The new Cuba is in Old Havana

The new Cuba is in Old Havana
Signs of Raúl Castro's reforms are beginning to show in the city's
historic center
More private firms are opening, with the state counting on them to boost
restoration work
MAURICIO VICENT Havana 12 JUN 2015 - 18:32 CEST

Old Havana is the new Havana. And it only took six months to happen.
Dozens of new private businesses have been opening their doors in the
city's historic center, a well-looked-after urban space that stretches
over two kilometers in which 55,000 people live and more than 200
buildings of significant cultural value have been renovated in recent
years. Among the new establishments to have cropped up on this
privileged spot through which 90 percent of visitors to the island pass
are tattoo parlors such as La Marca, charming bars featuring jazz bands
playing on the staircase, graphic design stores such as Clandestina,
whose owner Idania del Río only used to see a promising tomorrow in
"leaving Cuba." "Today, for the first time, I feel that I have a future
in my country," she says.

Thirty-three-year-old Idania studied at the Havana Higher Design
Institute and after several fruitless years and attempts to "start
something of my own," last year took advantage of reforms implemented by
the Raúl Castro administration allowing for private property purchases
to acquire a half-demolished building on Villegas Street. Then she and
her Spanish business partner, Leire Fernández, spent months renovating
it before opening on February 11. The store has "an alternative vibe"
and irreverent collections of items such as pillow cases embossed with
phrases like "remedy for insomnia," made from fabrics featuring images
of passports and 100-CUC bills – the Cuban convertible peso, the local
currency used for exchanging foreign money that is equivalent to the US
dollar – a nod to the things that keep Cubans awake at night.

Elsewhere in the store, "Vamos a la zafra" (Let's go to the harvest) is
a collection of children's toys crafted from little Russian-style cars
made of recycled plastic. T-shirts with Clandestina's logo and a series
of hemp bags with hip designs and the logo "99% Cuban design" have
enjoyed notable success. "Things move slowly in Cuba," the owners say.
"It can take two months for them to authorize the placement of a poster
on the door, but you can feel the changes."

"This is a really exciting moment," Idania adds. "There are people
coming back who left Cuba years ago. Some, like me, feel that they can
try their luck here, that there is now an opportunity to move forward."

There are 11 million people in Cuba and 5.2 million active workers –
almost 100 percent of whom worked for the state until recently. After
the Special Period crisis of the late 80s and 90s, and the economic
reforms to alleviate its impact, the state declared that over one
million government posts were now redundant and opened the door to
private enterprise. Today there are 470,000 cuentapropistas, or
non-government workers, on the island. The state has also allowed the
buying and selling of homes and the formation of different kinds of
business cooperatives in sectors such as construction and textiles.

Perhaps these changes are felt most intensely in Havana's majestic Plaza
Vieja, which dates back to the late 16th century. The old square is now
the symbol of the new push in private business and how it could help
improve the city. Just a year ago, every business in Plaza Vieja
belonged to the state.

First, Café Bohemio opened. Then, a massage parlor set up shop next
door. Last November, a couple opened Azúcar, a modern bar-restaurant
with spectacular views over the square. Just a few days later another
entrepreneur and his Russian friend opened a locale next door also
affording views over the square. Customers can see children sitting in
class at the public school across the way.

In December, La Vitrola, a restaurant that specializes in Creole
cuisine, opened on the corner of Muralla and San Ignacio streets. The
house special of ropa vieja, black beans, salad, beer, dessert and
coffee costs less than €10 – still prohibitively priced for the vast
majority of Cubans but affordable for a growing sector of the
population. The establishment features retro Coca-Cola refrigerators and
advertisements from the 1950s. Once inside, you feel transported to
another era.

"I never thought I would see Plaza Vieja so alive," says Juan Agustín
Plasencia, who has worked in the old state-owned restaurant business and
is now the manager at La Vitrola where a marvelous American jukebox
pumps out tunes by Arsenio Rodríguez, Benny Moré and Celia Cruz.
Plasencia says this "paladar" – the local name for these new private
restaurants – like the other new businesses in the area, have had the
support of the city's historical office, the government bureau
responsible for the renovations going on in Old Havana, and its director
Eusebio Leal. "He has visited us on several occasions to encourage us to
contribute to the renovation work and to become leading figures in the
area's restoration."

Eusebio Leal's work is well-known. Besides his support for
entrepreneurial projects, his management and initiatives have helped
save the historic center's valuable architectural heritage. Back in the
1980s, the city was falling apart. The pace of restoration was five
buildings a year. "Thirty percent of the territory has been renovated in
the last two decades and we have restored more than 200 buildings of
high cultural value," says Patricia Rodríguez, who is in charge of
coordinating the plan for Old Havana's restoration.

Right now the historical office is restoring the Capitol, which was the
seat of the Congress and the Senate during the Republican era. By the
end of the year, it will once again house the national parliament. Quite
a symbol of the new times. Much has been done in 20 years. "But we
cannot wait another 20 years to see results," Rodríguez says. Where
before the state took responsibility for restoration, now it encourages
private businesses to bring their own efforts to the task and supports
them – a notable change in mentality.

"At this moment there is a boom in private initiatives in the area, and
it is a good thing," Rodríguez says, adding that the office should make
sure it is "leading the restoration process in the private sector well."

Rodríguez cites the case of hairdresser Gilberto Valladares, known to
all as "Papito." In a short while, Papito turned his salon into a
veritable community cultural project in which dozens of people on Aguiar
street participate. "The office has fixed up the street and handed over
locales and public spaces where there are now bars, stores, art
galleries, a beauty school, and other community projects – all of it
private," Papito explains. "It's not just about economic profits; it's
about creating wealth through culture and seeing that come back to
benefit the neighbors."

In 2007, sick of bureaucratic roadblocks, Valladares left for Mexico. He
came back in 2009. "And until now…", he says, before an associate calls
him away. A group of government workers is waiting for him. They have
come to provide advice on how to be more efficient in this kind of
communal workplace – something completely unthinkable just two years ago.

Translation: Dyane Jean François

The challenge of inequality

Raúl Castro's loosening of economic restrictions obviously widened
disparities in a country whose central pillar was egalitarianism for
nearly half a century. In today's Cuba there are people with lots of
money, but they are in the minority. Some restaurant owners, independent
farmers, artists, and professionals in emerging sectors are able to
spend €200 on a dinner, but the average salary remains around $20 a
month. The truth is that more than 90 percent of Cubans are living on
the national currency and suffering for it.
If a €10 meal in La Vitrola is a third of a doctor's salary, Cuba faces
a clear challenge: what policies does it have to implement in order to
protect the most disadvantaged and redistribute wealth?
Eusebio Leal knows the answer. You can take a walk with him in Old
Havana and visit the old Belén convent, now a center for the elderly
that provides free services to 800 people. It is one of many social
programs in the area financed in part with taxes collected from these
new entrepreneurs.
To those who criticize them at home for going too fast and those who
criticize them abroad for going too slow, he only has one thing to say:
"Let them talk if they want to, I am a child of my times."

Source: The new Cuba is in Old Havana | In English | EL PAÍS -
http://elpais.com/elpais/2015/06/12/inenglish/1434119014_523849.html