No, It Wasn’t the War

These buildings are so beautiful, so majestic, so elegant, some of them are like small palaces. You’d think they were embassies or banks or corporate headquarters. But they were once private dwellings. And there are miles and miles of them.

No, we’re not in Paris or New York. This is old Havana. Stroll along the Malecón (early morning is best) and turn away from the seafront on the Paseo del Prado, or any of the other main avenues. You can walk these streets for literally hours, and you’ll still be wondering where the hell the poor people lived.

When these houses were built, Havana was rich. Seriously, seriously rich.

It was the principal port from which treasure from the New World was shipped back to Spain, the most powerful and wealthiest empire on earth. Gold and emeralds, sugar and rum, tobacco, coffee, slaves  —  everything that was worth money passed through Havana. The streets weren’t paved with gold, but they might as well have been: the city grew rich, and the people who built these houses imported Spanish tiles and French porcelain and crystal chandeliers, and lived like princes.

Now the ornate stone carvings are crumbling, the paint is peeling, the walls are cracked, the wrought-iron balconies are rusting. Many windows are boarded up, and ragged laundry hangs on the balconies to dry. Today, they’re multi-family dwellings: some without plumbing or electricity, some barely standing.

In fact, the whole place looks like it’s been in a war. (But, unbelievably, the Cuban Revolution actually saved these buildings. After World War II, Cuba offered beautiful weather, cheap rum, good cigars, great music and luxurious hotels. So naturally lots of Americans flocked there to vacation, and to gamble. This outstanding business opportunity attracted the attention of organised crime, and Meyer Lansky, the American “mob’s accountant”, reached an agreement with the Cuban dictator, Fulgencio Batista, to tear down most of the old  city and build modern casinos and hotels. But a few months later the revolution began, and the demolition never happened.)

So although these buildings may wear a few bullet holes here and there, most of the damage we’re seeing is sheer dilapidation. The tropical climate is hell on infrastructure. Things rot and rust, and peel and warp with frightening speed if they’re not conscientiously maintained.

But why? How could the government let this happen? 

The Cubans are doing their best: they renovate these buildings, a few at a time, especially the ones on the seafront along the Malecón, whenever they have the funds (which are mostly derived from tourism). It’s painstaking and highly specialised work.

And it takes money. Unfortunately, Cuba is poor, and has been for over 50 years, for a reason so simple you don’t know whether to laugh or cry.

Castro’s revolution succeeded when the Cold War was at its coldest. The United States had hysterics at the idea of the Commie menace occupying an island a mere 90 miles off the coast of the continental USA, so it armed and financed forces of exiled Cuban nationals to invade and re-take the island.

They failed. The humiliation was unbearable. The most powerful nation on earth had just had its clock cleaned by a ragtag little country of fewer than 8 million people.

So in 1962 the US imposed a trade embargo on Cuba. Many other countries, for fear of offending the big kid on the block, followed suit and wouldn’t trade with Cuba, or extend it credit. To this day, Cuba has no credit with the international community: it has to pay cash for anything it imports, and there’s not a lot of cash around. The beautiful buildings in Old Havana (and the hotels that bring in the tourist dollars) need good quality paint and materials, modern plumbing fixtures and fittings, and all sorts of things that simply aren’t manufactured in Cuba. So the only option is to wait until there’s enough money accumulated to pay for the repairs.

And year after year the work goes on, a few buildings at a time, as the money trickles in, and other buildings continue to crumble.

So there we have it. It wasn’t war that did all this damage, or an earthquake, or a tsunami. It was sheer arrogance and bloody-mindedness: what The Economist called “policy as tantrum”. In other words, a superpower still sulking, half a century later, over an embarassing defeat. 

How petty. How unattractive. And how undignified. 

(Note: at the time of writing, things are about to change. If so, what a pity it took so long. As we speak, some of these wonderful houses are being converted into boutique hotels, rental properties and B&Bs. As for the rest  —  we wonder whether the influx of  American tourists will have the faintest understanding of  what they’re looking at.)