The Crime of Carpentry in Cuba

By Fernando Ravsberg

HAVANA TIMES — A store called La casa del carpintero (“The Carpenter’s House”) has opened on Belascoain Street, in Havana’s neighborhood of Centro Habana. The store sells all kinds of carpentry tools, including very good brands. However, they don’t sell any kind of wood.

Talking to one of the clerks there, he tells me that there isn’t a single store in the country that sells wood. The only way to get it is to buy it in the black market, which sells wood stolen from State institutions or procured illegally in the forest.

Government officials continue to “study” the possibility of opening wholesale markets where the self-employed can buy their supplies. I imagine they are probably asking themselves: why hurry with the wholesale stores if the black market works better every day?