The revival of tourism on the streets of Old Havana. And the Russians are in the lead.

 

The Government of Cuba is optimistic that tourist traffic on the island could be reactivated, in order to recover from the negative repercussions it has had due to the travel bans caused by the Corona pandemic.

Cuba is currently counting on attracting more than 2.5 million foreigners this year, relying on its own advantages, from its revolutionary legacy from the generation of the late Ernesto Che Guevara and Fidel Castro, to the fragrant novel "Sheikh and the Sea", written by the late American writer Ernest Hemingway at the edge of its warm beaches, to the dance of salsa, whose noisy rhythm hardly subsides throughout the island at night until he recovers in the morning. Again.

The streets of Old Havana embody the spirit of authenticity and renewal in Cuba, as the average tourist hardly comes out of the gate of the Los Freiles hotel there, ecstatic with the flavor of a morning cup of coffee just eaten by the "monk" who is constantly in that old silo, so that the fragrant scent of crushed blond coffee can tempt him to stop for another cup wherever he can.

Then, if he automatically turns to the left, and he walks just a few steps to discover that his passion has brought him to the Plaza de San Francisco, where Café del Oriente must come up with a warm, wide smile, and he is reassured by what the next hours of the day will carry for him in the context of the most beautiful coming.

But at the hotel itself, there is a temptation to point out the axiom that this nearly 30-room edifice was originally a monastery designed to house monks serving in the nearby San Francisco Cathedral before the victory of the Cuban Revolution in 1959.

What is remarkable is that when the revolution triumphed, its leaders immediately closed the cathedral and monastery, but soon reopened it after the break-up of the Soviet Union in 1991 for tourist reasons.

Los Freiles Hotel is one of cuba's leading tourist sites

Cuba and the Soviets

On Cuba's relationship with the Soviet Union, tour guide Darlene Enrique told Sky News Arabia that during the break-up of the Union, Havana suffered its worst economic crisis, compared to similar crises caused by the U.S. embargo imposed on it since the 1960s.

"The economic crises worsened in the 1990s, with the island losing $6 billion in Soviet aid annually and 10 million tons of oil, and being forced to sell sugar cane at its normal price on the world market after Moscow had previously bought it four times that price in response to the U.S. blockade," Enrique said.

"This has not prevented the Cuban authorities from seeking alternative resources to continue to maintain their revolutionary rewards by reviving the tourism industry, which has gradually become the chicken that bleaches gold in the basket of the Cuban economy."

Plaza de San Francisco

In the economic basket, the pregnant visitor sits on his face surprised by the discovery of the new places, enjoying his time under a gentle tropical sun, impressed by all the manifestations he sees in front of him in the presence of the violent Cuban scene, before rising again to walk to the right to visit that house where the late Ernest Hemingway had written the timeless novel "The Sheikh and the Sea."

All this is a prelude to the duty to visit the Museum of the Revolution, where the Granma boat on which Fidel Castro and his comrades sailed from Mexico to the coast of Cuba in 1956 in order to resume the armed struggle against the regime Fulgencio Batista is still anchored over an asphalted area outside, while images documenting all the stations of that struggle are still preserved inside, starting with the first spark of the revolution in the Sierra Mastera mountains overlooking the city of Santiago de Cuba, until its victory in 1959.

Cuba's tourism revenue slumped from $2.2 billion in 2019 to $559 million in 2021, during which time Russian tourists formed the only lifeline for the Havana government, after suddenly flocking to the island.