Reuters reports that Raul Castro, Fidel’s cousin and the new president of Cuba, has fulfilled his promises to lift bans on many electronics — including computers, which could previously only be purchased by the government and foreign-owned corporations.
Says Reuters:
Cubans crowded shops on Tuesday to buy DVD players and electric bikes that went on sale for the first time as new President Raul Castro moved to lift many restrictions in the one-party socialist state.
Stores were authorized to sell dozens of electric goods that were previously banned, including microwave ovens, flat-screen televisions and even computers.
[…] Raul Castro succeeded his ailing brother Fidel Castro as president on February 24, promising to lift “excessive prohibitions” on daily life in Cuba.
His government has since moved quickly to allow Cubans to buy cellular phones and stay at hotels previously reserved for foreigners.
New goods are flooding in, but the prices are ridiculous — though apparently still less than what thriving black market dealers have been charging:
A saleswoman said computers with 80 gigabytes of hard drive memory, 512 megabytes of RAM and a Celeron P4 chip made by Intel would sell for about $865.
“I have been saving up for three years, since I was 15, and I think I am close to buying one,” said Paula, a university student waiting for the new stock to come in.
[…] Havana shops had on sale 21-inch flat-screen television sets and home theater sets worth more than $1,300. It would take a Cuban with average six years to earn enough to buy one.
I hope this isn’t an April Fool’s joke. If it isn’t, I’m a little ashamed to say I had no idea Cubans weren’t allowed to buy microwaves and DVD players. If it is, I’ll feel really stupid tonight…
Photo from Scientific American.
2 responses so far ↓
1 Rawda // Apr 2, 2008 at 2:19 pm
Four years ago in Cuba, I was asked if I owned a cassette player, hair dryer and a VHS player… They had no idea what an MP3 player is. And a tip as little as 1USD used to make their day -according to their stories-.
I saw people living in tin houses. Huge families packed in those tiny unsafe shelters sharing everything.
The ‘other’ side of Havana, where tourists aren’t supposed to go, had poor people selling everything and performing anywhere for money, houses there were falling apart that one could clearly see the balconies barely holding on at weird angles.
The ones who afforded it drove ancient cars called ‘yank tanks’ that were imported before the US embargo and whenever they had to, they’d repair some broken part but maintained the same skeleton -obviously cause they couldn’t afford buying anything new-. Walking in the streets there was like walking in a very old black and white movie.
It is definitely wonderful for visitors, but for them, it’s a Hotel California.
Just ugly, utterly unbelieveable poverty.. I hope this change will improve their lives.
2 rachelle segal // Apr 3, 2008 at 1:23 am
yes, that is absolutely true! I was in Cuba a few months ago and had a chance to sit down with the locals. A radio was a luxury, the general method of transportation was hitch hiking and the cost of sending an email was over a months pay! Despite all of these restrictions, the Cubans remained to have smiles on their faces and accepted it as a way of life. For such an uncivilized country, the people were more civil than many of the other islands i had visited in the past.
I am still in touch with some today, by cell phone text messaging of course………that only costs them pennies! (Some Cubans do have cell phones)
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