Cuba: “The Dead to the Grave and the Living to the Plane”
Selling the family tomb, a last resort to leave Cuba
The Colon Cemetery in Havana, a victim of thieves and also a source of money to finance the departure from the country.
By Natalia Lopez Moya / Jose Lassa (14ymedio)
HAVANA TIMES – Taking a short cut, taking the shady path, and shortening distances is vital in Havana, where most residents have long stopped trusting public transportation. The sprawling Colón Cemetery, located in the heart of El Vedado, has long served as one of those routes, providing a quick and pleasant shortcut between two points in the capital’s geography.
For residents of the nearby La Timba neighborhood, crossing the cemetery was also a way to escape the confines of their cramped homes and expand their view beyond the poor walls of an economically depressed neighborhood located close to the Plaza of the Revolution. But the journey among marble mausoleums and lavishly decorated crypts is no longer what it used to be.
The large gate on Colón Street, one of the main entrances to the necropolis and located on its southern side, now barely has one of its imposing iron doors open. Although the main entrance has always been the most photographed, the one that connects to an area of hastily built houses has become the most frequented. It’s through this gate that nearly everything that leaves the cemetery illegally passes.
Through that gate comes everything from skeletal remains destined for Palo Monte Santeria rituals, to looted tombstones, bronze handles ripped from graves, and chunks of Carrara marble that once adorned many mausoleums and now serve as steps into nearby homes, garden ornaments for the nouveau riche, or props reinforcing broken water pumps or shaky fans.
That area of the cemetery is also home to artisans who still make a living from granite. They sell tombstones, vases, planters, and all sorts of accessories, which most likely will be stolen and reused to decorate another grave or the patio of a Havana home. If they once worked with marble, these master carvers have long had to settle for less glamorous stone.
One of the funeral world’s best-kept secrets is that ornaments meant for the dead have often changed names several times. A polished surface can erase the illustrious surname of a 19th-century aristocrat and make way for “Pedro Martinez” or “Yosvani Lopez.” Later, that same slab may be stolen again, re-polished, and renamed. The cycle of life and death never ends.
Some tombs, however, are more difficult to loot. Their imposing structures and official oversight make them harder to desecrate. Those located along the main avenues of the cemetery—which form a cross with a rotund chapel at the intersection—are more protected. Most of the famous figures celebrated by cemetery historians are buried there.
The memorial site for the firefighters who died in an 1890 fire in Old Havana is a prime example of how looters can’t easily reach the ten-meter-high monument, designed by architect Julio Martinez Zapata and sculptor Agustin Querol Subirats. Except for a few missing details on the entry fence, the shadows that sneak in at night haven’t been able to take more than a chain here or a decorative grille there.
Not so lucky has been the mausoleum of Catalina Lasa and Juan Pedro Baro, repeatedly looted—the most recent occasion following a restoration effort by the Office of the City Historian that turned into a full-blown plundering of its treasures. Although the majestic gate, designed by the Rene Lalique House in Paris and showcased at the 1925 Decorative Arts Salon in the French capital, still stands, a glance through the broken stained-glass panels in the rear reveals the extent of the damage inside.
The cemetery’s mausoleums have suffered a fate similar to that of Havana’s homes. The island’s deepening crisis has not only devalued real estate prices but has also dragged down the cost of a spot in the so-called “face-up neighborhood,” as locals sardonically refer to the cemetery. A mausoleum that cost $5,000 ten years ago now sells for half that.
“Selling a mausoleum with two vaults and room for four burials, price is final,” stresses a classified ad on social media, accompanied by a photo of a bare grave with aged, stained marble. Most likely, the proceeds from the sale will be used to emigrate. Death financing life. The immobility of the dead giving wings to those fleeing the island. The old saying might be rewritten: “The dead to the grave, the living to the plane.”
This is the case with nearly every detail in Havana’s main cemetery. Everything that can be used to improve the lives of the living will be used. Every object that can become money, comfort, or a present be taken. Not even the recently deceased celebrities are spared. Reports of stolen flower arrangements and accessories have even reached the graves of singers El Taiger and Paulito FG, who were buried there in the past year.
Each famous burial stirs the curiosity of frequent cemetery walkers and awakens the greed of looters. A few roses lifted from a mausoleum, or a repurposed tombstone can make all the difference when it comes to survival.
First published in Spanish by 14ymedio and translated and posted in English by Havana Times.