Why is there no internet in Cuba. What you need to know about the cube when planning your first trip. Cuban women and other ways to survive on the island
Is there Internet in Cuba? Yes, there is Internet in this country, but it is not as free as we are used to. If you stay all the time in some hotel in Varadero or another popular resort area of Cuba, then most likely you will not have problems with Internet access (only money will be needed for this). But if you are planning a trip around this country with accommodation in several places, then getting online will not always be easy for you.
Internet access via Wi-Fi in Cuba is different from access in Russia and many other countries because:
- There is no free Wi-Fi in Cuba
- Internet access in Cuba is restricted and controlled by the government
How to access the Internet in Cuba
There are currently three ways to access the Internet and Wi-Fi in Cuba. You can log on to the Network at ETECSA communication centres, designated areas and at your hotel.
However, in order to access any of the above three locations, you will need to purchase an ETECSA Telecom Center or hotel card with Wi-Fi access. The card should cost 1.5 CUC. Such a price may seem high, but back in 2015, the card cost 4.5 CUC. So the cost of the Internet in Cuba is declining. In any case, the card gives you the opportunity to access the Internet in Cuba within one hour. True, when you exit the Network, the countdown stops, so you can use the card again later.
As far as I know, in addition to the 1-hour cards for 1.5 CUC, Cuba also offers 5-hour cards for 10 CUC. The cost of such cards, of course, is disadvantageous, but in some cases their acquisition has its advantages.
ETECSA centers
Not all cities have an ETECSA telecom center and not all hotels have Wi-Fi. Very often you will see a queue of locals near the ETECSA center. For some reason, foreigners are not supposed to queue, so you can walk past the line of locals if you don't mind. However, in some ETECSA centers recently, foreigners still have to stand in line. In ETECSA centers in Cuba, you can not only buy a card for Internet access, but also use computers.
Since 2016, Wi-Fi began to appear in some private houses in Cuba. Most likely, this trend will continue.
In general, the situation with the Internet in Cuba is changing rapidly, but for now, you still need a card to enter the world wide web.
In 2015, ETECSA opened eight Pay-for WiFi Hotspots platforms in the parks of major cities, where you can access the Internet for 2 CUC per hour. Such hotspots have appeared in Pinar del Rio, Cienfuegos, Ciego de Avila, Las Tunas, Matanzas, Villa Clara, Mayabeque and Sancti Spiritus. Access points are currently available in some other cities in Cuba. Most of these points are in Havana.
Internet in Cuba in hotels
Almost all decent 4- and 5-star hotels in Havana, Varadero and other popular places have Wi-Fi. These hotels usually sell Nauta Wi-Fi cards, but prices vary depending on the hotel. I have seen cards of 2 cookies in a hotel in Varadero and 8 cookies in a hotel in Havana. The price depends on the greed of the hotel.
As a rule, Internet access in hotels in Cuba can only be obtained in certain places. Usually this is a lobby and some other public areas. There will be no signal in the rooms and on the beach.
Signal strength and call quality
Wi-Fi signal strength in Cuba is usually weak, even if you are close to the source of the signal. The Internet in Cuba is slow in most cases, and the connection is often interrupted. Sometimes money is lost because of this, because if the connection is interrupted, you do not have time to log out of the system. True, in Varadero and Havana, I did not experience such problems, but in cities in the center and in the east of the country, sometimes there was no Internet for days.
How to enter the network
ETECSA Wi-Fi cards have a login and password under a protective layer that you need to enter to enter the Network. When you select Network, you will be prompted for a Login and Password. When you enter them, you will need to click on the "Accept" button.
To log out, type 1.1.1.1 into the address bar. Once you reach the withdrawal request page, you will need to confirm your intention by clicking on the "cerrar sesión" button. If you haven't used your full hour, you can use the remaining time again. In general, remember that 1.1.1.1. used to log out of the Wi-Fi system and save money. If you do not log out, then your time will simply burn out.
Remember also that the use of special cards is still the only way in Cuba to access the Internet via Wi-Fi. Don't fall for the scammers.
Not so long ago, I could not imagine a situation where one of the tourists looks at his profile on the social network Vkontakte while traveling on a bus, not an excursion. Now the situation has changed for the better. One of the largest 3G operators in Cuba is Digicel with its Digicel Cuba Roaming product. Digicel has been connecting people in the Caribbean, Central America and Asia Pacific for over fifteen years.
Can I use 3G in Cuba? Yes, Cuba already has 3G capabilities. Some tourists may be surprised by this fact.
What is Digicel Cuba Roaming SIM Card? This is a SIM card that works with unlocked phones (this is important, most phones require unlocking, check with your ISP before heading to Cuba). There are 3 different options for prepaid traffic: 100 Mb, 300 Mb and 500 Mb. Each package includes free incoming SMS so you can receive text messages from family, friends and colleagues outside of Cuba at no additional cost.
You will need to activate your SIM in Cuba (Cuba only) by dialing *120# and following the instructions for APN / Registration (iOS or Android).
Where does 3G work in Cuba?
Digicel says its 3G coverage is available in all 15 Cuban provinces. Coverage in the most densely populated areas is reported to be the most effective. Since Digicel uses local Cuban networks, the operator cannot guarantee a high connection speed.
3G prices in Cuba
As mentioned above, there are three packages. The price level depends on the amount of traffic.
100 MB - 25 cookies
300 MB - 50 cookies
500 MB + 40 minutes of calls to anywhere in the world - 100 cookies
Since one card gives you the opportunity to use the Internet for a limited time, it is important to use this time wisely. Therefore, I decided to finally give a few tips that will help you to use the allotted time for Internet access very efficiently.
- Various translators, guides and maps can be downloaded to your smartphone in advance and used without the need to go online. If an application requires Internet access to work, then check its operation in advance so as not to waste precious time setting up and getting to know this application.
- Immediately designate a list of priorities before logging in so that you do not get drawn into the study of Vkontakte and Instagram.
- Messages for social networks, Whatsapp, etc. you can first enter notes into the application, and then after logging in to the Internet, simply copy and paste them. This will save you time.
- Set a timer on your phone as soon as you log in. Time flies very fast while surfing the Internet.
- And one more tip of mine - turn the problem with the Internet in Cuba into an advantage and enjoy your vacation without social networks, blogs and emails! Maybe this Internet situation is a good opportunity to read a book on a sun lounger or spend more time in the pleasant waters of the ocean?
Cuba is one of the countries where the Internet is still a scarce product. It is expensive, you can use it only in special places, while standing in line for a couple of hours or buying a special card from resellers. How the Internet works in Cuba - in the photo essay by Maria Plotnikova.
The text was prepared with the participation of Alexei Mitrakov
The Internet appeared in Cuba in 2011, when the cabling from Venezuela was completed. At first, only civil servants could use the Internet.
The Cuban state telecommunications company ETECSA, founded in 1994, remains the Internet monopoly.
On June 3, 2013, 118 Internet cafes opened in the country, where the cost of an hour of Internet was $4.5. Considering that the average official salary in Cuba is still $20 a month, the Internet remains an expensive luxury for most Cubans.
Mobile Internet appeared in Cuba in 2014. It is issued according to the card system and works only in specially designated places (for example, in parks). Cards for 1-5 hours of connection will cost $1.5 per hour or $7.5 for five hours.
In April 2014, ETECSA announced the expansion of Internet access and the creation of affordable home Internet. The price of a leased line of 1 Mb/s for an office now varies from $150 to $250 per month, depending on the location of the office and the connection method. Home internet costs $60 for 220 hours, $0.3 for each additional hour.
There are many resellers in the parks where the Wi-Fi network works. They offer hourly internet cards for $3. Despite the fact that an hourly card in the office of ETECSA costs half as much, the services of resellers are in demand, since buying a card in the office can take several hours due to constant queues.
Many hotels in Havana and Varadero have access to the Internet and Wi-Fi. Prices for one hour of Internet connection at the hotel range between $0.32 and $0.4. Internet access is provided by a special card, which must be purchased.
Those who wish can use the Internet at the Ministry of Science, Technology and environment Cuba, which provides a connection to the Web for $0.2 per hour, which is cheaper than hotels or Internet cafes.
If a resident of Cuba cannot buy a card or pay for the Internet in an Internet cafe, once a week he has the right to use the Network at the US Mission (SINA) free of charge. The embassies of the Netherlands, Sweden, Poland and the Czech Republic also provide two hours of free internet access per week.
Despite the development of the Internet in Cuba, it is not very stable and has a slow data transfer rate, from 150 Kb / s to 1 Mb / s, depending on the connection location and time of day.
An Internet user, buying a card or visiting an Internet cafe in Cuba, signs an agreement, one of the clauses of which states that he undertakes not to use the provided service for "activities that may be considered harmful or endanger public safety."
There is a list of sites that are prohibited to Web users: Cubaencuentro, Cubanet (specialize in writing analytical articles on the state of affairs in the country) and Revolico (distributing advertisements).
In the photo: locals use the Internet in the city of Varadero
In the photo: locals use the Internet in the city of Baracoa
In the photo: locals use the Internet in the city of Trinidad
In the photo: locals use the Internet in the city of Matanzas
Not everyone knows that there is not a single supermarket in Cuba (in the usual sense for us), most products are sold on coupons, the famous Havana Club rum is drunk by the poor, and the most beautiful beaches are not in Varadero, but in Maria La Gorda. And that's not all.
Currency
There are two types of currency in use in Cuba: cookies (CUC) and Cuban pesos or coupes (CUP). Cookies are for tourists, coupes are for Cubans. The cookie rate is the same throughout the country and is approximately equal to one dollar. It makes sense to buy cookies in large hotels, this will save you from huge queues in city exchangers.
You won’t be able to buy kupa just like that, since they are not intended for tourists, but if you’re lucky, kupa can give change in the store. One cookie is equal to approximately 25 kup. Outwardly, the currencies are very similar, only the cookies are brighter, and the coupes are paler.
It is convenient to pay for hotels, gasoline and restaurants with cookies, but it is profitable to buy bread, vegetables, fruits, as well as any products that are mainly intended not for tourists, but for the local population. When paying with cookies, the price of the goods can be four times higher!
Transport
Public transport in Cuba is rather poorly developed, the Cubans themselves prefer to hitchhike, which is very popular here. The taxi mainly consists of retro cars, which are good not only for their intended purpose - to drive along Cuban roads, but also as a generator of likes on Instagram and Facebook.
You can rent a vintage car only with a driver. It is absolutely not necessary to go to a special agency for such a car, the owners of rare cars offer their services everywhere. On average, a trip over a distance of 10 kilometers will cost 5 cookies (≈ 300 rubles). When traveling a longer distance, it makes sense to bargain.
And we also have
A few months ago, I stopped in surprise at the window of an unusual shop in the center of Barcelona. Every kind of globe imaginable flaunted on its shelves, from tiny desktop souvenirs to giant inflatable ceiling-mounted spheres. But besides globes, there was nothing else for sale. Intrigued, I went in and gladly bought a small and pretty copy of our planet, equipped with built-in lighting. From that evening, a strange period began in my life. Before falling asleep, already lying in bed, I took this same globe in my hands, turned on the light bulb and, surrounded by complete darkness, for a long time examined, as if from orbit, unknown corners of the luminous world, dotted with hundreds of wonderful names.
After a couple of days of such contemplation, I found out that the self-esteem of my geographical knowledge was unhealthy exaggerated. I have discovered gigantic areas on earth that I was almost unaware of until a week ago. At that moment, I immediately wanted to travel, and definitely somewhere very far away. And for many subsequent evenings, before turning off the globe, I was tormented by a painful duality. Part of me was ready to run in the middle of the night to the computer for electronic tickets, while the other part cynically giggled and calmly crawled deeper under the covers. Weeks passed, I looked at the planet every night, and the evening ritual with the globe dragged on more and more. Perhaps the secret lay in the soft, pleasant glow of the earth's crust and high-quality color printing. And at the end of the month, I realized that I had to go somewhere after all. Why Cuba, you ask? I will answer without difficulty. Firstly, it is very far, but the Russians still do not need a visa, plus the Caribbean, no matter how. Secondly, according to all the leading tour operators in Europe, it seems to be really cool, fun and cheap there. And, thirdly, there is the living Fidel, his charisma and his numerous socialist children! In general, let's go.
Road
Tickets had to be bought expensively, because only four companies fly from Spain to Cuba and all have approximately the same prices. On the advice of experienced travelers, the idea of an economy class flight with a duration of more than ten hours was immediately rejected. And a decent couch in the first class round-trip was valued at exactly two thousand euros per person. But there were no thrombosis, fainting and claustrophobia. In a comfortable electronically adjustable seat, passengers could stretch out completely, cover themselves with a blue regular blanket and continuously take delicious alcohol from smiling stewardesses. By the way, we fed twice during the flight, very well-coordinated and quite edible, and at the same time it was possible to watch the scenes of the latest world blockbusters in laser quality on a personal 14-inch TV. Sweet and tasteful. In general, the flight was pleasant and fast.
Airport and taxi
Cuban land lays in the soul of the pragmatist reasonable doubts while still in the air on the way to the airport. The contrast with European natural landscapes and urban areas hurts the eye. From the air, Havana looks suspiciously monotonous, but with bald spots of ruined quarters, as if after an uncertain art. shelling. Rural buildings in their wretchedness and devastation do suggest an epidemic that claimed the lives of all local tillers at least a decade ago. The airport building itself is small, with narrow, dirty corridors. Customs officers are suspicious, scrupulous and take out a passport from the crusts, looking at every page of all those who have arrived.
Not a single person gave joy from the fact of the appearance of three hundred tourists at the airport. Only the porter, who had grown weary from drink, tobacco and heat, wearily and hopelessly offered to help with my luggage for fifty pesos. A little scared. Involuntary thoughts came that it might have something to do with the success of its acquisition. But he was bluffing. I go out for free with a suitcase, and there it is late evening, almost night.
At first it seemed that he was hit by a dense stream of air from the outside of the split air conditioner. But no: it's just + 38 C and 88% humidity. It's good that the taxi came almost instantly. It was much cooler inside the car. I'm going to the hotel. On the way, the taxi driver is silent as a fish. Considering that I speak excellent Spanish, I try to liven up the atmosphere. Strangely, a couple of my pathetic attempts to strike up a conversation are met with monosyllables, rude, dissatisfied mutterings. Therefore, the rest of the way I silently look out the window. The landscape is impressive. If, in 1979, more palm trees were planted on the ring road of any Siberian town, and instead of alcoholics in jerseys and earflaps, black people in shorts and colorful torn T-shirts were allowed, then the Airport-Havana route would be exactly the same.
The roadsides are immersed in darkness. Sometimes a dilapidated house flashes by, where a single fluorescent lamp flickers dimly on the ceiling of a muddy room or on an open terrace. Under the lamp, the whole family sits in wicker, sagging chairs and slowly talks about something wearily. Not far from them, on the verge of light and darkness, slovenly, grimy children are swarming in the ground. The fact that they are grimy, I will find out the next morning, but even that night it was already clear to me that there would be no talk of childish cleanliness in such a place.
Along the entire road in the same darkness, people are walking in both directions. Many with children. A few minutes later I understand that they are coming here, because there is at least some light from the headlights of passing cars.
We drove to the hotel for about half an hour. The entire suburb of Havana, and, in fact, the capital itself, rest daily in pitch darkness. Only a huge peeling poster at the entrance to the city with the inscription "Take care of electricity like your own blood!" brightly illuminated and readable for hundreds of meters. Following him flashed a series of shields with victorious slogans about the independence of the island, the health of the Commandant and with multiple portraits of young associates of the immortal leader unknown in Europe. Illumination has also been found at isolated government buildings (presumably embassies of other countries), police posts, five-star hotels, and at several major intersections in the city center. The embankment is also relatively well illuminated, which serves as the main thoroughfare, and in combination with a kind of boulevard for mass night festivities, or rather seats.
Hotel and the dualism of temperature perception
The vast lobby of the hotel is crowded and not so hot, although it is far from cool. There are several 24-hour bars. A bunch of tipsy older men from different countries chaotically, but busily scurrying between many low, wide and worn sofas. They visibly perk up at the appearance of any young woman. In other words, it was interesting to watch them, until a quick check-in before settling revealed to me the local intricacies of working with VIP clients. For the first time in my entire experience of visiting five star hotels in the world, I did all the paperwork for a hotel employee with my own hands. Like, they gave you questionnaires, and then let's write who you are, where you are from, why and for how long you arrived. Having finished the bureaucracy and slyly grinning under his breath, he changed money. The exchange rate of the convertible peso, as the main working financial unit for foreigners in Cuba, amounted to 1.38 to the euro. A trifle, but nice.
The room turned out to be by no means a joyful part of the journey. It smelled of forgotten cigarette butts, old man sweat and decomposed synthetic upholstery. According to my rich experience of repair work in abandoned old apartments, no one has repaired anything here for twenty years. The air conditioner, turned on at full power, whistled angrily only for self-hypnosis. Any manipulation of his wall-mounted control only made matters worse. We only dream of a cold stream. On the same night, in addition, I will also learn what oxygen starvation is in a closed volume under conditions of elevated temperature. According to the standards of the Melia hotel group in Cuba, you cannot open the windows in the rooms without the special permission of the shift supervisor, who ends his working day at six in the evening. Trying to fall asleep after a long flight, after ten minutes I realized that there was no fresh air left in the room. The night duty officer categorically refused to open the window at my request. I put everything of value in the safe and slept with the door wide open into the corridor. Nothing seems to be missing.
First field trip
Woke up early, went downstairs and tried to have breakfast at the hotel. But even my most gloomy expectations about the quality of local food turned out to be overly optimistic. I didn't find anything edible in the morning buffet. Many dishes outwardly looked like replicas of European recipes and beckoned the hungry guest of the island of freedom. But, having taken a bite of an omelette in joy, I immediately felt sad about my immediate gastronomic future. Already going out into the street, by an effort of will, I forced myself not to think about the terrible yet, took a taxi and asked me to take me to the historical part of old Havana. Along the way, it became clear that the infernal chariot had risen from the dead, the clutch growls like a tyrannosaurus rex, the shock absorbers remained in the afterlife. Every bump on the road is known by my back, like a native. I humble myself in a frenzied shaking and profoundly immerse myself in the Tao of contemplation. Enlightenment comes about five minutes later, when I see other means of transportation in the city and begin to understand my inexhaustible luck.
More than half of the cars in Cuba left the Mexican car cemetery, but not yesterday, but thirty years ago. I pay 5 pesos for a twenty-minute ride on a taratayka.
Came to a small tourist market at the end of the city's waterfront, where they sell fake cigars, kitsch gouache daub for American farmers and other nonsense for any money. Any, because if you bargain for a long time, then there seems to be no limit to lowering the price. The trick is that the wild heat will not allow your body to generate enough energy for the process of bickering with a boorish and pushy salesman. All the energy of the body during a day's walk goes to cool the brain. Bought a straw hat. It partially saves from heat stroke.
For half an hour of being in the market, I received a lot of useful suggestions from the local population. Wild stocky guys ran up and yelled very loudly right into my tender ear, as if to a deaf-mute, and even in Russian: “hey, rushki, you bought cigars-cigars and it’s very cheaper!?”. Other unpleasant guys at the same moment tried in English (that is, almost silently and grabbing my hands) to stuff me into various smelly horse-drawn carts for “please, please, friend, believe the chip, romantic voyage!”. They were followed by thin, middle-aged men with bulging eyes, who, with the help of apotheotic gestures, urged me to eat everything alive in the best restaurant in Cuba "nearby across the road." And fragile teenagers with dilated pupils pursued me throughout the walk and mysteriously whispered to me about various drugs and Viagra, for some reason constantly turning away. There was also an elderly woman who appeared every five minutes from behind various objects and from a distance of about a meter with a mournful guttural baritone howled a strange mantra: “Russian, Russian, nada girl, young, young, you know, if you want, go, go ...”. Having completely lost my mind from the hospitable tin and the sizzling sun, I hastened to hide in the quieter streets of the old city, which at first glance seemed to be so. But in vain did the traveler entertain the dream of peace.
The streets of old Havana and their inhabitants
When you enter the old quarters of Havana, there is a fleeting feeling that you are walking past the facade of a ruined house, which is about to end. But it does not end, not in ten minutes, not after half an hour, and you understand that there are no whole buildings here for a long time. The whole old Havana, from the point of view of the European idea of metropolitan architecture, is one big ruin, in the remains of which gloomy people, long tired of everything, aimlessly scurry about. And these aborigines themselves will not please the traveler's eye with either originality or primordial energy. In general, it is better to look at them less, because any impulse of attention from a foreigner is perceived by each of them as an unequivocal reason for petty immediate extortion.
Perhaps the most unpleasant emotions for a tourist in Cuba are experienced just from a horde of street beggars of various stripes. They are all very tired of life since childhood. Boundless poverty, poor food, eternal stuffiness, lack of basic amenities, an incessant stream of self-satisfied well-fed faces with cameras in front of your half-ruined home, your children in torn pants and a wife who hates this world more than her unfortunate fate. Where can they find a reason to rejoice? But each of them still needs to do something every day. We must try to fish out of the pocket of these snickering idiots their crumpled convertible pesos, wet from tourist sweat. What would then go to the city center and buy normal edible beef or delicious, frozen imported sausages in one of the shops for foreigners.
In old Havana, there are a dozen main streets - the directions of daily migration of tourists, which have developed in a natural way, like how rain flows on a gentle hillside. They are hunted by numerous brethren, within which there is clearly a fraudulent hierarchy, division of labor and primitive corruption with street law enforcement officers. At the government level, of course, no one here specifically deals with anyone, no one cares what really happens inside the city, except perhaps for the suppression of cases of obvious criminality.
The police vigilantly watches only especially active individuals from among the local population, so that they do not become impudent and do not snatch bags and photo cameras from the hands of foreigners on vacation right in broad daylight. Other acts of disrespect and rudeness towards the guests of the capital do not bother the police. And in general, there are not many reasons for a crime here. The life of a local fraudster, not without the participation of the government, is organized in such a way that it is difficult for him to decide on a more or less serious offense. When viewed from a close distance of the physical condition of the population, the inhabitants have a clear lack of protein and fat components in food. We add here the exhausting heat all year round. Multiply by the complete absence of commercial advertising in everything from newspapers to television, which, in fact, is the main source of temptations and reasons for seeking quick money by anti-social elements in the rest of the world. And from above, let's sprinkle the whole worldly cocktail in Cuba with an endless sea of worthless rum, which fills all the worries in the head of every self-respecting Cuban at any corner. In other words, it's hard for Fidel's kids to want something so badly that they start robbing you right in the middle of the street for it. In any case, this is the real situation today. More will be seen in time.
Of the pleasant impressions, it is worth noting the University of Havana, where the brightest heads of the island study. Having visited it, I can say that people who want to visit a provincial Soviet institute in 1978 should go there. Amazing conservation. Even the smells are the same. Nearby, by the way, is the famous Capitol, around which you can decently walk on foot. This is a small part of the old Havana, which is maintained in good shape from the last forces of the ruling elite. There are historical monuments, a couple of museums and several shady parks with paved squares. Walking on polished cobblestones brings physical pleasure. There are also many miniature souvenir shops where more modest merchants sit. They don't sell expensive souvenirs. There, on the steps of the university, I met a man named Alexander the Great. He even showed me the documents. There are many historical clones in Cuba. There are a lot of namesakes of heroes and colossi from all historical eras. What to do, Cubans like to have such names. Macedonian, in the end, talked me into buying a few boxes of good cigars. But we must give him his due, all the goods turned out to be of first-class quality, equipped with excise stamps, holographic certificates and seals. He also told why you should not buy the same cigars in tourist markets. There, they simply stuff a completely different type of product into beautiful boxes and shove it to gullible, stunned visitors from the heat. Good advice, good buy. Alexander the Great, having received his commission from an underground merchant, admitted to me that for him this is a huge amount of money and now he can rest carefree and well-fed for two whole months. Gave him another ten pesos to keep him fully free until autumn.
There are several main types of public establishments on the streets of Havana, replacing each other in every quarter. The first type is bars or restaurants for tourists. There are not many of them, they are easy to spot, they are located mainly on crowded streets, they have big signs and hefty blacks at the entrance, and the Cubans themselves do not go there. Of these, it is worth visiting a certain "Floridita". There, behind the bar, you can still drink a good ice-cold daiquiri for brotherhood with a full-sized bronze Hemingway. It is curious, but it was in this institution that for the first and last time in ten days of my stay I stated the high-quality work of air conditioners. There has never been such a chill anywhere else.
There is a second type, also not often found in the city, these are bars of a mixed character, where both locals and tourists can drink a shot of rum in the same room. They are already dirty, unsanitary conditions bloom and smell, the dishes are not washed, the tables dry themselves after customers. Alcohol quality is on the verge of poison.
In the ubiquitous bars for the local population, none of the visitors would even enter their heads. They resemble small rural vegetable warehouses that have long been in need of major repairs. But half-dressed, sweaty figures of swarthy people find their pleasure in spending many hours under dim, greasy light bulbs inside these rooms. Although, maybe it's just a little more comfortable for them to sit there than on the stone thresholds of their dilapidated shacks?
The last type of public point is some points of distribution of essential products, in which the real breadwinners and breadwinners of Cuban families buy gray papers, guaranteeing each cell of society a set of minimum edible kilograms per month. Here, in exchange for coupons and ordinary domestic pesos, a household Cuban will be given some disgusting rice, lentils, legumes and other loose bases for a large tasteless pan for every day.
By the way, it is these old aluminum pots, mostly Soviet-made, that can be seen on the stove of most Cuban families. In them, basking on a slow fire, sticky slurry gurgles from the above ingredients with the addition of what God sends. If none of the family members during the day succeeds in begging or in some other way to trick out a few convertible pesos from a softened foreigner, then an eternal pelvis awaits him at home. From it, before falling asleep, he will always be able to grab a couple of weighty spoons of a disgusting mess. And then slam a glass or two of vile domestic rum.
Also, a Cuban, if he is not yet drawn to sleep, can go to the city embankment and sit with his comrades and girlfriends on an endless iron-concrete fence that stretches for many kilometers along the entire surf line of Havana. By the way, there is no beach in Havana. And this embankment replaces it as best it can. They fish from it, get acquainted with it, get drunk, copulate, cut off, wake up with the first rays of the sun, and the next evening they return to it again.
This is where the positive emotions in life for Cubans end. Any kind of satellite television, Internet connections and other information joys of the twenty-first century are strictly forbidden to them by the wise leader. Paper colored media such as magazines and newspapers from the outside world come to Cuba only with tourists. So don't be surprised if your maid walks around a filthy playboy like a fox around a chicken coop. All types of goods consumer goods get on the shelves of wretched shops, passing severe censorship for political correctness and friendliness ruling regime. This usually ends up with particularly poor quality and a complete lack of design. The faceless batteries I purchased ran out six times faster than any European ones, and cost thirty percent more.
Also in Cuba, the carrying or possession of any kind of piercing, cutting, crushing and, especially, firearms is especially severely punished by law. For all kinds of manipulations associated with color and black-and-white pornographic images or narcotic substances, a Cuban can spend the rest of his days in a prison terrifying in terms of asceticism. So there is not much fun in Cuba. Therefore, there is no crime here, no one really wants anything, and the days are similar to each other, like coconuts on the same palm tree.
A bit of history or true motivations of patriots
Do not argue with molesters on the streets, do not try to explain anything to them, do not worry about pathetic lonely old women with outstretched bony palms, do not pity the thin young children in tatters that squeaky tug at your clothes. You have nowhere to put small money and want to feel like a noble savior? Give them two or three pesos each and enjoy your boundless true nobility. Just keep in mind that your pennies will not help them in anything. All these people, for the most part, are hopelessly doomed, completely and brilliantly mutilated at the genetic level. They became hostages for life to a complex global political game in which, ironically, everyone lost except for a handful of Camandante's relatives and henchmen who form the backbone of the modern junta.
After the end of active hostilities and the ensuing internecine struggles for power, for several generations the population of Cuba was talentedly instilled in the timely role of holy fools, deprived and all devoted heroes. After all, such fearless fighters are supposed to urgently and free of charge help with food, weapons and other items useful for the revolution.
And when everything calmed down at the top, the heroes who defeated the enemies were insidiously offered only two options for the development of events. The first is to continue listlessly fighting for the abstract ideas of the revolution on invisible and physically non-existent fronts. That is, to go to miserable salaries for the police, firefighters or the military. The second is to be a civilian cog on a revolutionary island and meekly follow the paranoia of your decrepit leader, living in absolute poverty and oblivion. Someone chose the service, others stupidly sit at their house, but exactly like both of them, they do not strive to fully follow the ideas of Cuban socialism. But there were no people willing to speak on the central square of the capital with their own fateful proposals regarding the third way of developing the state. A dramatic example of bloody interrupted amateur performances under the leadership of Comrade Che convinced everyone and for a long time. Since then, there has been complete internal stagnation, an all-consuming swamp of social paralysis, a sense of meaningless eternity behind and ahead. Such an unhealthy atmosphere.
So those who now live on the island of freedom, in fact, are quite worthy of their fate. All those who wanted to leave here, with the exception of minors, left their sad and hot homeland long ago under ingenious pretexts. And the rest are voluntary lazy prisoners of an allegedly not happy fate, daily and impolitely claiming to receive manna from heaven, quite prudent, mercantile in a modern way and well aware of their true rather vicious goals. They say that with a high probability in the near future, all citizens of Cuba will be able to get their personal piece of a sweet tropical island in their ownership, in order to properly rent it out to overseas entrepreneurs and finally calmly lie down under their favorite palm tree for many years of well-deserved rest. So it’s not a sin to endure a couple more generations, begging the whole family in front of white tourists.
Here, it’s just worth recalling that when four hundred years ago the ruthless greedy Spaniard conquistadors in forged armor sailed to the island and killed all the local Indians, the next step they brought was blacks from Africa, who later began to actively breed mixed with their own. slave owners. Now this is the modern population of Cuba. And, as is known historically, Africans have never been distinguished by a special zeal for hard work, however, as well as for mental research. And from their Spanish ancestors, the Cubans borrowed all the qualities of life, on the one hand, the most pleasant in terms of daytime pastime, but far from being advantageous in an evolutionary sense. Conclusions, applicable to the present, suggest themselves.
Nightlife and other hardships of a vacationer
After enduring the heat of the day, surviving an attempt to dine in the city, and taking a short break in a stuffy hotel, I managed to dig out the strength in myself to want the Havana nightlife. Enlisting the support of two compatriots Muscovites, prudently met me in the hotel lobby in the morning, I decided to organize a group outing to the local night disco. Muscovites, for their part, having learned about my in-depth knowledge of the Spanish language, perked up and ardently supported the idea in the bud.
But the first bad omen for our enterprise was a strange conversation with the night porter right at the foot of the hotel. Seeing three snow-white vacationers lathering their way out at eleven at night, a black-and-blue, like Donbass coal, man in a classic porter's coat rushed after us into the darkness of the taxi rank. Intrusively enough, he began to explain to us in a mixture of lousy English and obscene gestures that with a muchach (girl) we would not get back to our rooms even through a drainpipe, because he himself locked all the windows from the inside. And, after that, he nervously and often shook his head and bulged out frighteningly meaningfully. Somewhat discouraged, we tried to understand what he was getting at.
At that moment, one of the taxi drivers suddenly intervened in our non-verbal communication, having discovered in-depth knowledge of the Russian language. He quickly explained that in Cuba, local women, especially young girls, are strictly forbidden to enter hotels under any pretext. But that our dark-skinned friend, with all the fibers of his merciful soul, is trying to correct the conflicting oversight of the legislation. And that it would only cost us fifty pesos apiece. Why exactly “on the snout” I did not understand, but it was this term that sounded from a spontaneous translator. In my mind I counted the alcohol I had drunk during the day, straightened my favorite panama hat and involuntarily wanted to look in the mirror. Looking at my innocent companions and at the figure of the blue-black savior, I did not know how to explain to the natives that we were not going to look for their prostitutes yet. My attempts were not crowned with a shadow of success. Nobody believed me. The vulgar grins of the porter and taxi driver pointedly denied me confidence. Out of desperation, I seemed to agree with everything with a wave of my hand, at the same time inviting Muscovites into the belly of a humpbacked giant Chevrolet of 1954. The happy receptionist, smiling idiotically, ran towards the hotel, shouting his name and the end time of his duty. Circumstances escalated.
Inside the car, any fabric upholstery was completely absent, the rusty skeletons of the doors scratched fingers and soiled clothes, not a single light burned on the instrument panel, and the driver drove the car purely on personal intuition. At that moment, for the first time in the last fifteen years of my life, I suddenly remembered a fragment from my deep youth, completely erased by alcohol intoxication. Then, after the first year at the collective farm, we drove very drunk at night for vodka on a stolen tractor "Belarus" without headlights and with a trailer for transporting animal feed. Even in that situation, I think the risk of a crash was much lower.
Along the way, I tried to figure out how the owner of the car manages to operate it in this condition. The answer was an unhealthy short chuckle and deathly silence. Stephen King would have loved the expression of the situation.
To begin with, we booked to take us to the best restaurant in Havana. The taxi driver started with a rocket and already on the way he listened to where we should go, hemming, nodding and peering apathetically into the distance. Then, thinking slowly for another ten minutes, he said that there were not very many restaurants for foreigners in Havana. And suddenly, as if waking up, with an enthusiastic cry, he sharply turned the steering wheel, almost driving into a brick wall at full speed. I already imagined myself bloody, sandwiched between rusty, mangled fragments of a prehistoric body, I even flashed a big news on the Lenta.ru home page about the death of Russians in Havana. But in the next seconds, we screeched to a halt at the high-rise building. With a sigh of relief, I left the ancient Chevrolet.
The restaurant was located on the top floor of a building built by the Soviet military for strategic purposes against America. The militaristic power of thought was guessed in everything. But the Cuban government, like any dictatorship, has a constructive approach to the exploitation of empty facilities. No one here bothered with any interior. They bumped tables made of unpolished chipboard, threw crumpled tablecloths on top, collected different cutlery from ruined estates, and here you have a restaurant of the highest category.
During dinner, one of the waiters told me that all the restaurants, bars and cafes in Cuba are 51 percent owned by the government. And that this is the only possible form of work for today. That is, you open a restaurant, everything is as usual, but 51 percent of the profit, then you give it to Fidel. It does not include expenses. If you don't like it, you won't have a restaurant. Graceful and fatalistic. At first they tried to feed us rotten octopus carpaccio. Which was followed by a lobster that died on the grill from dehydration. And finally, for a bottle of cheap rotten Chilean red wine, we were asked for an additional sixty pesos. And the whole process of our meal was decorated with deafening Homeric laughter from the neighboring tables. Suspiciously similar companies of two or three Europeans aged well over sixty and three or four fleshy busty Cubans no older than twenty-five had fun there. And, as I understand it, the language barrier and inedible food did not interfere with the elderly gray-haired gentlemen to have fun, and the broken ladies didn’t care what they could cackle at, throwing their heads and sticking out their boobs. Hungry and puzzled, we left the high-rise building. Oh, horror, to complete this, a light blue 1954 Chevy was guarding us at the exit.
Cuban women and other ways to survive on the island
After a deadly transfer from a toxic dinner under the clouds to the coolest disco in the city, the nervous system of each of us urgently demanded something strong to drink. Having paid, we hastily left the hated landau. The entrance to the institution was guarded by a suspicious large number of people. Fifteen identical Cubans stood at the "gates", all in black trousers, white shirts and overweight. It was clear from their faces that they were all financially interested in what was happening, but they were damn hot. The entrance cost us five pesos per person.
Something terrifying and brutal was waiting for three white people inside the entertainment establishment. Imagine how, on a bad autumn day, hire a dozen trucks and drive along the Moscow ring road, collecting the most disgusting dirty sluts from the bushes on the side of the road, and then dump them all to the bottom in an empty Olympic pool. But even then it will not be possible to organize such an amazing flash mob. I have seen a lot in my life, but it was at this point that the insignificance of my knowledge became clear to me. Just in case, I automatically and without the slightest hope asked the huge guard at the entrance if we had the wrong address. He faked a greasy grin, and ominously confirmed that this is the best disco in Havana.
Hundreds of hungry eyes sparkling with greed stared at the three men dressed in white timidly standing at the entrance from the depths of the spacious, rumbling forgotten pop music of the nineties, smoky hall. In front of us were about three hundred practically naked Aboriginal females, thirsty for blood. The females have been lonely doing nothing for several hours and, when prey appears, they glare furiously at the fresh meat. A pleasant shiver ran through their ranks and they began to slowly approach us in a hypnotic dance, stretching their trained hips along the way. Their tiny swimsuits gleamed menacingly with plastic rhinestones on their stocky bodies, and their swarthy, muscular, but not beautiful limbs curved predatoryly to the raucous rhythms from ancient speakers. We, cowardly holding our breath, slowly and synchronously backed away to the saving door, still melting miserable illusions of slipping away. Hope is the last to leave the doomed.
No one even had time to blink an eye, as he found himself in an ebullient abyss of naked female bodies rubbing against you at different angles. From all sides, dirty, ugly hands with thick, short, knotty fingers reached out to me from the darkness and roughly pinched my private parts through my clothes. A variety of women, from eighteen to thirty-five years old, succeeded each other, as in a round dance. Each of them in turn pressed against my ears from different sides and declared insignificant amounts in convertible pesos in a hoarse voice. At the same time, she tried to deliberately hurt me with wet lips and a bust. At the slightest incautious movement of my head, which the applicant interpreted as a sign of my interest in her services, she pushed her rivals aside, hung on my neck and informed me in an intimate hot whisper in my ear the details of the perverted forms of the alleged intercourse with her. My companions were in a slightly better situation. At least they didn't understand what they were being told. I realized that I must immediately flee. But to my panicky surprise, Muscovites were interested in the local offer. They, drowning in a mess of naked bodies, idiotically smiled broadly and wanted to sit still. They looked around enthusiastically for two minutes and then, giggling foolishly, asked me to order a drink.
A bottle of seven-year-old rum, which is sold on every corner for six pesos, here cost them seventy. For such a purchase, the bartender seated us at the sticky metal table of the socialist times of the summer cafes of Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev. Two hooting bacchantes jumped to us at lightning speed on each knee. I even felt a greasy, unwashed body through jeans.
Luckily, we didn't have to wait long for a decision. Three minutes later, my companions had already agreed on everything. The rum remained untouched, and we all drove to the hotel. I repeated many times that I prefer proud loneliness, but no one believed me, and two girls, like guards, stubbornly and firmly held my hands and pants, not wanting to stay at the bachelorette party. Muscovites were in a similar situation. But at the exit I had to go through a mysterious ritual. The girls finally separated, unclenching their stranglehold, and we learned from the guards that prostitution is considered a terrible crime in Cuba. Therefore, the ladies will go to the hotel separately from the gentlemen, and the police will bite their elbows in the bamboo thickets, unable to catch the criminals red-handed.
At the hotel, I wished my compatriots success on the sinful front and went straight to bed. My companions were left writhing in angry convulsions on the front steps. On the way to the elevator, the receptionist, who was sympathetic to the woman's grief, bustled around me anxiously, not wanting to believe that I would not pay him for the sluts that stuck to me. I gathered the remnants of my strength and quite intelligibly let him know that this hot night he should limit himself to the fee from my companions. I really wanted to take a disinfecting shower as soon as possible.
I slept uneasily, I dreamed of dirty Cubans who wanted to eat me. In the morning, instead of breakfast, I went to drink draft beer in the lobby, where I immediately met frowning and rumpled Muscovites right behind the same counter. Over a glass of life-saving drink, they told me that Cubans do not use soap, ignore condoms, extort money, do not ask a man about his desires, smoke in bed during sex, and are not at all worried about the successful ending of a paid enterprise. Not only that, the Cuban date begins with promises of an endlessly hot and passionate night, but ends much cooler and long before dawn.
Approximately thirty minutes after the appearance of the girls in the room, the priestesses of vice suddenly end in love enthusiasm, they begin to grumble about the severity of the profession, the lack of payment. And after another ten minutes of such conversations, a caring porter calls into the room and in a strict voice informs about an impending sudden check, and an urgent need to send the ladies out as soon as possible. And in the morning it also turns out that the shaving kit, fresh magazines and a block of cigarettes have disappeared. What struck me the most was where, in fact, naked women could put so much into themselves in order to carry it out unnoticed?
So about Cuban girls, women, and even aunts, we can say that they have reached the ultimate stage of moral decline in their general mass. Not a single pretty Cuban living in her homeland will refuse sex for money. It's already in the blood. Those who will tell you “no” are either seriously ill or have already worked today. Ladies can also refuse, which, to one degree or another, are related to a representative of the ruling elite and have long been provided with everything. All other girls in Cuba have an incredibly natural and understandable position on this issue. They treat sex for money as an easy, prestigious and fantastically well-paid job. But the paradox of their mentality is that they ungratefully consider all consumers of their intimate services to be finished, stupid and lustful idiots in advance, without even trying to hide it. For a Cuban woman to sleep with someone for forty pesos is a cross between a friendly pat on the shoulder and a request for a cigarette. Moreover, for the insidious Cuban woman, before leaving to put out a cigarette butt on the pants of a generous gentleman, it is deeply honorable and pleasant to explain to a man that his tobacco is a rare shit, and he himself is a lop-sided asshole. Exceptions to the rules certainly exist, but they are insignificant and it was not possible even theoretically to identify them in the general den in ten days.
In general, in Cuba, every single one of the locals sell themselves in a rigid form, including men, the elderly, children, and even dogs. Almost every islander will, literally or figuratively, lower his tattered pants for a pair of convertible pesos, if you ask him right about it. Everyone here has their own price, but the prices do not differ that much and, in any case, not as much as many Cubans would like. If you put moral pressure on them, try to appeal to higher feelings, ask why they do all this and humiliate themselves like that, then the answer will be unequivocal - about the lack of choice, poverty and large families. Actually, that's not really the reason. Cubans, for the most part, like simple solutions very much. For example, to drive stupid white people a little on a wreck and push them ten times the price, and to do it so boldly and impudently that they take it with a fool and pay - that's very cool. And then a couple of days to sit quietly drinking rum under the fence and, smiling proudly, remember how he beat the bastards. And what these foreigners will think about you when the deception is revealed, in fact, is no longer important.
But there are exceptions to all rules. Here it is timely to mention some randomly born new Cubans and Cubans. This is a newly formed superstructure in the mossy society of the island, unexplored and few in number. On the one hand, they are no longer afraid of criminal liability for all kinds of violations of Cuban law they commit, because the police never dare to arrest those who provide everything necessary for their own families. And on the other hand, they are already well enough settled to risk too much and run amok, endangering their sweet routine of life. Such individuals are found only in Havana itself. They are always with cash, a little tipsy, they eat every day, they dress in bright colors and without holes, and they are also extremely fond of gold and all shiny objects in its range. They can even be found striving for daily acquisition of new information. Some of them read world news on English language at least once a week. On the street, among their less fortunate relatives, they stand out for a kilometer with their outfits, but this is precisely what brings them indescribable satisfaction. A toothy smile and vulgar manners distinguish especially sneaky specimens who so much like to communicate with foreigners, borrowing from them gestures, facial expressions and slang words. What to do, capitalism is terrible in its infancy.
For all other Cubans, working honestly for years, wanting to naturally achieve good fame, create successful enterprises, and in general, somehow strain through life - this is not for cool, smart, agile Cuban guys and girls! Only second-rate losers can work this way, who fly to this earthly paradise on large planes, from which they need to quickly get their pocket convertible pesos with the help of petty meanness and tricks. And organize a crazy fiesta with friends! By the way, Cubans, when there is no foreigner nearby, will gladly sell their ass to a compatriot, of course at a friendly rate, but, nevertheless, for money. One of the young taxi drivers said that it was almost impossible to find a bride for a Cuban on an altruistic sensual basis. For each date with a continuation, the lady will ask for cash.
After the fourth pint of Cuban beer "Crystal" my soul felt better. Drawn to talk with the bartender. He, after patiently listening to a detailed description of the nightmare that happened at night, sullenly and knowingly cut off: “Go guys to Baradero! You won't like anything here…”
The road to Baradero and the paradise itself
This time I decided to get serious about transportation, and it took half an hour to prepare for a taxi ride. In the tender for the right to carry a tourist, a modest five-year-old Hyundai with air conditioning and an old, frail grandfather driver, the sweetest and very educated person, won. By the way, along the way, he told a lot of objective information about real life in Cuba, without unnecessary euphoria and dramatization. The 200-odd trip took about three hours and cost eighty pesos. Along the way, I learned more about the real Cuba than I had in the last four days.
In the abstract, let's say that if Havana itself is a big, old non-working neon sign of a ruined theater, which onlookers from all over the world still go to stare at. That is the province, this is the very inside of the building, with the sky instead of a roof, with collapsed ceilings, a rotten stage and rusty skeletons of spectator chairs overgrown with shrubs. Cuba from the inside spoils the mood. It is full of slow agony, endless suffering and calm hopelessness. Throughout the trip, I did not see a single normal building, did not look for any of the local residents who were relatively adequately dressed. Ghostly skeletons of once-luxurious mansions with partly broken windows flickered along the road. A few of them still had grey, peeling skin of faded paint, with dubious signs of inner life still stretched over them.
But the police were in abundance on every corner. We were stopped twice, the driver's licenses and documents were checked. It reminded me of how a greedy village grandmother feels the udder of a goat grazing behind the house. The driver said that the people in the province live very hard. Most work for 20 euros per month. There is nothing to eat, nothing to wear, nowhere to work, and for trying to go to work in Havana or another tourist place, you can get into serious trouble with the law. Some really not loved children are obtained from the glorious Comandante.
Baradero met with bright road signs, arrows with the names of hotels and restaurants, as if someone had tried to change the sad music to cheerful. According to the organizers of the show, everything should have been fine for tourists here, and troubles and hardships had to be left behind a high opaque fence for the Cubans themselves. The tourist is obliged to carelessly walk and have fun. Yes, it was not here! Perhaps, eight years ago, this strategy worked flawlessly, but the economic embargo, multiplied by the senile insanity of the leader, does not lead to anything good and eternal. The hotel impresses with its architectural size and scope of infrastructure, the surrounding area was crammed with swimming pools, sports grounds, restaurants, park areas and entertainment attractions. But in the next two days, to my deepest disappointment, it turned out that all this was beautiful and sparkling about ten years ago.
Today, everything is supported on the verge of a foul. Food and drink are especially painful for the nerves of the guests. I don’t know where they get their food and who cooks it, but it’s impossible to eat it even in a state of deep alcohol intoxication. Everything seems to be saturated with something disgustingly tasteless and rises across the throat in the truest sense of the word. The booze is lousy, and the world-famous Cuban poolside cocktails turn out to be a disgusting and guaranteed cure for heartburn and migraines.
Old-timers who have worked in the tourism industry in Cuba for more than ten years confirm that it was around the late nineties that all this happened. “It used to be cool, but now we can’t even eat here ourselves…” they recall with a sad smile. Throughout the week, I occasionally interviewed vacationers from among casual acquaintances about their impressions of the hotel and services. People, splashing saliva and with difficulty restraining their indignation overflowing, began to enumerate a long list of monstrous inconsistencies between the declared and the actual. From such a reaction, it was not difficult to guess that it is unlikely that any of them would return here one more time.
The day was drawing to a close, my trip to the finale. Sitting on the high wall of the territory of the hotel complex and admiring the bright blue waters of the Caribbean, I thought that I could express everything that had happened and seen in one cruel, but very correct phrase: "There is no Cuba." There are occasional bright flashes of relatively pleasant emotions, like snow-white beaches, a gin cocktail mixed right inside a freshly harvested coconut, and blue whiting that can be caught by a giant lure. But this is disproportionately small in relation to the natural expectations of a person who has listened to and looked at the waterfall of advertisements about fantastic Cuba for many years of his life. And then I realized that this is a brilliant divorce. Tour operators are silent, because they need to sell tours and tickets, and inflated travelers do not admit to anyone out of banal resentment and shame. Who would want to spend a few thousand euros, and then announce to everyone that you basically just threw them away. So the stories about a magical beach holiday in Cuba and heavenly pleasures under the caressing rays of the Caribbean sun begin. The sun, by the way, is so vicious here that, having gone out for fifteen minutes even with a powerful cream on your shoulders, you turn into a perfectly fried shrimp and then sleep for a couple of nights like in a cooling pan. It's funny and very human.
The center of services for life and business "Spain in Russian" is your guide in the world of individual tourism. Organization of tours, routes, trips, tickets for various events, excursions with the best guides, organization of holidays. Services for demanding clients.
Now all the hopes of the Cubans are directed to Venezuela, which finances the construction of an optical cable between its territory and Cuba. It is believed that this will lead to the acceleration and cheapening of the Cuban Internet.
In addition, Barack Obama recently signed a law that allows Cuba to connect to US optical cables that run close to its coast. True, the reaction of the Cuban government to this permission is still unknown.
A few months ago, Cubans were allowed free entry to cybercafes on hotel grounds. However, this news is unlikely to make them happier, since the Internet is sold in Cuba at the price of gold. One hour of connecting to the global network here costs an average of 6-10 CUC (convertible pesos), or $ 8-12, which is equivalent to the salary of an average worker for 15 days. Thus, 30 hours a month will cost one Cuban 180 CUC - the amount of his earnings for a year and a half. This is why, despite official permission, few people in Cuba can actually access the internet today. Unless on the "black" market, where 1 hour on the world wide web costs 2 convertible pesos, or in some post offices where there are computers, at a rate of $ 1.5 / hour.
In addition to sky-high prices, there is constant censorship and site filtering by the government in Cuba, as well as restrictions and strict surveillance of users.
Internet in Havana, Varadero and other cities
Most Havana residents connect to the Internet once a week at the United States Mission (SINA), whose office is located next to the Havana waterfront. Its employees provide the public with free and censorship-free navigation of the global web.
Other information-hungry Havanese are served by the embassies of the Netherlands, Sweden, Poland and the Czech Republic, which offer 2 free internet hours per week. The Capitol of Havana, which sheltered the Ministry of Science, Technology and the Environment, provides a connection to the network, although not free, but still cheaper than in hotels or a cyber cafe: 5 CUC per hour.
Many hotels in Havana have access to the Internet and Wi-Fi. So, in Hotel Saratoga one hour online costs 10 CUC ($12), two hours - 15 CUC. Here you will also find 24-hour Wi-Fi. In total, the hotel has 3 computers available to tourists from 8 am to 5 pm. Although if you have your own laptop and a card purchased in advance at the hotel, you can connect to the Internet at any time.
At the Central Park Hotel, the cost of 1 hour on the network is 8 CUC ($ 10), 5 hours - 35 CUC ($ 40). Navigation speed ranges from 60 to 80 kilobytes.
The fastest internet can be found at the Meliá Cohiba. Its speed reaches 120 kilobytes. Using a state-owned computer costs 10 CUC / hour, and you will have to pay 12 CUC ($ 15) to work on your own laptop with a Wi-Fi connection.
In almost all hotels in Havana, prices for one hour of internet fluctuate between 8 and 10 CUC. Even though the navigation speed has improved a little in the last year, it is still not enough for downloading large files and videos. There are hotels in Old Havana where Internet access cards cost 6 CUC per hour, but the connection is very poor. In addition, they use software called Avila, which is rumored to be a spyware that copies user accounts or blog passwords.
Other hotels with internet connection and Wi-Fi in Havana - Chateau (Miramar), Montehabana (Miramar), Panorama (Miramar), Occidental Miramar, Sevilla Hotel (Old Havana), National (Vedado), Hotel Habana Libre (Vedado), Hotel Inglaterra (Old Havana), Hotel Nacional (Vedado).
In Varadero - Sandal Royal Hicacos and Barcelo Solymar, in Santiago - Melia Santiago, in Guardalavaca - Paradisus Rio de Oro, in Trinidad - Grand Hotel.
Internet access in Cuba is also possible at the offices of the telecommunications companies Etecsa and Citmatel, in the business centers of the Palco and Neptuno hotels, in the Gallery of Cities of the World in Havana (Galería Ciudades del Mundo).
Mobile 3G
Mobile phones with 3G generally work well in Cuba, except for the internet captcha, which sometimes gets caught and sometimes doesn't. Moreover, no one knows what it depends on. The best telecom operator is Cubacel. The only problem is the cost of calls and SMS.
Sending one message will cost you about 1 euro, and a minute of a telephone conversation - from 3 euros (depending on the Russian operator). As for roaming, it is better to turn it off altogether due to too high prices and a future invoice, which, upon returning home, can be much larger than usual ...
