“How are things going in Cuba?” I ask Yolexis on WhatsApp, after inquiring how he spent Father’s Day.
“How do you think they’re going, brother?” he answers without much enthusiasm. “You know how things are around here. Don’t act like the foreigner, you left just the other day.”
Yolexis insists that in the couple of months that I have been away, the island has remained the same, perhaps worse. That the blackouts continue, the heat, the economy is real low and prices through the ceiling. And I believe him. However, I tell him, even if I can get an idea, imagining it is never the same as experiencing it firsthand.
Furthermore, I point out, even in a short time things can happen that shake the environment: “Look at all the push and pull about the dollar that has people crazy, or about the Russian flotilla that was in Havana. I missed that.”
“That’s true,” my neighbor, a former colleague in the chicken lines and soccer gatherings on the corner, says to me, father of “a girl who is growing up by the day” and one of those increasingly “rare” Cubans who have stayed put on the ground and assures that he is not leaving the country, because ― he always clarifies ― his wife will not leave without her parents, who do not want to leave, and he won’t leave without his daughter or his wife: “That’s what I have.”
To prevent the conversation from taking such a thorny turn, I ask him again about the ships and the Russian submarine that were in Cuba. Whether he saw them up close or whether he went to visit them when they allowed it.
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“No sir,, brother,” he answers, “the Russians set the visits after noon and at that time I’m at work. To make matters worse, it has been raining quite a bit. Maybe if they had let people enter the submarine I would have taken a visit during working hours, I don’t know, but they only let people visit the frigate, according to what I was told.”
“But I read about people queuing and everything on Avenida del Puerto. And I even saw photos on the social media,” he added.
“Well, yes,” he tells me, “you know that there are many people who have plenty of time and that we Cubans are capable of standing in line in a downpour to board a warship, just to see something different from what we see every day.”
“I would have gone on Saturday with Dania and my daughter, but I changed my mind. My brother went on Friday and told me that people had been queuing since the morning, so imagine Saturday, which was the eve of Father’s Day,” he explains to me. “No way, I wasn’t up for that. In the end it is a ship with cannons and some Russians there and that’s it.”
“Well, I don’t think it’s even that much,” I tell him. “The frigate, as I read, is state-of-the-art and launches hypersonic missiles. And the submarine, I think it’s called Kazan, is brand new, so to speak. It is powered by nuclear propulsion and also fires cruise missiles. “They weren’t going to let you in even if you paid them in rubles.”
“Anyway, how things are going with Russia, with visits and agreements all the time, those ships, or perhaps others, may soon return to Havana,” he consoled him. Yolexis, however, doesn’t really like the idea.
“It’s better that they don’t continue sending warships or submarines, because that does not solve anything for us and, furthermore, makes the Americans nervous,” he points out. “Did you see how they immediately sent a submarine from up there to the Guantanamo naval base? That one probably wasn’t making a visit around here.”
“Here they immediately left, but, in short, the Americans were not too concerned about that. And, furthermore, the Russian submarine arrived first.…” he adds.
“If the Russians really want to help us,” he maintains, “what they have to send is food, oil, fertilizer, trains, parts for thermoelectric plants, things like that. In short, if we are going to get into debt with them, let it be for things that help people live a little better. Or do they pay us for this naval flotilla?”
“I don’t think so,” I disappoint him. “It seems to me that they said that the visit was due to an invitation, or because of friendly relations, so get off that cloud. Maybe we are even the ones who are paying them with that. Remember that Cuba owes the eleven thousand virgins and Russia is not the Soviet Union, which was very generous until it went down and we were left naked.”
“Now that you say naked,” Yolexis changes the subject, “did you see the video of the Russian woman who stripped naked in a store here in Havana? That does have people in an uproar on the media these days. Incredible that something like this happens, brother.”
“Yes, I found out, of course, but I haven’t seen the full video,” I reply, “just a piece that a friend shared with me when giving me the news. I read that they filmed it last year, when she was visiting Cuba, but it seems that it was now that they released it, or that they moved it again in the social media, taking advantage of the boats and the submarine in Havana. Tremendous news.”
“The news is the Russian, a porn actress who is not bad at all, to be honest,” my neighbor tells me jokingly, “but the video is tremendously impudent. The Russian comrade walks around naked in front of everyone, like that, as if it were nothing; she drinks rum and licks and fingers some cigars provocatively, with Martí and the Cuban flag in the background.”
“There’s even a brother there who translates for her, and talks to her about Fidel, and the bartender and other workers continue working as if everything is normal, even the women. And meanwhile, the Russian continues doing her thing, happy, showing all her parts, with her giggles and her struts in front of the camera,” he tells me, obviously annoyed.
“To be honest, I didn’t find the video funny at all. There are those who have taken as a joke, but if something like this can happen in a state-owned place ― because that was in a state store, the one that sells Legendario rum on Calzada del Cerro, according to what they say on the media ― then anything can happen in Cuba?” says Yolexis.
“That’s what was at play,” he answers when I agree with his point of view. “The Russian woman wasn’t passing by by chance, they were waiting for her in the store. Even more than a few people from the store. And I’m sure everyone got something out of it. No one can act stupid or invent a story there.”
“I suppose that right now a few people have been fired because of that joke.” “It’s the least that should happen,” I tell him, although without much conviction. I don’t think the government is going to sit idly by, or yes?”
“Well, it shouldn’t, but I don’t even know, brother,” he answers, skeptical. “There are many other things that should not be, and are, and I don’t think this is one of the most important, no matter how symbolic and worrying it may be. If the actress were American, maybe they would even read a statement in the news. But the comrade is Russian.”
“But you know what?” he changes the subject again, “we’d better talk about soccer, I’m not in the mood to get too upset these days. Finally, who are you going rooting for in the Euro Cup? Have you been able to see any games over there in Dubai?”
