the exit. “Carefully check your purchase before you leave, as we don’t do refunds”, says a notice.

Elsewhere, the buildings in which the company has established its other branches all used to be state owned, and, as has been repeated in recent years, they have been reopened without public tender and without advanced notice. The “mixed” bazaar Neptune was established in 2023 in a former clothing shop which had fallen into disrepair.

“Me and my sister used to love it, because you’d enter through a door at one side, go round the interior in a ’U’ direction and come out through another door, where there was also the stairway up to the residents’ flats on the upper floors”, María, a resident of the Cayo Hueso quarter, remembers of the old building.

Bazar A&M is, in any case, one of those establishments which have proliferated in Cuba in recent times, and, joining the list of these new “dollarized” businesses, it all in effect goes to demonstrate the end of the old convertible currency shops.

Translated by Ricardo Recluso

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Cuban Government Opens a High-End Supermarket that Only Accepts Dollars in Cash or Card

The move is a sign that “dollarization” of the economy — something Prime Minister Manuel Marrero has spoken about— is going ahead along with the end of the MLC

The new Supermercado 3ra y 70 (3rd and 70th Supermarket) is owned by Tiendas Caribe, a branch of the Cimex corporation. / 14ymedio

14ymedio, Juan Diego Rodríguez/Olea Gallardo, Havana, 3 January 2024 — The new 3rd and 70th Supermarket, which opened on Tuesday on the ground floor of the luxurious Gran Muthu Habana hotel in Miramar, does not accept MLC (a form of digital convertible currency) much less Cuban pesos. The store is owned by Tiendas Caribe, one of the numerous offshoots of the Cuban Armed Forces all-powerful Business Administration Group (GAESA). The store accepts three forms of payment: dollars in the form of cash, foreign cards and the so-called Clásica (Classic) debit card, which is denominated dollars.

The supermarket was bustling on Thursday, two days after opening, overwhelming its visitors. The store is part of a newly built shopping center that includes numerous privately owned shops — among them a branch of the Chocolatera confectionery —most of which have yet to open.

Outside the entrance to the complex was a line of cars, similar to lines outside the city’s gas stations, whose owners were eager to park and shop. Unlike at other state-owned stores, the shelves inside the huge, clean, well-lit space were fully stocked with a variety of products.

“Inside it’s all shiny and new, with automatic checkouts, with carts, with baskets, with all the products the MLC stores used to have but no longer do,” said Lucía, a first-time customer. / 14ymedio

“Inside it’s all shiny and new, with automatic checkout counters, with carts, with baskets, with all the products the MLC stores used to have but no longer do,” said Lucía, a first-time customer. “All the beans here are canned and natural. The meats, the cheeses, the olive oil, the regular oils, tomato sauces, pickles, canned fruit, nougat, rice, coffee, yogurt, milk, ice cream, and even whole wheat bread! It’s got everything, everything,” said Lucía, who spent 6,000-pesos taxi on a taxi ride from Old Havana to get here. And she was amazed. “The checkout counters move. I have never seen that in Cuba before, not even in the Cuatro Caminos market!”

The supermarket carries Cuban-made products which are no longer available at state-owned stores. Until now, they could only be found at privately owned small and medium sized stores (MSMEs). These include items such as Cubita coffee and Estancia fruit juices; private label brands such as Clamanta and Gustó. They new store also carries “foreign” brands routinely found at Cimex stores. They include Spain’s Vima, Mexico’s Richmeat and Chile’s Sur Continente, companies that have long been established on the island. Vima, which imports apples, has been operating in Cuba since the 1990s . Small appliances such as fans (for $45) and Italian coffee makers were also among the most popular items at the store.

“I imagine that, since this is in dollars, it will last but, with this kind of operation, you never know,” said an elderly woman who was accompanied by her daughter. “The MLC stores started out like this but but now they’re empty.”

A total of twelve cash registers served a diverse clientele with one thing in common: money to spend. / 14ymedio

A total of twelve cash registers served a diverse clientele with one thing in common: money to spend. Customers include high-ranking officials, foreigners and embassy personnel as well as a picturesque group of nuns. Two of them were in the checkout line, waiting to buy fans. Two others scurried back and forth to their car, carrying a wide variety of products and foodstuffs.

“You have to take advantage of this because, before too long, it will all be gone. Just look at the MLC stores. They haven’t been stocked in a very long time,” observes a retiree carrying a basketful of chicken.

A sign at the cash register explains how customers can pay for their items. “Payment here is made using USD cards,” it reads, with logos of which cards the store accepts. At the top — above even the Mastercard and Visa logos — is Russia’s Mir card, which a woman in the checkout line was waiting to use. “It belongs to my husband,” she said, surprised to learn the store will also accept cash. Most customers, however, were paying in dollars.

The new 3rd and 70th Supermarket also carries Vima-brand apples. / 14ymedio

The cash registers did not, however, provide change. Instead, employees hand out small sweets, though they were not given to customers if the amount was less than five cents.

Another novel form of payment is the Classic card, which has been available to customers at this shopping center since December 7. Though senior government officials have said nothing about it, requiring consumers to pay in dollars and incentivizing them to use this card can be seen as another step towards dollarization of Cuba’s retail economy, which Prime Minister Manuel Marrero spoke about last month in the National Assembly. Effectively, it also means the end of the MLC. continue reading

In a post on social media, Cimex describes Classic as “a financial product denominated in U.S. dollars, designed to facilitate your transactions within the country.” It can be used at the network of gas stations that take payment in dollars and at retail outlets with point-of-sale (POS) terminals. It can also be used to buy goods and services, and to import products from overseas. The card costs $5.00, or its equivalent at the “current exchange rate” in “accepted foreign currencies,” the corporation states. One dollar of the purchase price is automatically added to the buyer’s account balance. There is no “pre-set amount” or required minimum balance. Customers receive a 5% discount on each purchase but are charged a $1.00 service fee each time money is added to their accounts.

The supermarket is part of a new shopping center that includes numerous privately owned businesses. / 14ymedio

Cimex also announced that it will soon be available at CADECA foreign exchange offices and other retail outlets, including those in the Gran Muthu Hotel complex. One of the few shops now open there is a perfumery.

The supermarket is still accepting MLC for the time being , an employee tells a customer who asked about some cologne. “You can go to the perfumery if you have MLC but you’d better hurry because that’s about to change,” says the employee.

“When will that be?” asked the customer.

“I don’t think it will be long but they haven’t told us yet,” he replied.

The new 3rd and 70th stands in contrast to an old supermarket of the same name, which opened prior to 1990. Its merchandise was priced in dollars at a time when it was illegal for Cubans to have them. Initially, only diplomats and resident foreigners were allowed to shop there but, by 1993, it was open to all. Like many state-owned stores, it went into a steep decline after it became an MLC store in 202o.

Attracted by the crowed and dressed in their uniforms, some of the employees of the old store came over to check out the new one. Their irritation was all too obvious. “This is a disgrace. Everything they used to sell in the old store when it first opened is now here. There’s nothing over there and this place has everything,” one employee complained loudly.

The new 3rd and 70th Supermarket stands in contrast to the old pre-1990 market of the same name. / 14ymedio

“There are no empty shelves here,” said one of the employees. “All the empty shelves are over at the other store, which is falling to pieces,” responded one of her co-workers. Ironically, in late December, Cimex announced on social media that it was celebrating the anniversary of the old “diplomat’s store”

A visit on Thursday to the old store confirmed everything its employees described: poor lighting, visibly dirty shelves, scant merchandise, and the stench of rotting meat throughout. The site now mainly serves as a parking lot for customers of the new 3rd and 70th Supermarket,

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Cuban Military from Gaesa Partner with the Spanish Vima in Another Dollarized Store

Customers can pay with MLC, but employees suggest that they are going to remove this option

Faced with the delay in the line to check out and the subsequent protests from customers, this Sunday, the employee argued: “And what do you want me to do, if I’m the only one?” / 14ymedio

14ymedio, Juan Diego Rodriguez/Olea Gallardo, Havana, 6 January 2025 –Although it has not attracted as much attention as the Supermarket on 3rd and 70th, which opened a day later, the store on Infanta and Santa Marta in Havana is another of the new “dollarized” Caribe stores that the military conglomerate Gaesa (Business Administration Group) opened in recent days through its Cimex corporation. In this case, the establishment is presented as “a collaboration project with the supplier Vima.”

In fact, its shelves, which are impeccable and full, carry a few Chinese products but are mainly dominated the Vima brand, founded by the Spaniard Víctor Moro Suárez and much reviled by the inhabitants of the Island for its low quality.

Unlike 3rd and 70th, cash dollars are not accepted at Infanta and Santa Marta, but, as at the brand new Miramar establishment, you can pay with the Classic card, which is recharged with US currency.

“It is nice and has many things, but as always, not everyone can afford this.” / 14ymedio

Another difference is that you can still pay with freely convertible currency (MLC), although employees suggested that this will not be the case for long. “You can pay with MLC, but I recommend that you get the Clásica card, because the lines to get it afterwards are going to be violent,” said a cashier at Infanta and Santa Marta to a customer who was entering for the first time. “Are they going to remove the MLC?” he asked, to which the woman replied: “That’s what they say.”

Posters distributed by the store and other employees, as well as Cimex’s own posts on its social networks, also encourage users to buy the Clásica card, which costs 5 dollars (one of which remains as a balance). Operative in hotels, state stores and gas stations in dollars, its use applies a 5% discount in stores and 10% in hotels, but with each refill one dollar is “discounted.” continue reading

Although the country’s top authorities have not said anything about it, the obligation to pay in dollars and the incentive to use the Classic card – created at the beginning of last year – can be considered as another step towards the dollarization of transactions in Cuba, which Prime Minister Manuel Marrero spoke about last month before the National Assembly and, with it, the effective end of the use of MLC.

Facade of the Cimex and Vima store on Infanta and Santa Marta, Centro Habana. / 14ymedio

The first thing that catches your attention at Infanta and Santa Marta, however, is the number of security guards multiplying in the corridors. Above all, in contrast to the only worker who performs the function of checking the bags on the way out. This Sunday, faced with the delay in the line to leave and the consequent protests from the customers, the employee argued: “And what do you want me to do, if I am the only one?” To which a man snapped: “But look how there are people here doing nothing, they should put someone there to help you.”

“It’s nice and has a lot of things, but as always, not everyone can afford this,” lamented a pensioner outside the shop who only bought a 3-kilogram package of powdered detergent (for $8.95). “And well, a lot of green,” she said, highlighting the color of Vima. “I didn’t buy any food, because I can’t even look at that brand, which isn’t exactly cheap.”

Highly criticized by Cubans for its poor quality, Vima has been present on the island, with privileges that most companies do not have, since 1994, although it was registered in the National Registry of Foreign Commercial Representations only in October of last year.

Some of Vima’s prices at the new Infanta and Santa Marta stores. / 14ymedio

The partnership with Gaesa is not new for Vima, which has its headquarters in Havana in the Berroa area, owned by the Armed Forces business consortium. Its founder, Víctor Moro Suárez, has lived in Cuba for more than 25 years and was president of the Association of Spanish Businessmen in Cuba.

Before this rebirth, the store on Infanta and Santa Marta had gone through different stages. With the dollarization of the economy in the 1990s, it became one of the best-stocked markets in the Cuban capital – like the old “diplotienda” on 3rd and 70th, opposite the new Supermarket – where one could pay directly with the US currency and later with convertible pesos.

Posters distributed by the store and other workers, as well as Cimex’s own posts on its social networks, also encourage users to buy the plastic card, which costs $5. The lower sign says: “This unit sells products that can be paid for only by magnetic card backed with freely convertible currency.” / 14ymedio

Located in a border area between Centro Habana and Cerro, the store is surrounded by very poor neighborhoods, such as the El Platanito settlement. Its wealthiest neighbors were, until recently, the residents of the nearby Fama y Aplauso building, whose apartments were distributed among Cuban cultural figures, spokespeople for the regime, and journalists prominent in the so-called Battle of Ideas, an ideological turnaround promoted at the beginning of this century. However, the most powerful figures have ended up moving out of the building and into neighborhoods to the west of the city. The new market thus has to deal with the impoverishment of a neighborhood where the dollar does not circulate, and even less so the Clásica card.

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La Chocolatera, an Oasis of Luxury in Cuba, Alongside Poverty and Scarcity

La Chocolatera shop, at the entrance to the Havana Club, in the municipality of Playa / Facebook/ La Chocolatera

14ymedio, Juan Diego Rodríguez/Olea Gallardo, Havana, 14 September 2024 — Entering La Chocolatera is a pleasure for all the senses. The place, situated at the Havana Club in the municipality of Playa, is small but clean, illuminated, stocked and perfectly air-conditioned. The strong odor – a sour vanilla – of chocolates and sweets seeps into the brain. The experience is, in short, delicious, and, therefore, very unusual in an increasingly depressed Cuba.

Not many Cubans can afford it, and one of the things that attracts the most attention to the establishment is precisely the number of employees that work there – half a dozen – for so few customers. Of course, they are very friendly, impeccably uniformed, and they serve the merchandise with fine latex gloves. “Look at all that, wow,” agrees Ana María, who visited La Chocolatera a few days ago to buy bonbons for her daughter, who just became a mother, after seeing the store’s ad on social networks. “This place is very expensive, but the occasion deserves it. It’s not every day that I become a grandmother!” she confides to 14ymedio.

Each piece of chocolate, for example, depending on the flavor and shape, ranges between 150 and 200 pesos and can be solid or filled with cream or liquor. “But there are other specialties that cost more,” reports Ana María. “There are some very nice boxes, one of 35 pieces at 8,000 pesos and others of 50 at 9,000. Too bad I couldn’t spend that much, because they are exquisite!” continue reading

The establishment also offers other items, such as stuffed animals, sweet and savory preserves and Spanish sparkling wine / 14ymedio

According to one of the workers, the bonbons and chocolate, of their own brand, D’Carlie, are made by them, while the sweets – cheesecakes, brownies, cinnamon rolls, cheese snacks, fruit drops, nougats – are made on external premises, and, if at all, only then are they covered with cocoa and decorated. The establishment also offers other items, such as stuffed animals (at 7,000 and 8,000 pesos), sweet and savory preserves and Catalan sparkling wine.

Everything is luxury in La Chocolatera, starting with the location itself, at the very door of the Havana Club, next to the complex’s checkpoint. The exclusive facility, founded in the 1920s with the name of Havana Country Club, has a cafeteria, golf course, tennis courts, swimming pools and even stables for the equestrian trails. It was expropriated after the triumph of the Revolution and, having gone through better and worse times, is now intended for housing and the recreation of senior officials, diplomats and foreign businessmen.

Due to proximity and economic capacity, the neighbors themselves are the natural clientele, although the company offers online sales and home delivery on its Facebook page. Not only is it prohibitive to buy in this shop for the vast majority of Cubans, but it’s also expensive to get there. “Just paying for a taxi, the bill shoots up,” laments Josué, who lives in Central Havana and gives up after a private taxi driver wants to charge him 5,000 pesos. With the shortage of fuel, public transport is not an option.

Image of La Chocolatera on the ground floor of the Hotel Gran Muthu in Havana, opening soon / Facebook/La Chocolatera

For La Chocolatera, however, the word “crisis” does not seem to exist. And that is another peculiarity in a country with increasingly harsh conditions for the ever-incipient private initiative. “The company has been developing and investing for its needs,” said its owner, Carlos Luis Menéndez Jorge, in an interview with Revista Visión, in which he shows the shop in all its splendor to the camera.

The firm can even afford to advertise on official media, such as Radio Rebelde, where it sells itself as the “leading store in chocolate-derived products.” All their ads give the opening hours: every day of the week from ten in the morning to nine at night, including Sunday.

Far, very far from the crisis, La Chocolatera is, on the contrary, expanding. This same week they are offering employment for cashiers and salesclerks. No wonder. As they enthusiastically reveal on their social networks, they are about to open two more stores: one outside the capital, in the tourist enclave of Varadero, and another in the Havana municipality of Playa, as part of the luxury hotel Gran Muthu Habana – which has been announcing its opening for more than a year – at 3rd and 70th.

“We are not alone in this dream. This time we are joining forces and discussing ideas with the Palco Business Group to provide you and visitors with our line of fine Cuban handmade chocolates,” said the owner of La Chocolatera in a Facebook post.

Image of the premises of La Chocolatera in Varadero, opening soon / Facebook / La Chocolatera

Palco is one of the most powerful state conglomerates on the Island, dedicated to “integral services” for the Government and the diplomatic corps through shops, congresses, exhibitions and fairs with juicy benefits, such as the Cigar Festival, at whose last edition, by the way, La Chocolatera was present. Menéndez Jorge puts himself out there all the time, and he has ties with the regime, including as a deputy of the National Assembly, and with sports figures like Mijaín López, the hot new savior of the Island’s debacle at the Paris Olympic Games.

What is less clear, according to his account, is how his company was truly born. In an interview published by Cubalite, he says that “this passion” came from his mother, María Cristina Jorge, director of the Latin American School of Chocolate. “I was practically born in the middle of chocolate,” he says, quickly mentioning that he went through “several courses, schools, techniques, preparation and an appointment as Master Chocolatier by the Chocolate Museum of Belgium until we decided to make our own artisanal fine chocolate.”

He does not say that María Cristina Jorge, in addition to directing that educational center, was a senior state official, as head of the Cereal and Milling Plant of the Research Institute for the Food Industry. There she met the inventor of the Latin American and Caribbean School of Chocolate, Quim Capdevila.

According to a 2001 chronicle by the then correspondent in Havana of the Spanish newspaper El País, Mauricio Vicent, Capdevila, an old chocolate master and communist militant, had ended up in Havana a year earlier, after retiring and transferring the family business from the town of Vic, at the behest of his friend Manuel Vázquez Montalbán. The famous writer, who had recently published “And God Entered Havana,” Vicent writes in his piece, “sent him to see Eusebio Leal, the Havana City Historian, who guided him to where he should go.”

This is how he arrived at the Research Institute for the Food Industry, built in the late 1980s with funding from FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations), with the aim of being a “regional training center in the field of food.” And there he met María Cristina Jorge, with whom he created the school.

Carlos Luis Menéndez Jorge with his mother, María Cristina Jorge, at the opening of the shop at the Havana Club, in October 2022 / Facebook / La Chocolatera

“The school’s goal is to achieve self-financing; it is not for profit,” Capdevila explained to El País, saying that the project was subsidized by the Barcelona Provincial Council and the University of Vic. The School offered conferences and training courses, not only on the Island but also in other countries, such as Mexico, and it was even supported by UNESCO.

Neither Quim Capdevila nor María Cristina Jorge has mentioned what happened to the School, but the Facebook page stopped updating in May 2020, just when the covid-19 pandemic broke out in Cuba. This newspaper has tried to communicate on the phone that appears on its social networks, but no one answers, and the number does not appear in the phone book. The institution, according to that same page, had its address in the Havana municipality of La Lisa, a short distance from where Carlos Luis Menéndez Jorge opened the first store of La Chocolatera in August 2019. With that address and with the number 2,054, it appears in the register of micro, small and medium-size enterprises, dedicated to the “production of cocoa, chocolate and other confectionery products.”

He was there until October 2022, when he moved the headquarters to the Havana Club. The rest is a dazzling success story, shamelessly celebrated on September 13, the day of the birth of Milton S. Hershey, founder of the brand of the same name. Roald Dahl, the creator of the Willy Wonka character, commemorates International Chocolate Day, although very few Cubans will have learned of the existence of La Chocolatera, a private company created by the State to satisfy the whims of a privileged few in a sea of poverty and scarcity.

Everything is luxury in La Chocolatera, starting with the location itself, at the door of the Havana Club / 14ymedio

Translated by Regina Anavy

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The ‘Chinese Costco’ Arrives in Cuba and Everything Has Ridiculous Prices

The gigantic China Import warehouse opens in Havana, for minimum purchases of 50 dollars and in national currency

Inside the gigantic warehouse, the shelves with all kinds of products multiply / 14ymedio

14ymedio, Juan Diego Rodríguez/Olea Gallardo, Havana, 22 August 2024 — The new China Import store that opened just over a month ago at Manglar and Oquendo, very close to the Cuatro Caminos market in Havana, does not yet have many customers, but it soon will. Unlike the state shops, it offers everything, and in abundance; unlike the MSMEs or on the informal market, its prices are ridiculous.

Although the entrance sign says “wholesale selling” and offers its merchandise to retailers, it is open to the public. On one condition, however: you have to spend more than 50 dollars.

Inside the gigantic warehouse, which until a few years ago was part of the Sabatés soap factory – founded by two Spanish brothers, later sold to the multinational Procter & Gamble, nationalized after the triumph of the Revolution and, today, in ruins – the shelves are multiplying with all kinds of products, from clothing, footwear and perfumes to electronics and household items. In contrast to other large state spaces, such as those selling in freely convertible currency (MLC), let alone the dilapidated warehouses, there are few empty corners. Everything is clean and well lit.

The warehouse occupies part of the old Sabatés soap factory, very close to the Cuatro Caminos market in Centro Habana / 14ymedio

The store, the clerk told 14ymedio on Wednesday, has its prices in foreign currency and accepts national currency, “at the exchange rate of the day,” as the signs under the products say, referring to the informal rate, currently continue reading

around 320 pesos per dollar, and in no way in bills of less than 200 pesos .

They also accept electronic transfers in MLC, the employee explains, “but not today because we have connection problems.” It is not a “national private business,” she pointed out, but rather “a foreign investment business.” There were people with oriental faces around the place, presumably the owners.

"Those colognes cost me two thousand and something pesos and here they cost three dollars" / 14ymedio — “Those colognes cost me two thousand and something pesos and here they cost three dollars” / 14ymedio

Headphones, $2.00; progressive glasses, $1.00; sun glasses, $1.50; LED lights, $4.50; mobile chargers, $4; cell phone holders for vehicles, $1.80; rechargeable light bulbs for times of blackout, from $11.50; imitation perfumes, $3.00; bras and panties – on sale for having some stains – $1.00; socks, 50 cents. The buyer’s eyes are lost in the abundance of items, but not only is the minimum purchase dissuasive – the equivalent of 16,000 pesos, five times the average monthly salary – but buying wholesale is also mandatory.

Items are not sold separately but in batches that, as a rule, contain a dozen pieces. “This is for those who have a store or receive remittances,” complained a customer who visited the store for the first time, alerted by a cousin who saw the information “on the networks,” and who had to leave empty-handed. “I don’t even have 50 dollars, and I wouldn’t know where to put all that if I bought it.”

Rechargeable light bulbs, highly valued in times of blackout, were sold from 11.50 dollars / 14ymedio

However, she was amazed at the prices: “Just Imagine, these same things on the street cost three and up to five times the prices here. These colognes cost me 2,500 pesos, and here they are at three dollars [960 pesos at the informal exchange rate]. I have seen the headphones at fairs at 5,000 pesos and the sneakers that here cost 16 dollars [just over 5,000 pesos] – you can’t find them for less than 17,000 pesos out there.”

The sneakers to which this Havana resident of the El Vedado district refers have brand labels, but they are clearly Chinese imitations, like all the merchandise. “They seem to be good quality, but you buy them and after two months have to throw them away because they fall apart.”

Bras and panties sell for one dollar at China Import /14ymedio

So far, no official media has mentioned the inauguration of the store, nor are there details about its owners. Chinese wholesale businesses had already been established on the Island but only online, such as Ninhao53 and Dofimall, a digital stationery store.

“You’ll see when all the resellers of Galiano or the El Curita park find out, then it will get bad, and this will have three-block lines like when there’s chicken for sale in the bodega [ration store],” said another buyer, a thirty-year-old from Central Havana. He did take a batch of magazines, some fly swatters, light bulbs and underwear of various colors and sizes – “to distribute to the family,” he said.

“The sneakers that cost 16 dollars here can’t be found for less than 17,000 pesos out there” / 14ymedio

The young man, who has family in the US, commented mockingly: “This is a ’Chinese Costco’ but with worse quality.”

Another store that received the nickname “Costco” but “Cuban,” the Diplomarket, closed at the end of last June. Its owner, the Cuban-American Frank Cuspinera Medina, was arrested along with his wife, and their whereabouts are unknown to date. In that store, however, only payment in dollars was allowed, and there was no minimum purchase or wholesale, although they did sell Kirkland products, the “real” Costco brand.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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Private Businesses in Cuba Hide the Chicken and Other Products To Avoid the Capped Prices

State foreign exchange shops sell the same items at more expensive prices

The EJT agro market at 17 and K in El Vedado, Havana, usually with very well stocked shelves, was almost empty / 14ymedio

14ymedio, Juan Diego Rodríguez/Olea Gallardo, Havana, 3 July 2024 — A day after the new measures announced by the Government on June 27, which establish a maximum profit margin of 30% on private sales to the State, it is not yet known with certainty whether or not the prices are capped for six products in private retail stores. There is only one thing certain: these basic necessities included on the list of capped prices by some municipal governments this weekend disappeared from the shelves on Tuesday.

On Saturday, the authorities of Plaza de la Revolución (Havana), Jobabo (Las Tunas) and Pinar del Río published lists of products with maximum prices for cooking oil (900 pesos per liter), chopped chicken (680 per kilogram), powdered milk (1,675 per kilo), sausages (1,045 per kilogram), pasta (835 pesos per kilo) and powdered detergent (630 pesos per kilo). But yesterday, Monday, when the regulation was supposed to come into force, in municipalities like Boyeros they said that they didn’t know anything, and among the businessmen it was all rumors and confusion.

“Does anyone know anything about the official prices? We’re confused.” The comment of Yulieta Hernández Díaz, president of Grupo de Construcciones Pilares, summed up the state of the matter well. continue reading

This Tuesday, the bewilderment of Cubans is even greater. The agro market operated by the Youth Labor Army (EJT) of the Armed Forces, at 17 and K in El Vedado, Havana, usually very well stocked, had almost all its shelves empty. The few products for sale were piled up together on the top shelves on the K Street side.

Prices of meat products in the state foreign exchange store La Época / 14ymedio

The sellers, however, responded to the surprised customers with a simple shrug of the shoulders. “They say they don’t know, but it’s clear that they must know something,” said an old woman. It was the same in the Arango market in Luyanó. “There’s nothing on the shelves; it’s dead, empty, a very strange thing,” a neighbor told this newspaper.

In the butcher shop at 17 and K, which operates as a private business, there was only chicken breast and picadillo [chopped meat]. The clerk said that he didn’t know why there were no chicken quarters or thighs, but customers could hear him talking on the phone with someone who told him that he that he had to change the blackboard: “Now I have to put the prices in kilograms.” He didn’t mention the amounts.

In the private business (MSME) Zona K’liente they weren’t selling the bird either. “There is no chicken or milk anywhere.” “There is no chicken and there won’t be,” was the forceful response of the butcher of the 19 and B market, also in El Vedado. The reason? “Because they capped the prices.” And he cried out: “Better to raise chickens at home!”

Something happened, of course, in the last three days, and the authorities were reluctant to report it. A butcher from Sancti Spíritus gave the explanation to this newspaper: yesterday he was introduced to some “comrades” of the Party along with two inspectors, who warned him of the entry into force of the regulations and “they read the prices.” They didn’t give him any citation: “It was just a verbal warning, and they told me that there could be consequences if I increased the price of those products.”

“They say they don’t know, but it’s clear that they do”

It was just what an anonymous official source had warned in an audio that spread like wildfire since Saturday, in which the “established” prices were specified. The voice, with an accent from the west of the Island, assured that “groups of confrontation” were going to go to private businesses to give them “a wake-up call.” Subsequently, it warned, there might be “a forced sale of these products or confiscations of them for the social institutions that also need these products.”

As a result of the uncertainty and the threats, private individuals have simply hidden the merchandise. Also in Sancti Spíritus, a neighbor said that he had managed to buy chicken in a nearby MSME, “just for being trustworthy”: 10 pounds at 4,000 pesos.

“Chicken cannot have disappeared from the face of the earth; it’s here in Cuba, but they hide it because they don’t want to sell it at the prices dictated by the State,” explained another Cuban, a resident of Central Havana. “It’s always the same: they capped the price of taxis, the taxis disappeared; they capped the price of malanga and the malanga disappeared. Well, now chicken has disappeared.”

In four years, as seen in an official graph, private sector sales have gone from 4.1% of the total to 44.4% / Onei

Meanwhile, in the State stores selling in freely convertible currency (MLC), there were not only the lost products in that had been sold in pesos, but they were much more expensive. In La Época, in Central Havana, detergent of 1.5 kilos was at 5.45 dollars (1,908 pesos at the informal exchange rate), and 1.25 kilos of Argentine chicken was at 6.55 dollars (2,293 pesos).

“They’re never going to cap themselves, as you can imagine,” said a client at the doors of the MLC store.

The effort to attack the MSMEs (micro, small and medium-sized enterprise) by imposing a profit cap on them has been criticized by specialists such as Pedro Monreal, who insists that the way to contain inflation, which has not stopped growing exponentially since the entry into force of the so-called Ordering Task* (2021), is none other than the reduction of expenses.

The economist has again published a revealing post on Tuesday, based on figures published yesterday by the National Bureau of Statistics and Information (Onei) that indicate the spectacular increase in the weight of the “non-state sector” in retail sales. In four years, as observed in an official graph, private sector sales have gone from 4.1% of the total to 44.4%, while state sales went from 95.9% to 55.6%.

It remains to be seen whether prices will be discussed on State TV’s Round Table program scheduled for this Tuesday, to which “leaders of the Communist Party” are invited to “analyze partisan actions based on boosting food production in the country.” Cubans know what the end of the film is: a shortage of products and more difficulties to obtain them.

*Translator’s note: The Ordering Task was a collection of measures that included eliminating the Cuban Convertible Peso (CUC), leaving the Cuban peso (CUP) 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 Regina Anavy

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Spanish Agency Announces a Competition to Rehabilitate Havana’s Galiano Street

View of buildings along Havana’s Galiano Street, whose facades would be restored as part of an urban renewal project / 14ymedio

14ymedio, Juan Diego Rodríguez/Olea Gallardo, Havana, 22 March 2024 — Plans to restore iconic Galiano Street in Central Havana seem serious this time around, at least for the impoverished block between Virtudes and Conde Cañongo. On Thursday, the local government publicly solicited proposals for the “recovery, maintenance and restoration of the facades” of the buildings in this area.

It is a highly unusual but understandable move given that the area is part of the so-called Galiano Street Comprehensive International Revitalization Cooperation Project, financed by the Spanish Agency for International Development Cooperation (AECID).

The buildings whose facades would be restored are numbers 201 to 211 on the east side of the street and 202 to 212 on the west. Not included is number 210, which the official press release describes as being in very bad condition. continue reading

In a visit to the site on Friday, 14ymedio learned that the building, whose address should be 210 since it is on the even side of the street but which is mistakenly numbered 211, is in ruins though it is still inhabited on the ground floor.

The building, whose address should be 210 since it is on the even side of the street but which is mistakenly numbered 211, is in ruins though it is still inhabited on the ground floor

The area is known for its nightlife — bars such as Cumbaking, 212 and V&S are located there — and as a hotbed of fistfights, drug dealing and prostitution.

The stretch includes precarious apartment buildings such as those at numbers 201, 204 and 205, which has a state-owned store, La Cancha, on the ground floor, that has been rented out to small private vendors, popularly known as merolicos.

Another building, number 208, retains its original Sevillian tiles, remnants of a more glorious past. Built in the 1930s, it once belonged to José Alvarez Ruiz, a businessman whose initials can still be seen on the facade of the building. Housing took up the upper floor; a loan and jewelry business occupied the lower floor. In the 1940s, the building housed the Cuban branch of Remington Rand, an American company that manufactured sewing machines and typewriters, and imported a wide range of office supplies.

Nationalized by the state after the Cuban revolution, the striking building had had several uses — these included the headquarters of the Comittees for the Defense of the Revolution and a library — until the roof collapsed in 1999.

The area is known for its nightlife — bars such as Cumbaking, 212 and V&S are located here — and as a hotbed of fistfights, drug dealing and prostitution / 14ymedio

The announcement posted jointly by the municipal government and AECID on the official website indicates that proposals must include a separate budget, in Cuban pesos, for each of the building facades on both sides of the street.

Similarly, they point out that restoration of facades must include “all required actions such as carpentry, lighting, ironwork and any others needed to restore the facades to their original state.”

The construction period for each facade may not excede four months “from the delivery of the client’s letter of authorization letter to the bidder.”

According to a AECID document signed on June 30, 2021, the agency foresees a total of seven such projects on the Island at a cost of of 3.5 million euros

The Galiano Street restoration project, sponsored by AECID, is nothing new. State media announced it with great fanfare back in late 2022, even reviving the thoroughfare’s old name: Avenida de Italia. The goal, as reported at the time, was to convert the area into “an innovative urban district and a reference for the principles of the circular economy, digital culture and creativity and the enhancement of products from supply chains.”

On Thursday, the same day the competition was announced, the street was also referred to by its old name on the website of the Information Technology Fair, which is taking place in Havana. State media reported a plan to install “broadband telecommunications infrastructure using fiber optic cables along three kilometers of Galiano Street — from Reina Street to the Malecón — for the benefit of 109 properties, with an average of twelve customers per property.”

According to a AECID document signed on June 30, 2021, the agency foresees a total of seven such projects on the Island at a cost of of 3.5 million euros.

AECID’s budget for what was billed as a “comprehensive revitalization of Galiano Street, preserving its urban and architectural values and enhancing its commercial, recreational and cultural character” was originally 312,000 euros, with a May 2023 completion date. Neither the Spanish agency nor its Cuban partner has provided an explanation for the delay in plans.

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Cuban Women Live at the Margins of a Regime Led by Men

It is women who mostly stand in Cuba’s endless lines to get food / 14ymedio

14ymedio, Juan Diego Rodríguez and Olea Gallardo, Havana, 8 March 2024 — The eleventh congress of theFederation of Cuban Women (FMC) was formally closed this Friday by the six men who govern the destiny of the country. The female quota in the presidium made up of Raúl Castro, Miguel Díaz-Canel, Esteban Lazo, Manuel Marrero, Roberto Morales de Ojeda and José Ramón Machado Ventura is covered by one woman: Teté Puebla, member of Las Marianas in the Sierra Maestra and first (and only) Brigadier general woman on the Island.

“The Feminist Path is Not Exclusive to Women,” the State newspaper Granma headlines its note on the occasion of March 8, in case things were not clear.

At the same time, the ruling FMC assures that “the development of scientific research is urgently needed to study the implementation of public policies with a gender perspective to move towards full equality.” And we must “overcome the meeting schedule.” And “update communication codes.”

Far from so many words, the streets show that the face of Cuba, increasingly empty, increasingly poor, is that of a woman / 14ymedio

Far from so many words, the streets show that the face of Cuba, increasingly empty, increasingly poor, is that of a woman. It is women who continue reading

mostly stand in endless lines to get food. The oldest ones have to bring their own stool to endure the hours and the heat.

If you have to put a color on those faces, it is fundamentally dark. The color of those who cannot emigrate due to lack of resources.

The oldest ones have to bring their own stool to endure the hours and the heat / 14ymedio

State workers, informal saleswomen or retirees – the luckiest ones, with emigrated families – all have poverty and boredom in common. Neither the FMC nor the men who protect it have solved their problems one bit in 65 years.

State workers, informal saleswomen or retirees – the luckiest ones, with emigrated families – all have poverty and boredom in common / 14ymedio

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Three Hours Stranded on the Highway, Cubans and Tourists Suffer the Negligence of Viazul

After half an hour, the driver gave his diagnosis: the transmission belt broke and, worst of all, he didn’t have a spare. (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Olea Gallardo, Havana, 4 January 2024 — The trip from Ciego de Ávila to Havana by bus is neither short nor cheap, but Maidelys is already used to it. This habanera has been traveling that road by public transport for ten years every time she has a vacation, to visit a sister in the central province. Although the distance is about 400 kilometers, or 250 miles, the trip between the two cities by road takes almost eight hours. That is, if there are no unforeseen events like those that happened this Wednesday, which caused her to arrive three hours later.

As has been customary for a long time, another brother, an emigrant, had given her the ticket, which cost 28 euros, buying it on the Viazul website, where payment is only accepted with foreign cards. Very few can afford these prices, so the vehicle, coming from Santiago de Cuba, was full of foreign tourists, many of them Cuban-Americans, with very few domestic travelers.

The bus left at six in the morning from Ciego de Ávila, and Maidelys fell asleep right away, until they reached the next stop, Sancti Spíritus. “Fortunately it was one of the comfortable buses, because in some Astros [National Bus Company] I can’t get a wink of sleep,” she says. “Once I traveled in one that had no floor in front of my seat, and I spent the whole trip thinking that if I fell asleep I would fall through the hole.”

“There’s a goldmine here,” is how Maidelys described the atmosphere of Las Palmas restaurant. (14ymedio)

Another advantage of going in a “tourist” vehicle is that they have hot food at the stops. “With the bus of the proletariat, there’s only sugar and more sugar,” Maidelys jokes, referring to the soft drinks and cookies sold at the government stops.

At kilometer 139 of the National Highway, after passing Santa Clara, the bus stopped for breakfast. “There’s a goldmine here,” is how Maidelys described the atmosphere of the Las Palmas restaurant, a “grill” where the meat dishes cost 2,000 pesos, the sandwiches go from 600 to 1,200, and a continue reading

malted milkshake costs 500. They also sold boxes of cigars for 120 dollars, although some foreigners haggled until they got them down to 110.

Everything seemed to be in order – they had already passed through the provinces of Cienfuegos and Matanzas – when with just under an hour and a half left to reach the capital, at kilometer 72 on the highway, at the height of Nueva Paz in Mayabeque, the vehicle stopped.

“At first you only heard the driver and someone else, like a baggage handler, and no one worried,” says Maidelys. “But then the air conditioning turned off, and people began to protest, saying it was a lack of respect, what with the cost of the ticket.”

An almendrón — a classic American car operating as a shared taxi — stopped to help, but they didn’t have the right part, and then a Transgaviota bus, which didn’t have any spare parts either.” (14ymedio)

After half an hour, the driver gave his diagnosis: the transmission belt broke and, worst of all, he did not have a spare. He did not say if they would have to wait for another vehicle or if the company would send help. “There is a review department that is supposed to handle all breakdowns,” Maidelys says. “It shouldn’t happen because they’re charging you up the nose, and none of these buses have the comfort they’re supposed to have.”

The driver himself, she says, acknowledged his impotence before the travelers who complained about the breakdown: “He told us that the rule said that after five years the buses should be renewed, but that Viazul has not had new buses for at least 15 years.” The laughter of those present testified to the lack of credibility of the driver’s excuse for such precariousness: “the blockade.”

Soon, as the minutes passed and there was no solution, the good mood gave way to restlessness. “There were people with flights at two in the afternoon, another with a ticket for 1:00 pm, but he already knew it was lost,” says Maidalys. The most dramatic case was that of a young mother who was traveling with her daughter to get to Nicaragua — from where she would probably make the journey to the United States: she cried when she saw her money for the bus tickets wasted.

Those who did not have a plane to catch were the most resigned, and they spread out on the ground. (14ymedio)

Those who did not have to catch a plane were the most resigned, and they spread out on the ground, like Maidalys. From a mound she saw how the bus driver desperately stopped other vehicles to ask for help. “An almendrón [a 1950s American car operating as a shared taxi] stopped, but they didn’t have the right part, and then a Transgaviota bus, which didn’t have spare parts either,” she says.

And she continues with the surreal parade that soon populated the place: “A pastry seller appeared and then someone who sold preserves, to get us to buy a kilo, but the worst thing was that an old woman who got on in Santa Clara began to hyperventilate. I don’t know if it was from anxiety or fatigue, but they said that there was no ambulance to pick her up.”

It was more than an hour after being stranded that they began to call the passengers whose final destination was terminal 3 of the José Martí International Airport, to get them into another vehicle. “But they were warned that they had to stand up,” Maidelys says. With that bus, a fan belt also arrived, but it didn’t solve the problem either.

“We had to wait almost three hours for another bus to come and pick us all up.” (14ymedio)

“We had to wait almost three hours for another bus to come and pick us all up,” says Maidelys, who finally arrived at her destination, the bus terminal near the Plaza de la Revolución, at the end of the evening. “I had a piece of meat in my suitcase. It was frozen but I was already afraid that when I arrived in Havana it would be cooked. Rather than Viazul, they should call it Viacrucis [the Way of the Cross].”

The only happy person during the trip, she indicates, was a passenger who, in the middle of the journey, learned that she had received Spanish citizenship: “She started screaming like crazy, and it’s no wonder. She’s not going to have to put up with the things of this country anymore.”

Translated by Regina Anavy

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