Saturday, June 13, 2009

Life in Cuba With Russian Elevators That Don't Work: Walking Up to the 14th Floor For 7 Months

A couple of days ago we held a small celebration with friends, in honor of the completion of the installation of new elevators. The party was well deserved because for more than seven months we had to climb up to our fourteenth floor via the stairs. We let everyone know by phone that there would be merrymaking until late and everyone brought something to contribute to the fun. It was a shame that they arrived so tired and with an expression on their faces of having been cheated, because the brand new, recently installed Russian elevators announced with the flashing of their red lights that they were broken.

~Cuban blogger Yoani Sanchez

5 Comments:

At 6/13/2009 11:26 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Here's a video of Havana before Castro and Che destroyed it:

VIDEO


Here are some pics of Havana today:

Pic 1

Pic 2

Pic 3

Pic 4

Pic 5

Pic 6

Pic 7

... in the 1950's the average farm-wage in "near-feudal" Cuba was higher than in France, Belgium, Denmark, or West Germany. According to the Geneva-based International Labor Organization ... far from huge latifundia dominating the agricultural landscape, the average Cuban farm in 1958 was actually smaller than the average farm in the U.S.: 140 acres in Cuba vs. 195 acres in the U.S. In 1958 Cuba, a nation of 6.2 million people, had 159,958 farms -- 11,000 of which were tobacco farms. Only 34 percent of the Cuban population was rural.

In 1958 Cuba had a higher standard of living than any Latin American country and half of Europe. I'll quote a UNESCO report from 1957: "One feature of the Cuban social structure is a large middle class. Cuban workers are more unionized (proportional to the population)than U.S. workers... the average wage for an 8 hour day in Cuba 1957 is higher than for workers in Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany. Cuban labor receives 66.6 per cent of gross national income. In the U.S. the figure is 68 per cent. 44 per cent of Cubans were covered by Social legislation, that's a higher percentage then in the U.S. at the time."

Humberto Fontova

 
At 6/13/2009 9:11 PM, Blogger pkd said...

It's Bush's fault, of course.

 
At 6/14/2009 9:10 AM, Blogger fboness said...

Doesn't look that much different from Detroit.

 
At 6/14/2009 1:23 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

So, this is "paradise".

 
At 6/15/2009 9:01 AM, Blogger QT said...

Anon.,

Thanks for posting these pictures. Strangely, people just seem to fall for the communist propaganda.

Another aspect of paradise:
Torture in Cuba.

 

Post a Comment

<< Home