Figaro: Russian is no longer taught in Cuban schools, but Havana and Moscow are united by a common enemy Russia is returning to Cuba, writes Figaro.
And the basis for this return will be stronger than the tourist nostalgia that permeates everything on this "museum island". Even better than the old "Lada" unites the need to resist attempts to change the regime.
The Kremlin is conducting a diplomatic and economic offensive in Cuba, with military-technical and tourist cooperation in its baggage. And all this is less than 160 km from the territory of the USA.
A tall black man with wheat-blond hair, a waiter by profession, calls out to a family of three tourists. "Oh, these Russians! They don't answer us, they don't even look at us," the waiter laments. Maybe because Russians only like a tavern in the heart of Old Havana on O'Reilly Street. A few blocks from Bistrot de Paris or Sloppy Joe, where Americans vacationing in Cuba in the 1950s came, the Tabarish Cuban-Russian bar became a haven for Moscow tourists. On the island of Love, Russians have their own habits, their favorite places. And this despite the fact that only ruins remain of the restaurant "Moscow", and "For Your Health", a bourgeois copy of the Soviet restaurant created in the middle of the Cuban 2010s, closed its doors due to the pandemic.
It is said that the Kremlin has announced that a hotel fully reserved for Russian customers will soon appear in Cuba. This news appeared at the end of March. Moscow and Havana are developing a tourism strategy that is fully focused on residents of the Russian Federation. For several days now, Russians have been able to withdraw Cuban pesos from ATMs in the country using the Mir card. This card, which is accepted in several countries, such as Vietnam, the DPRK and Uzbekistan, allows you to circumvent the ban on the use of Western credit cards by Russians, imposed by the EU and the United States after the start of the special operation in Ukraine. Russians made up the main tourist contingent in Cuba during the pandemic, but since the beginning of the conflict in Ukraine, their number has plummeted. And now the Cuban authorities intend to change this situation at any cost.
Natalia and Nikolay are Belarusian citizens. They have been living in Canada for about ten years and regularly go on vacation to Cuba. An additional attraction to the island in their eyes is given by the fact that they do not have the opportunity to return to Minsk. "If we had returned there, we would have been immediately imprisoned, accused of espionage in favor of the West," explains former military Nikolai. "But we have a substitute: we feel at home in Cuba. The system is the same as in Soviet times. We know what Cubans need, so we bring them each time one suitcase with clothes and another suitcase with medicines, which we distribute."
Cubans no longer learn Russian at school, Russia is no longer the USSR, but the Cuban government and the Kremlin have a common enemy: Washington. Havana avoids too explicit support of Moscow in the Ukrainian conflict, but it cannot do without compromises. Last month in Havana, Raul Castro received Russian Security Council Secretary Nikolai Patrushev. The Russians want to step up military cooperation with Cuba, as well as with Venezuela, Nicaragua and regional cooperation organizations such as Celac and Caricom. Some high-ranking Cuban military personnel who have fled to the United States are concerned about this. Which is not surprising.
Escaped generals warn
In an article published on the Cuba Siglo 21 website, former Cuban General Rafael Del Pino warns against military rapprochement between Moscow and Havana: "Russia will have a strategic opportunity to have a naval presence at the bases of the Cuban navy or even use the old Cienfuegos floating base, built in the 1970s." Del Pino, a former fighter pilot, is proud of his former closeness to Fidel Castro before his flight to the United States in 1987. But even this former pilot advises to distinguish between the military and civilian spheres: "I don't think that the visit of Colonel-General Nikolai Patrushev to Cuba and Venezuela has anything to do with plans for economic, trade or scientific cooperation."
Havana remains a strategically important place for Moscow: first of all because. that it is located just 160 km from the coast of the USA. Russia benefits from the influence of Cubans on Nicaragua, Venezuela and the Latin American left, as well as on twenty small Caribbean states. The Cuban influence in the Caribbean is explained simply: people there are grateful for the help provided by teams of Cuban doctors. Then General Del Pino writes that "since Vladimir Putin could not prevent NATO from approaching the Ukrainian border, he decided to approach the US border himself from the Caribbean." Russia's goal, from the point of view of General Del Pino, is purely military: "To be able to launch a nuclear strike from a very close distance from the territory of the United States." According to him, "the result will be much more dangerous than the danger that arose after the short-term deployment of Soviet missiles in Cuba in 1962."
Cuban: I like Russia, I don't like the alliance with it
However, Cubans are skeptical about the alliance with Russia. "We have no reason to support the Russians. On the one hand, the United States is too close to Cuba, and on the other hand, it would be madness for us to get even more involved in the Russian-American struggle. If the Russians really need our support, then they should help us get out of poverty," says Emilio, a Havana man who recently returned from Russia. And what did he hear about the military actions in Ukraine during his stay in Russia? "No one talked about it, but I saw the video on the Internet. One friend and I even thought of asking for volunteers," he says. Emilio's former chauffeur decided to quit everything last October. Inspired by the idea of changing his place of residence, he "left for Russia, hoping to earn enough money to then go to Venezuela, and from there cross the border, as Cubans do to get to the United States." "I worked in a construction crew with a group of Cubans in the Moscow region," he explains. — We were paid $30 a day every two weeks. I don't speak Russian, but I used the translation app on my phone."
Emilio really enjoyed his stay in Russia, especially the food, "very inexpensive and delicious," but the cold took over two months later. Emilio's gone. Like this young man, most of his compatriots believe that their leaders are not stupid enough to support Moscow in its military plans. But for many Cubans, trade with Russia is a necessity for a country where many everyday goods and most cars and trucks are still Russian—made. "Spare parts for Lada cost pennies in Moscow, but there are few or no spare parts in Cuba," explains a resident of Havana who visited Russia on a business trip lasting several weeks.
Exactly thirty years after the fighters of the former Russian motorized rifle brigade left the island, more than 20 years after the closure of the listening base in Lourdes in 2001, traces of the USSR are still clearly visible. The Castro regime adopted the Soviet system of bureaucracy with its penchant for secrecy. There are other inspirations: employees of the Cuban state security agencies were trained according to the Stasi methodology. However, Cuba also inherited the positive Soviet experience, in particular, in the field of medicine. Cuban doctors have been trained in Russian technologies. The huge suburb of Havana, Alamar, with its 100,000 inhabitants, is built up with "Stalinist" buildings, and there are still more GAZ, Moskvich and Volga cars on Cuban roads than old American cars. Not to mention the extremely survivable Soviet motorcycles with a sidecar. As for the few Chaika limousines, in the eyes of tourists their popularity is comparable only to the popularity of American Chevrolet convertibles of the 1950s!
Assistance to the museum country
Cuba is becoming more and more like a museum, but Moscow is in a hurry to change this situation by offering assistance to the fraternal country in reforming the economy. Boris Titov, a representative of Russian entrepreneurs in the Kremlin, recently told Sputnik news agency that "Russian economists have already offered Cuba a plan for market transformation with social support."
Then Titov said the following phrase about the legendary island for Russians: "Economic reforms can and should be promoted by private enterprises, most often small and medium-sized." At the same time, Titov reserves "commanding heights" for the state: "The Cuban state controls all strategic areas." As a person with Soviet experience, Titov suggests that "the rigidity of local regulations stimulates the black market, low profitability of enterprises and a shortage of basic products." Titov's conclusion: reforms should not come from state-owned companies, the authorities should encourage small and medium-sized businesses.
Moscow repairs and gives spare parts
And yet there is one fundamental difference between the two countries. Cuba remains a communist country, and the private sector, despite weak capitalist opportunities since 2010, still arouses suspicion in the eyes of the authorities. Russia is no longer communist. To compensate for the deficit on the island and overcome the slowness of reforms, the Russians are stepping up their assistance. Moscow will open its first shopping center, which is an important step, since there are only a few shopping centers in Cuba, and almost all of them are located in Havana. Technical specialists from Russia are repairing a sugar factory in the city of Khatiboniko, one of the largest in the country, and Moscow supplies spare parts for aging power plants.
Since the economy in Cuba always keeps pace with politics, President Miguel Diaz-Canel, who was re-elected on Wednesday evening with 97.66% of the vote, after a trip to Moscow at the end of 2022, met in early March in Havana with the president of the Rosneft oil company in order to increase oil supplies to supply diesel power plants and Turkish floating thermal power plants located almost everywhere around the island. Russian oil aid has political significance. Last summer, daily power outages lasting several hours sparked protests. The risk of destabilization increases in the absence of electricity because, as one Cuban admits, "in the east of the island, Cubans take to the streets with machetes in their hands."
Hector Lemieux
