Previews of post-Castro Cuba appear

Aug. 20, 2006, 10:59PM
Previews of post-Castro Cuba appear
Investment and tourists changing the look of Havana

By REED JOHNSON
Los Angeles Times

HAVANA - In the once-crumbling Plaza Vieja in Old Havana, a European
men's clothing store has opened its expensively refurbished doors a few
yards from a fancy new Austrian microbrewery.

The clothing store's plush, wood-lined interior is stocked with upscale
sporting and casual wear reminiscent of Brooks Brothers or L.L. Bean,
while the microbrewery's sparkling counters, mood lighting and clientele
of tourists and laid-back locals make it seem more Caribbean party hot
spot than one-party socialist state.

A few miles to the west, next to swanky beachfront hotels, elite Cubans
live in modern, glass-fronted condominiums and park their power boats in
the adjoining canals. Along the Malecon, the city's famous seafront
promenade, a construction site advertises its future occupant: a sleek
new tapas bar.

Nearly three weeks ago, when President Fidel Castro checked into a
hospital with reported internal bleeding after making an unprecedented
power transfer to his brother Raul, speculation swept the globe
regarding his island's economic and political fate. But on the streets
of Havana, glimpses of a possible post-Fidel future already may be seen.

These mental snapshots leave contradictory impressions. In many ways,
Cuba remains frozen in the late 1950s. The majority of Old Havana's
elegant colonial-era residences are flaking into oblivion. Their
impoverished residents slump in doorways, hand-fanning themselves to
stave off the tropical heat.

The official Communist Party newspaper, Granma, is still a dreary
propaganda sheet with a Cold War-era graphics sensibility. Socialist
slogans and iconic images of Che Guevara still hang from public
buildings, along with posters declaring, "Long Live Fidel — 80 More Years."

But those same slogans and images also are sold on T-shirts, berets,
posters and other kitschy paraphernalia. Plastered across a pale,
middle-aged tourist's body, they look about as revolutionary as the Nike
swoosh or the Coca-Cola logo.

Despite decades of think-tank predictions that Castro's eventual decline
or replacement would provoke crisis in the government and chaos in the
streets, the old warrior's convalescence seems to have engendered calm
rather than panic.

Around Havana, there is evidence of the impact of foreign investment and
economic joint ventures with the Cuban government that Castro began
encouraging after the island lost its longtime Soviet sponsorship in the
early 1990s.

The refurbished buildings that house the men's store and the
microbrewery are part of a project to bring back what the government
refers to as the nation's architectural "patrimony," a resident said.

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