Images collected by 14ymedio show a capital city that is filthy and full of beggars
14ymedio, Juan Izquierdo, Havana, 26 August 2024 – Much has changed in Havana since, in 1837, the French painter Federico Mialhe arrived in Cuba to make his fortune with his brushes. A prosperous and vibrant city, the prints he left, collected in multiple engravings, contrast with those collected by 14ymedio reporters: a capital city that is in ruins, filthy and full of beggars.
However, those who walk through the streets of the city often encounter unusual sights. If, in the nineteenth century, Mialhe captured the moment in which a quitrin carriage carried three refined young men near the Fuente de la India – today in the Paseo del Prado – this paper witnessed a similar scene on Tuesday. Exhausted in the August heat, a family of habaneros in teeshirts and flip flops were enjoying a similar outing.
In the background, however, it wasn’t royal palm trees or neoclassical sculptures that were in view, but the outline of a collapsing building and the corrugated iron fencing that contains the debris. The horse itself also didn’t resemble the French one, well harnessed and erect; the twenty first century one has more in common with Don Quijote’s worn out and lean Rocinante.
Even the beggars have changed, although Havana has never been short of them
In Mialhe’s Havana – where his pictures were collected and made public by the exiled collector Emilio Cueto – there were magnificent railings and stained glass windows; in Miguel Díaz-Canel’s Havana the railings are for keeping the burglars out and the windows usually have broken shutters. In place of wide open plazas with habaneros walking out every Sunday, there are deserted streets and rubbish. Rather than looking like a capital city, more than a few areas of Havana feel like a village of the dead.
Even the beggars have changed, although Havana has never been short of them. A famous collection such as the Californian Album, printed in 1850, pictured them in typical creole fashion, smoking tobacco or examining the fruit in the market. At that time, dressed in out-of-fashion dress coats and with long cigars and flasks of rum they were a laughing stock for the painter.
Nobody made fun today though, of the beggar who was dragging his cart through the centre of Havana on Monday not far from the offices of Etecsa. Shirtless and bony and carrying bags, he only has one thing in common with the beggars of colonial Havana – his white hat, worn at a tilt like the protagonists of the Californian Album before they offered “solid arguments” with their fists.
If in the 50’s notable photographers like Korda or Jesse Fernández pictured the lights of the city at night, today you can only see it pictured in a power cut.
To see Havana via its images gives one much to think about: in 1762 an illustrator captured the moment when English ships invaded; this year 14ymedio captured the arrival of several Russian warships. In 1847, Eugenio Laplante sketched the dizzyingly vertiginous routine of a Cuban wit; today the official press makes sure to show the failure of the harvest and the precariousness of the power plants.
If in the 50’s notable photographers like Korda or Jesse Fernández pictured the lights of the city at night – the city of Cabrera Infante, Graham Greene or Hemingway – today you can only see it pictured in a power cut. “In Havana, which survives Fidel Castro and his heirs, only the ruins – which retain a certain dignity – allow one to believe in the elegant engravings of the past.”
Translated by Ricardo Recluso
____________
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.
