When the 3rd and 70th Free Currency Store went dark, customers had to rely on flashlights on their phones to get out.
14ymedio, José Lassa, Havana, 23 February 2025 — The dollar store at 3rd and 70th in Miramar, Havana, has been crowned the king of all the shops of its kind on the Island. Compared to its sister stores, opened in other provinces, and, above all, to the outdated stores in MLC (freely convertible currency), the luxury and privileges of this commerce are difficult to emulate in Cuba. The waste of light that was exhibited this Friday, while neighboring buildings suffered a blackout, says it all.
Located at the foot of the luxury hotel Gran Muthu Havana, customers in the dollar store calmly chose the products from well-stocked shelves. The refrigerators full of minced meat or ham, the red shopping carts and the long, well-lit corridors contrasted with the total darkness of the MLC store, on the same corner but on the sidewalk in front, after the power was cut off.
Soon the place near 3rd and 70th emptied, and only the privileged customers remained who, greenbacks in hand, carried rice cookers and the indispensable rice packages, in addition to cooking oil, cookies, beer and pasta. There were lines at the refrigerators and the checkout counters, and Cuba – at least during that privileged moment in a stocked and clean supermarket – did not seem like a country in absolute crisis.
Without dollars to buy the products most in demand or even enjoy electrical service, customers in the MLC store reached for their phones to turn on the flashlight.
At the checkout counters, the saleswomen organized the payments received before the power cut and waited for the last customers, uttering insults, to leave the maze of shelves. Only they, when they reached the street, understood – in the words of a sweaty woman who left the store – what it is to buy in “Socialist Cubita.”
Translated by Regina Anavy
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