Author: Dimitri Prieto-Samsonov

The newly authorized Cuban cooperatives might be facing a thousand obstacles and surely have their own defects. Maybe someday I’ll write more on the subject, since the adopted legislation is broad and deserves a detailed study. Relatedly, its practical application has been marked by the usual sluggishness of such changes here on the Island.

Tourists who come to Cuba obviously arrive with certain stereotypes about the society and people that they are going to encounter. Years ago, I was pleasantly surprised by the remark of an Italian friend after her first day in Havana: “there are no ‘typical’ Cubans”.

The word “cartel” refers to a form of monopoly, when multiple vendors in a market agree to keep prices high, regardless of demand. Such arrangements are becoming familiar in Cuba.

By chance, I came across the book (actually, I bought it for 60 Cuban pesos in a used bookstore) by the French journalist Guy Sorman called “The real thinkers of our time”, published in Spanish in 1991 (the French language original dates from 1989). It is a volume of interviews with intellectuals chosen by the author.

Back in the distant ‘90s — the romantic era of the Internet — those of us who worked at Havana’s Center for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology (CIGB) were among the first Cuban “non-computer specialists” to learn about the functioning of the World Wide Web.

It seems that after my recent post about Radio Marti, I’m being accused of cowardice, being pro-Soviet and even secretly hating the West.

A few weeks ago I was in the hospital accompanying my father, who was hospitalized for an operation. Suddenly my cell phone rang and an unfamiliar voice came into my world. “Hello Dmitri, this is NN, from Radio Marti,” it said.

This past November 7 marked the 95th anniversary of the Soviet Revolution in Russia. Cuban authorities held the traditional celebration at the Soviet Soldier Memorial, which was attended by representatives of the military and the diplomatic corps.

For the last 20 years it has been the dream of Cubans to buy products at a “chopin” using the currency from their wages. But today it has become crystal clear that what determines access to such products isn’t the quality (“convertibility”) of the currency (CUP or CUC) but its quantity.

A few days ago I was surprised by a sign posted in a chopin (a hard-currency store) in my neighborhood. It was located right next to the register (as well as next to the store entrance, as I realized later).