Cuba’s Habanos Cigar Festival Brings in US $17 Million
The lucrative humidor auction closed the event. The government says the money goes to the Cuban Health System.
HAVANA TIMES – Two cedar drawers one atop the other, a giant Indian head – the Cohiba Behíke logo – and white squares on black varnish: this is the humidor auctioned this Friday for 4.6 million euros (4.7 million dollars) during the closing gala of the Habanos Festival. Never before had so much been paid for a cigar storage unit, whose exclusivity is based on a detail that the official press did not mention: the signature of Miguel Díaz-Canel.
Six other humidors – valuable but not signed by the president, a tradition established by Fidel Castro – were auctioned off during the dinner, for a total of 16.41 million euros (17 million dollars). They represented the major cigar brands: Cohiba, Montecristo, Romeo y Julieta, H. Upmann, Partagás and Hoyo de Monterrey. According to some media the buyer, who was not identified, is Chinese.
The money, the official press insists goes to the island’s health system. In light of the Cuban health debacle and the total crisis in the country, few can believe this mantra that is repeated at each Festival.
DIaz-Canel was at the dinner, but unlike last year, there were hardly any photos circulating of him smoking among the guests or signing the humidor, gestures that caused great controversy at the last edition of the Festival. Also at the dinner were the Prime Minister, Manuel Marrero, and other members of the top brass of the regime.
The auctioned piece of furniture was not the only record broken by Habanos SA – the Cuban tobacco monopoly, shared by Cuba and Spain – announced at the beginning of the week that it had had revenues of 827 million dollars in 2024, 106 million more than the previous year.
The auction which, in the past, Castro served as host of millionaires and sometimes served as auctioneer, is the most eagerly awaited event of the Festival, attended by tycoons and fans from around the world. Some of its participants were the first, albeit very discreet, guests of the new luxury hotel Iberostar, in the 42-story K Tower on 23rd Street, opposite the decaying Coppelia.
The closing gala – with entertainment by the legendary group Earth, Wind & Fire – was overshadowed, however, by the “intermediate” dinner that Habanos organized at the Capitol on Wednesday to present another luxury vitola, the H. Upmann Magnum 50. The adjectives that the company used to describe the event left no doubt about its character: “exclusive, refined, exquisite.”
The Salon of Lost Steps, once a place of debate and reflection on the Republic, was filled with 600 guests in tuxedos, overwhelmed by the play of light. No colored lights were spared on the dome of the Capitol, nor on the also gold-plated statue of the Republic, cast in 1928 by the Italian sculptor Angelo Zanelli.
The pro-government journalist and professor at the Faculty of Communication at the University of Havana, Ana Teresa Badía, harshly criticized the display. “What was the intention this Habanos Festival meant to convey? In a world in which the construction of public opinion is increasingly symbolic, this is very wrong. A serious error in political communication that buries the ideology that Cuba has defended. The place is the headquarters of our Parliament and now it is used in images that resemble a kind of brothel from the 1950s,” she wrote on her Facebook profile.
The painter Hermes Entenza, for his part, wrote: “The Habanos Festival, where glamour becomes ridiculous and extravagant, where the working people, who look at the building in dismay, do not even have cigarettes to smoke. Cuba in the Capitol, Cuba imprisoned by itself, moaning in the dark and feeling the walls of the beautiful building rumble to the sound of the empowered who have raised this movie to the level of a horror film… You have to have a very perverse mind to applaud this revelry.”
The immoderation marked both the making of the humidors and the vitolas. This was underlined by David Savona, director of Cigar Aficionado – the most recognized magazine in the sector – who was present at the Festival, who described step by step the hours it took him to finish the Cohiba Behíke BHK 58, the star of the night.
While the cigars and lights were lit in the Capitol and other Habano Festival venues, the homes of most Cubans were suffering prolonged power outages. On Saturday, when the guests announced their return home with “cigars as gifts,” they left an Island submerged in blackout.
Translated by Translating Cuba.
I love smoking cigars. Long before my first trip to Cuba, I smoked premium cigars from all over the world. I still do. It’s a long-busted myth that Cuba produces the best cigars in the world. Nonetheless, Cuban cigars remain one of the most desired. As much due to their scarcity in the US because of the embargo as to their actual quality, Cuban cigars continue to “fight above their weight class”. This annual event in Havana becomes even more problematic every year. I have attended several times. Each time inside the event seemed even more out of step with the world outside. Something as simple as Havana weather seems to conflict with the intended image of the event. Yes, there are men there in tuxedos. Really! Even though it’s 85° F outside ((with 80% humidity), these guys are decked out in formalwear. There are open spaces where cigar smoking is permitted and the stifling heat competes head on with men in ill-fitted tuxes and women in full-length gowns. Over-fed Europeans and Canadians who attend the event stand around bragging about where they are “wintering” to get away from the frigid conditions of their home countries, while the most beautiful group of handpicked Cuban staff, usually dressed in all black, are sprinkled among these foreigners. The Cubans look like they are in a hostage video. The last year that I attended was the year before Diaz-Canel was installed as President. I suspect Raul was too frail to attend so I think the foreign minister was the host. Security was tight for him so I can hardly imagine the security for Diaz-Canel. The prices of the cigars being sold at the event were even higher than the prices of the cigars sold in the state stores. The auction of humidors and exclusive cigars not for public sale is well done but I sort of agree with the critics of the event. At the prices flying around the room, this is obviously not a Cuban event intended for Cubans.