I went to Havana in March. Canadians traveling to Cuba via the United States must obtain a visa and must select a purpose for their visit, such as business, education, or family visit. I checked “Support for the Cuban People.” Although American citizens cannot travel to Cuba for tourism purposes, there are multiple flights a day that fly from Miami to Havana and back without refueling. Ironically, I flew to Cuba via the land of their torturers.
The most visible feature of this marginal period is the direct impact of the oil embargo. Most gas stations are closed and there are long lines when fuel is urgent. At El Modelo station on Avenida Linea, lines begin in the evening before the gas is pumped, and some drivers are sleeping in their cars. Run two blocks by morning. Like most communists, the Cubans learned to wait.
After a long wait, Cubans crammed onto buses at El Curita Park, a few hundred meters from the Capitolio in the city center.
Outside a Dongfeng dealership in Havana’s wealthy Miramar district, a man in a white Fiat pulls up next to a black Dongfeng SUV. The Chinese-made brand is becoming increasingly visible on the island’s roads.
As soon as the oil runs out, so will the electricity. Power outages spread across the city like dark clouds, unpredictable but inevitable. The streets, already eerily dark and abandoned, have become the sets of a noir film, faces illuminated by the light of phones and flashlights. Piles of uncollected garbage smolder in the dim light. For the entire day of my stay, the overloaded power grid shut down across the country.
Trash is piling up in Centro Havana and everywhere else in the city because the government doesn’t have the fuel to mobilize trash removal. “No tirar basura” means “don’t litter.”
On Linea Avenue in the Vedard neighborhood, a group of mostly elderly people wait for banks to open.
When the power goes down, the connection becomes weaker, which affects the banking system. At 11 a.m. on Tuesday morning in the Vedado neighborhood, a small, disgruntled crowd waited outside the shuttered Metropolitano Bank, complaining about broken ATMs and e-banking applications flying around.
Scooter headlights cast pedestrians’ shadows on buildings during rolling blackouts in Centro Havana.
On the corner of Calle Galliano and Calle Barcelona, overlooking Havana’s Capitolio, a peddler selling food from barrels is approached by an old man selling second-hand goods.
Melia Habana Miramar Hotel’s courtyard features a fish pond, food trucks, a cafe, and tight security.
No power also means no water. I often see people carrying plastic water jugs and jerry cans by hand or on trolleys. Schools and hospitals are offering reduced services.
All of this poverty is compounding the country’s long-standing woes that date back to the post-Soviet “special period” of the 1990s. They include an aging and unstable power grid, inefficient local food production, corporate-dominated state control, and a weak health care system. Havana is home to decades of exquisite architecture, from Colonial to Deco, modern to Brutalism. However, cities are increasingly sliding down the slope of urban decline.
A man carries a jug of water in the Vedado neighborhood near the university in Havana. Drinking water shortages have been a long-standing problem in the city, with water supply disrupted in many parts of the city due to fuel and electricity shortages.
After Fidel Castro died in 2016, his younger brother Raul became the party’s leader. Raúl, now 94 years old, has handed over the day-to-day running of the country to his presidential candidate, Miguel Díaz-Canel. Still, the Castro “family,” including Raúl Castro’s grandson Raúl Guillermo Rodríguez Castro, are believed to be puppet masters in charge of the military and its conglomerate, Grupo de Administración Empresarial SA (GAESA). The inner workings of Cuba’s power structure remain opaque to the world outside the island. In the second half of 2024, miami herald It has been reported that Cuba’s military elite is using shadow companies to hoard billions of dollars in profits from key sectors, including tourism.
A tattoo artist works on a client’s back in a studio in Old Havana. Tattoos are very popular among young Cubans. The artist describes his work as “dark.”
Musicians and their fans mingle at a record launch at Malecon 663, a French-run restaurant and bar based in Havana.
Only a few cars drive along the Malecon on a stormy night. In addition to lack of fuel, corrosive sea spray on rainy nights drives cars away.
Despite widespread repression, Cubans have expressed their dissatisfaction. One dark night during my stay, the clanking of pots and pans echoed throughout the city. It was the universal language of protest. But even though US President Donald Trump believes he will “honorably occupy Cuba,” it remains unclear when and how “regime change,” or any other type of political change, will unfold.
Quebec-based Air Transat said on its website that it would resume flights to Cuba in October 2026, while Air Canada said it would resume in November. As the U.S. pressure campaign wanes, the future of the average Cuban becomes increasingly difficult to predict and as uncertain as the rough waters off the Malecon.
Roger LeMoyne has photographed social issues, natural disasters, and conflicts in more than 50 countries around the world.
