The Last Communist City - A visit to the dystopian Havana that tourists never see

Downtown Old Havana, just blocks from the capitol

This is a snippet from an article by Michael J. Totten.

“I hate this place!” she near-shouted.

Fidel himself could have heard, and she wouldn’t have cared. She wasn’t going to be quiet about it. Tourists who visit Cuba and spend all their time inside the bubble for the “haves” could leave the country oblivious to the savage inequalities and squalor beyond the hotel zone, but this woman visits her husband’s family in the real Cuba and knows what it’s really like.

“His family is from here,” she said, “but mine’s not, and I will never come back here. Not while it’s like this. I feel like I’m in Iraq or Afghanistan.”

I visited Iraq seven times during the war and didn’t have the heart to tell her that Baghdad, while ugly and dangerous, is vastly freer and more prosperous these days than Havana.

Read the complete article at City Journal: The Last Communist City