The flags on the high-rise buildings of Peñas Altas, in Matanzas, barely hide the deterioration, which puts neighbors and passersby at risk.
14ymedio, Julio César Contreras, Matanzas, 6 May 2025 — Looked at from one side it looks majestic, but the 13 storey building in Peñas Altas, in the city of Matanzas, only has one good side. The huge Cuban flag, 44 metres high, painted on one side of its façade, barely hides the ruin of the rest of the building, a deterioration putting at risk the lives of the people living there and anybody passing by.
Four years ago, the face of the city was changed with the completion of an enormous mural, signed by the artist Jesús Alberto Mederos Martínez. For the occasion, the local press was full of headlines praising the world’s largest Cuban ensign, but the rest of the concrete block was completely ignorant of the paintbrushes and scaffolding that were mobilised for the occasion.
Now, the inhabitants of the building, which was put up in the years of Soviet subsidies and which looks like all the communist architecture in Eastern Europe, is falling to bits. This week a lump of concrete balcony collapsed right next to a little boy who was, at that moment, entering the building with his father. “It fell next to my smallest boy, touching his shoulder, it tore his pullover but he escaped with hardly a scratch”, the alarmed man declared in the social media.
A poster “Fatherland or death, we will win” leaves it quite clear where is the priority of the propaganda about investment to improve the lives of the residents.
While the balcony parapets, cracked and with rusted metal, endange the lives of anyone passing by, a poster “Fatherland or death, we will win” leaves it quite clear where is the priority of the propaganda about investment to improve the lives of the residents. Below the wording on the ensign, in bright red, the walls of the building also known as “Polineiso Building” after the restaurant on the top floor, are cracked, dirty and bulging in places.
“Every time I go in or out I do it as quickly as possible, because it’s not the first time bits have fallen off the balconies or the outside columns” one of the top floor residents, who has lived there since it was built, told 14ymedio this Monday . In those days, the Peñas Altas complex of modern buildings was seen as a foretaste of the future and the consecration of the Cuban model and its most finished product: the new man.
Sylvia cannot help comparing the present situation with her memories as a youngster, when dozens of families, all carefully seletced by the system, moved into a pristine building, with wide corridors, a welcoming entrance hall, and spectacular view of the bay and the city of Matanzas. At that time, the elevators were a source of wonder for many people who had never been in one, but over the years they had become a headache due to technical problems and long power cuts.
Sylvia prefers to go up the stairs to her apartment every day to avoid being trapped by a power cut, or having to put up with the jolts in the apparatus, which has been damaged by the passage of time and by people using it to move their furniture and heavy boxes. The woman does not conceal her dismay at the contrast between the building’s symbolism with its enormous national flag on its side, and the reality of living inside it.
The mural with its single star and white and blue stripes form part of the artistic “My flags” quarter, dedicated to Fidel Castro and opened at the end of 2021, when the city of Matanzas celebrated the 328th anniversary of its foundation.
“We are not so badly off because at least we have the Cuban flag” saiys another resident ironically, indicating one of the buildings in the complex decorated with the flag of the July 26 Movement and the ranks of the Commander in Chief. Look at from a distance both buildings make up an image that the official press photographers look for and the official extol.
From up close on the other hand real life doesn’t have such intense colours. “These corridors at night are so dark that I only go down from my flat in an emergancy” Sylvia explains. In the gloom you have to look out for the bumps and holes on the steps. “A little while ago my neighbour fell over when he caught his foot where there was no concrete above the scaffolding. If we put up lights they steal them and if we bring up the need for some repairs they says they have no money, says the woman.
Water leaks between floors also plague the residents. “The pipes are rotten. You can see where the columns and structure are weak. You only have to look at the cracks to see it could collapse,” says another resident, who knows every detail of a building he has lived in for more than thirty years. “It won’t be today or tomorrow, but if they don’t do something , there could be a disaster,” he says with the knowledge that comes from his job as a builder.
Apart from the residents in the building, lots of clients come to the Consumer Register Office (Oficoda) every day which is located on the ground floor. Also at ground level is the rationed goods warehouse and other state establishments that have permanent queues. Over the heads of the people waiting to go through a procedure or buy their ration of subsidised food lumps of concrete are dangling ready to fall on their heads, rusty steel reinforcement rods and old air conditioner casings rotting in the sun.
The restaurant El Polinesio on the top floor does not escape this mess. With its slogan “high level gastronomy” the state diner is closed most of the time due to lack of supplies and the infrastructure problems. Re-opened in 2023 after being closed for two years and after an investment of 18 million pesos, the business suffers most from having to go without electricity.
It sounds simple enough to say it — just nip up to the 13th floor to reach the restaurant – but having to do it is enough to scare off just about anyone.” says the workman. And the state of the building doesn’t help much. “As soon as you come close you can smell the urine, because there are people who use the ground floor as a public toilet. It’s obvious that this place doesn’t invite anybody to come and eat – or to live – I am still here because I haven’t been able to move. Locals speak of the microbrigade buildings like they’re cursed.
In the 1970s and 1980s, the high-rise blocks that began to be put up in Cuba’s main cities were seen as a foretaste of the modernity that the whole country would enter at an accelerated pace, but with the passage of time, the deterioration and evidence of the limitations of these projects made with cheap materials, hasty construction and lack of maintenance, earned them a bad reputation.
All it takes is for a classified ad to state that the flat for sale or exchange is located in a microbrigade building for potential buyers to flee in panic. On the other hand, stressing that it is a “capitalist” property, built before January 1959, guarantees greater success in the transaction. The difference in price and the speed at which these properties move is also very different. Those built for the ‘New Man’ are worth less and people don’t want them.
And, what’s more, if the buyer learns that the flat for sale is located in the “flag building”, he or she is likely to put an unenthusiastic look on his /her face, as evident as the red triangle flag painted on the side of the building is in the Matanzas landscape.
Translated by GH
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