A tour of El Vedado reveals the decline of the commercial network that the military built to control remittances, tourism, and foreign currency stores.
14ymedio, Havana, Yoani Sánchez, July 29, 2026 / There are buildings that collapse with a crash, while others crumble in silence. The former Fincimex card processing center on 23rd Street in Vedado belongs to the latter category. I walk past its entrance and barely find a faded sign still proclaiming the grandeur of a company that once controlled a significant portion of the dollars entering the country. Behind the dusty windows, there are no longer lines, nor rushed employees, nor Cubans waiting to receive the magnetic card that unlocked the door to the remittances sent by an emigrant relative. Only the echo of a bygone era remains.
For years, that building was a funnel through which the money of thousands of families flowed. The prosperity within their homes fit on a plastic card with a magnetic strip and the Fincimex seal. You had to wait days to get one, but whoever left with the card in hand felt like they had conquered a lifesaver. Today, the building stands abandoned, the plaster is peeling from the walls, and silence has taken the place where impatience once reigned.
I cross the sidewalk and retrace my steps. The heat turns the asphalt into a griddle, and the shade from the trees is scarce. On the way, I enter one of those dollar markets that, just a few years ago, symbolized the power of Cimex, that immense business network of the Business Administration Group SA (Gaesa), the military conglomerate that wanted to control almost everything: remittances, hotels, hard currency stores, imports, ports, and even the last centavo a Cuban received from abroad.
The bags of frozen chicken that some employees received as an incentive disappeared, as did the transportation that picked them up and took them to the door of the establishment.
The employee barely looks up when I walk through the door. She’s fanning herself with a folded piece of cardboard while she waits for her shift to end. Her face is tired, and her sour expression gives the lie to that self-satisfied image many Cimex employees used to project, when working there was considered a privileged position. I ask her about a product, and she answers listlessly. Before I can press her, she sighs, “I haven’t even had a snack.”
She doesn’t need to tell me more. Her very appearance tells the whole story. Gone are the bags of frozen chicken some employees received as a bonus, the transportation that picked them up and took them to the door of the establishment, the food rations that arrived punctually, and even the discreet tips left by customers grateful for having found a liter of oil or a package of detergent. Now, without US coins for change and giving change in bouillon cubes or candy, almost no one leaves them a cent, not even in Cuban bills.
Decadence has a peculiar way of equalizing people. Workers who once seemed to belong to a commercial elite now share the same weariness as the rest of the country. Their privileges evaporated as quickly as the products began to run out on the shelves.
I go down to the sea. The landscape around the Grand Aston Hotel is disconcerting. The facilities look impeccable, but a silence reigns that is unusual for a tourist establishment. The only sound is the persistent crashing of the waves against the nearby Malecón, the seawall. It is hard to believe that this was one of the most ambitious projects undertaken by Gaviota, owned by the Cuban military, and managed in partnership with a foreign partner who eventually left the island. Where a constant flow of visitors was once promised, now stillness and a sense of waiting prevail.
The sanctions imposed from Washington hit precisely the nodes where the conglomerate had accumulated the most influence
For years, Gaesa built an economic empire with the ambition of controlling every profitable corner of the country. Remittances ended up under Fincimex; tourism fell into the hands of Gaviota; stores selling goods in freely convertible currency sprouted like mushrooms under the TRD* [Tiendas Recaudadoras de Divisas] and Caribe umbrellas; imports and much of the logistics also came under its control. It seemed an impregnable model, a machinery designed to concentrate resources and power.
But that very concentration ultimately was converted into its greatest weakness. The sanctions imposed from Washington struck precisely at the nodes where the conglomerate had amassed the most influence. When the center of the system began to falter, the shockwave reached offices, shops, hotels, and workers who had built their lives around that gigantic structure.
While I retrace my steps, I look again at the Fincimex building on 23rd Street. I think that ruins aren’t always mountains of rubble. There are also administrative, commercial, and symbolic ruins. They remain standing, with closed doors and signs still hanging, as if awaiting an impossible return. Perhaps that is the ultimate fate of empires that wanted to encompass too much: to discover, when it’s too late, that size can also be a form of fragility.
*Translator’s note: TRD, Tiendas Recaudadoras de Divisas, translates literally to “Stores Collectors of Hard Currencies”
The “Havana Chronicles” series can be read here.
______________________
COLLABORATE WITH OUR WORK: The 14ymedio team is committed to practicing serious journalism that reflects Cuba’s reality in all its depth. Thank you for joining us on this long journey. We invite you to continue supporting us by becoming a member of 14ymedio now. Together we can continue transforming journalism in Cuba.