Speaker A
good evening my fellow citizens this government as promised has maintained the closest surveillance of the soviet military buildup on the island of cuba this is the cuba i grew up with mankind teeters precariously on the brink of a
Anthony Bourdain explores Cuba on the cusp of change after the US-Cuba thaw, visiting Havana's emerging private businesses, art scene, tourism boom, and a former Cuban-born businessman's perspective o
Key Takeaways
- Cuba is undergoing rapid but uneven economic change driven by tourism, private enterprise, and US rapprochement.
- Cubans face tension between welcoming opportunity and fearing loss of national identity and affordability.
- Younger Cubans and artists navigate gray areas, balancing state support with creative independence.
What the video covers
- Opens with Cold War-era footage (Kennedy-era missile crisis, Castro) before Obama's announcement normalizing US-Cuba relations.
- Bourdain eats at Casa Santios, a fishing-family restaurant, reflecting on the transformation of Cuban food and dining.
- Hugo Cancio, a Cuban-born Miami businessman, describes being expelled from school for a joke about Castro and his ongoing business dealings in Cuba.
- Cuba's economic transition allows Cubans to open private businesses and sell property, drawing returning Cuban-Americans and foreign investment.
- Concerns emerge about American corporate influence, hotel chains, cruise ships, and whether Cuba's character will be preserved.
- Fabrica de Arte, a nightclub and art gallery in Havana, illustrates a new cultural space supported by government subsidies.
- John Lee Anderson recounts living in Cuba during the 'Special Period' of economic collapse after Soviet support ended.
- Havana's Chinatown is nearly empty, reflecting the exodus of many communities after the revolution.
- Independent journalists and artists struggle within a state that firmly controls media, though some work with independent outlets.
- The episode closes with footage of tourism expansion, small business growth, and Cubans anticipating the end of the embargo.
Chapters
- 00:00Cold War Past and the Obama Thaw
- 03:10Casa Santios and Cuban Dining
- 07:10Hugo Cancio and Private Business
- 18:00Fabrica de Arte and the Art Scene
- 28:20Havana Life and Chinatown
- 38:00John Lee Anderson and the Special Period
- 47:20Independent Media and Entrepreneurs
- 55:20Santiago de Cuba and the Road Ahead
Full Transcript — Download SRT & Markdown
Speaker A
thermonuclear war the missile crisis duck and cover hide under your desk kids cover yourselves with wet newspaper because we're all gonna die the flames of prices burn far stronger fed and fanned by the bitter tirings of fidel castro and this guy always in the
Speaker A
fatigues underlining with every appearance that we were two nations in a never-ending state of war today the united states of america is changing its relationship with the people of cuba we will begin to normalize relations between our two countries
Speaker A
[Music] shoulder [Music] felt the rain [Applause] [Music] [Music] you've been sitting here for what 55 years now half an hour away basically giving the biggest superpower in the world the stiff middle finger 50 plus years of animosity embargo
Speaker A
rationing and fidel castro is still hanging on but recently there are powerful indications that everything is about to change we are at jaimanita a little fishing town this place is called casa santions by two brothers that go out and fish every
Speaker A
morning and bring fresh seafood okay humble fishing village traditional fishing family yes we're about to eat sushi what's going on in this country man things are changing anthony what can i say [Music] my name is hugo cancio i was born in
Speaker A
cuba i was in one of cuba's most prominent schools when i made a joke about president fidel castro i i was a teenager and the kid that slept on the bum bed on top of me recorded that conversation and i
Speaker A
was expelled from school my mom said the only choice is for us to leave cuba i'm a businessman i've lived in miami for 35 years as my home base i come back and forth to cuba i've been coming to
Speaker A
cuba for over 20 years i mean cuba is a communist country in economic transition [Music] in all since wellcasters allow cubans to establish more businesses there are people that are making money there are people that have created a tremendous
Speaker A
amount of wealth people with family connections to the states people tied to the exploding tourist industry small business owners taxi drivers people operating in ever-changing gray areas of what is permissible [Applause] how does it work right now if you're
Speaker A
cuban you can sell your property to another cuban another cube from cuba and that's what's happening right now a lot of cuban americans and a lot of cubans living abroad are now coming back and through relatives are buying property
Speaker A
obviously somebody has touched this building with some kind of investment it's renovated it seems to be like a hotel somebody bought the building and turn it into a little hotel [Music] however you feel about the government however you feel about the last 55 years
Speaker A
there aren't many places in the world that look like this i mean it's utterly enchanted it's very seductive there is no doubt in my mind that somewhere in the office of like the four seasons hotel chain they're looking at the
Speaker A
seafront and thinking you know one of these days you know and at cruise ships you know what happens then w-well look is is this inevitable march of progress am i being a snob uh no no you're being very realistic that's the
Speaker A
concern of most cubans i wouldn't mind seeing one or two starbucks around havana but i'm hoping that we don't go back to 1958 but the majority of cuban companies were owned by american corporations right i have got to believe
Speaker A
that cuba wanted to preserve some of the value that represents you know the hearts and souls of the cuban people last time i was in havana a meal at a paladar would have been rice and beans now sushi a certain sign of impending
Speaker A
ten apocalypse ago this restaurant would have never been allowed not only because private businesses were not allowed but the external influence that you're seeing remember this is a country where chewing gum or listening to the beatles were prohibited
Speaker A
i don't think we all need to have twitter every day i mean one of the things i love about coming to cuba is the fact that i could put my iphone away who cares look what we have around us
Speaker A
and i hope that cubans have they continue to have access to free information they will still want to preserve this family times [Music] tourists have been coming to cuba for some time predominantly europeans many of them men of a certain age looking for
Speaker A
how shall we say company but now it looks like americans looking to live out fantasies of godfather 2 will soon be able to do so and it's all still here for them [Music] [Music] but there's new stuff too
Speaker A
this is certainly new fabrica de arte the hottest spot in havana a nightclub performance space art gallery highlighting artists musicians and djs from around the world quest love is scheduled to dj here tomorrow it's night a big bag when all the arts
Speaker A
can fit inside what is going on here i ask inti herrera and ex alfonso two of the young entrepreneurs behind the place nothing like this ever existed before do the government bureau of arts help you we have at the beginning we have um
Speaker A
subsidies from the ministry of culture even the building we asked for the building because was abandoned for 30 years the place is very popular right now yes who comes here these people that love art but at the same time is very
Speaker A
diverse it attracts a once unthinkable mix of foreigners and locals and enjoys the actual support of the government without whom of course it couldn't exist our chef here lisette is part of the art world you know here a ceviche of dogfish
Speaker A
with pickled vegetables [Music] pan seared with yucca and a riff on a traditional orange sauce with garlic and coriander good very good what do you think's gonna happen when the door opens and you've got hundreds of thousands of americans flooding here
Speaker A
looking desperately to spend money on anything cuban i don't know man we are a small country we have to adapt to new things but i think it's it's a good challenge i guess i'm asking how do you keep it real when
Speaker A
you'll all probably be millionaires in a few years us yeah [Music] our goal in life but that doesn't matter yes it doesn't matter if you're going to have those more factories more patches [Music] is havana still looks like you want it to
Speaker A
look or maybe just how i want it to look [Music] what was once one of the wealthiest cities in latin america left to the elements left to collapse or frozen gloriously in time [Music] in fits and starts cuba is changing but
Speaker A
it's not sugar or rum or tobacco or casino gambling that is the new god it's tourism [Music] all right so here chinatown such as it is but are there any chinese left in bana no there's a few new chinese right at one
Speaker A
point the chinese community in cuba was huge but they pretty much cleared out after the revolution as did most of the russian jewish immigrants who were here so the state has erected a few quintessentially chinatown gates mustered the 14 chinese people left in
Speaker A
the planet summon their relatives for more than 35 years john lee anderson has been reporting from conflict zones such as syria lebanon libya iraq and afghanistan i lied about my age and traveled around africa when i was 13 i
Speaker A
told people i was 26. in the early 1990s while researching a biography of che guevara he and his family moved to cuba and ended up staying for three years you lived here during the special period which was not so special it was that was
Speaker A
the bad times that was right the russians have pulled out soviets all done the economy went like this completely 90 it just tanked cuba lost 80 percent of its import goods which led to widespread hunger malnutrition and a nosedive for
Speaker A
the already difficult quality of life on the island there was one place where we could buy food which was a soviet-style place with food that was flown in quite bad food under fidel's rule that's the way it was
Speaker A
it's like a cargo cult version of chinese food here dumplings [Music] a szechuan chicken dish that's about as sichuan as well i am what's gonna happen what's next the uptick in tourism just after the december 17th announcement the surprise
Speaker A
announcement by raul and obama in which they said we've decided to make friends again the surge in tourism and american interest in cuba is like this you now have an island where every room is for rent because you can
Speaker A
make 30 or 40 a day that's more than a state employee makes in three months there will be wealthy hipsters women in tiny black dresses drinking ironic riffs on the mojito in the lobby of the spanking new w hotel
Speaker A
with oops in the background yep and that's within five years yeah i would say so will every cuban have an inalienable right to free medical care and education at that time that's what they're worried about the last time i was here which was
Speaker A
in 2013 i counted eight to ten homeless garbage eating people in the street and i thought wow i've never seen that before in cuba that's something the old cuba the socialist cuba that could look after all of its citizens
Speaker A
would never have allowed it's allowing it now this period we're here in it's the lull before it all hits the train is coming it's either going to roar by and they're going to be able to jump on and go with
Speaker A
it or it's gonna derail and it'll be a mess all of it's possible [Music] yeah my mom is asking me if you would like to taste the rice oh it's fantastic like a lot of cubans yosemi rodriguez lives in the same working class
Speaker A
neighborhood where she was born i live with my mom my sister and my niece of course i would like to have my own bedroom but there are people who don't even have a house you were a translator is that correct
Speaker A
and you are now a journalist yeah well i've been writing for havana times and then i write also for cuba which is another independent website she struggles to eke out a living in an industry where the state firmly controls all media what subjects
Speaker A
in particular are of interest to you the racial issue racial disparity this is something that the revolution promised to address their main mistake was to state that they had eradicated racism that just like it could be eradicated just like that on the street
Speaker A
for instance policemen the first people they stop is black people if you're black you are a potential criminal [Music] her mom rosa prepared a cabbage stew with carrots tomatoes and green beans for her as you see me as a rare
Speaker A
vegetarian on an island where pork is king oh fantastic and for us pork marinated in garlic onion and sour orange please tell your mom is superb really excellent you have a very highly educated public here one of the most literate nations on
Speaker A
earth that's funny we are highly educated as we said but we are behind concerning internet and all that stuff most of us have access to only the official media the official newspaper if internet comes and i think the government is trying to
Speaker A
delay it if that comes many things will change people will have access to different points of view and i don't think our government wants that if everything goes well what will havana be like what will this neighborhood be like in five years
Speaker A
you know having a prosperous society doesn't guarantee that it is is the same for everyone you know you see these people who have been able to use opportunities to open businesses to open successful restaurants those opportunities are there but i i cannot
Speaker A
use them because i i don't have money i don't think it is possible to have a perfect society but i think it is possible to try how you like the food oh it's delicious really good thank you [Music]
Speaker A
[Music] all cuba seems waiting for something for whatever it is that happens next today that's the roar of detroit's finest circa 1959 and before of course [Music] american dream machines tricked out babied pampered jury rigged or simply held together with duct tape and bailing
Speaker A
life [Music] [Music] nice what's under the hood create american engines we buy spares we bring spares from america all we think about through the week is our machines our v8 engines you know car racing in cuba they love it here as
Speaker A
much as i love baseball wow that's serious those amigos are diehard gearheads drag racers who for more than 20 years have been defying the law and escaping the grind of daily life by pressing pedal to the metal and
Speaker A
hurtling down the highway faster faster fast as they can go they just find the best part of the day when there is not so much traffic you get hundreds and hundreds of people on both sides of the road now before it was absolutely
Speaker A
illegal it's always been illegal it's only the last couple of weeks that we are gonna going to get sponsorship from the ministry of sports everything is changing it's entirely possible that soon you'll be able to order any part
Speaker A
any car any car in the world you can have it tomorrow what would it be corvette which here [Music] [Music] so [Music] this piece a lunar picnic is only to bc at night the grills are painted with this floors and painting
Speaker A
it's very surrealistic it's a weird sensation it's like a make you hungry somehow [Music] along with his creative partner marco castillo [ __ ] rodriguez is half of los carpenteros an artistic entity whose work is shown and collected all over the
Speaker A
world every single project is a different thing you have a different technology to fabricate and to develop those carpenters have managed to stay in the government's good graces by riley using irony to make their points in the brutally competitive and capricious
Speaker A
contemporary art world outside of cuba they are stars they make a lot of money but they always return home to havana looks like we'll be eating well [Music] it's a party in doggo's backyard [Music] kelvis ochoa has made his much-loved
Speaker A
pig's head soup with pumpkin corn peppers and sweet potatoes cassava and plantain [Music] i saw somebody's house it was just an ordinary home but they created their own fast food franchise and made it look as if it was
Speaker A
part of a chain it was like you know mr burger or something like this this place can be a parade for fat food fast food i hope they don't come here soon yeah well this is my biggest fear that there
Speaker A
will be a big glass box of a w hotel and a start seeing starbucks and victoria's secret and you know all other people who make every place look the same it would be awful yeah but we have a
Speaker A
50-year lack of money right this is this is a big problem the people will freak out with money when they have the money here of course but i mean i think if there's a 200 million dollar hotel project that's sustainable that's
Speaker A
that preserves the facade of the city that will get approved first before anything's super american per se [Music] whoa what's cooking over there can't forget the whole roasted pig a few years back a pretty unthinkable luxury for just about everybody oh wow soup wow
Speaker A
everything is biological they have no bunny they have nothing for uh yes not the pesticides and the hormones yet steamed in the broth from the pig's head soup life is good yeah it is [Music] [Music] foreign [Music] foreign
Speaker A
[Music] i think the our culture is so strong that it's gonna take a lot of tourists and a lot of uh boats what do you say uh cruise ships creatures yeah it's gonna take a lot of to dissolve these ingredients
Speaker A
we're always like this with or without tourists [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] this is a typical history of this neighborhood houses of wood houses of concrete the street is not in good condition here was the bus station it's not a busy
Speaker A
station anymore now it's a building it's a monument of the past montia is a suburb of havana home to one of cuba's most celebrated writers my name is [Music] author of the internationally successful mario kande detective series padora has
Speaker A
been able to portray the daily struggles the absurdities of life in cuba it's a delicate dance and few have been able to replicate it you're a hero in the books does he live in this neighborhood another neighborhood motorlift model
Speaker A
list uh happy place to grow up i mean this neighborhood yeah yes totally free [Music] i noticed a lot of people just hanging out who lives here all kinds of people doctors for example engineers workers and people who who makes nothing like
Speaker A
that that guy right he he doesn't mean nothing how does he live trying to find something to do or something to sell making a small business a la barbecue is only one example of a booming do-it-yourself service industry
Speaker A
[Music] a place where you get a lot of bang for your money nothing fancy just delicious fried pork plantains and the kind of silky deeply satisfying beans that dreams are made of this is good good beans you've never had a book blacklisted or
Speaker A
banned in cuba have you been able to say everything that you wanted to say i try to be the most honest writer that i can be and i think that i i'd say all that i can say the problem is that we need in cuba a
Speaker A
lot of money because it's very beautiful city but the people have many problems to live with the space with the structure of the buildings [Music] for dessert awesome flan cooked in a cut down beer can thank you you're a successful author or you've
Speaker A
been around the world you've traveled during difficult periods of cuban history i'm sure you had many opportunities to live in miami or barcelona or los angeles and yet you stayed in the same house yeah the same neighborhood yeah
Speaker A
why because i like it i need to live in cuba near to the cuban people near to the cuban language for me is is very very important yes the future is here but the past two is everywhere [Music]
Speaker A
the buildings the cars the gears of the whole system are still largely stuck in time [Applause] my name is [Music] is very much a part of that pasta [Music] before the revolution she was a shining star at myerlansky's tropicana singing
Speaker A
for capone luciano you know the names [Music] yes [Music] [Applause] [Music] communication [Applause] [Music] [Music] yes [Music] [Music] cuba is not havana it's a bigger country than you might imagine and the road to santiago de cuba the country's second
Speaker A
largest city takes you 12 hours on their less than modern highway system along the way you see agrarian cuba the country in which most cubans lived pre-revolution [Music] santiago is a poorer city it's blacker and unlike havana the symbols and faces
Speaker A
of the revolution still seem to mean something [Music] these brutalist prefab workers housing complexes are everywhere here and at first glance hell at second glance they look like something you'd house animals in but for many previously living even
Speaker A
poorer harsher lives in the countryside these offered something new each group of buildings came with a doctor a school still they look about as grim as grim can be yet santiago is anything but grim savoni beach is where locals go on the
Speaker A
weekend to kick back with family drink the best rum in cuba which means the best rum anywhere swim hang with family and friends [Music] hello gentlemen we will be needing sombasos ramel is our local fixer reuben is in the bar business
Speaker A
sergio rents rooms to the occasional tourist everybody getting by making the adjustment to private enterprise cuba in their own way until a few years ago you couldn't rent or sell right a long time ago it was a low to rent
Speaker A
house but not sell and buy okay [Music] it's huge fresh caught dorado and lobster is on the menu do they think this is going to change i mean look we've all been following the news [Music] right half an hour away i mean they can
Speaker A
basically take a boat over for lunch what do you think americans want they have no idea because they know because never touch the american tourists before it's looking good now man good rum cold beer good fish good lobster
Speaker A
you'll be needing a blender for pina coladas if they have if they have not machine they're gonna do it by hand what is this way my friend you're gonna be making a lot of pina coladas i think you're gonna need the machine
Speaker A
[Music] [Applause] um [Music] night time is party time where everybody it appears at least from when i was there hit the streets mom dad sis even grandma get well crazy used to be son and trauma that ruled the
Speaker A
streets this was where those musical styles were born after all but now it's reggaeton and of course hip-hop garcia is the leader of the santiago-based hip-hop trio tnt the resistance we've been making hip-hop for 15 years which is quite difficult here in cuba
Speaker A
we've been in jail three days once just for like hip-hop [Music] because the relation with the united states are getting better it's because the people just realize we need to change we still want a kind of society where
Speaker A
everyone participates in everyone determining the future [Music] so born and bred santiago where the good room comes from exactly [Music] so tell me music business in santiago but what are you doing music here is more important than the plate of food
Speaker A
but it's kind of sometimes the people don't have money for a proper food but they got money for like a shot of beer and just enjoying that beer in a place with music how much american hip-hop do you get
Speaker A
here we got ashley quite a lot he's my friends someone came from outside that one passed to me and i passed my friendship that's it sound by hand in the beginnings in the 90s we started making hip-hop here and we got a lot of
Speaker A
troubles hip-hop came from the states they like you everlasting enemy of the revolution right so you're making a music a protest music right so we've been a couple times in jail just for songs so now you can make money performing
Speaker A
yeah you can maybe make money selling cities in the streets but actually right now more possibilities are coming when the opportunity to like promote the music when the opportunity to have access to internet free access i mean that's gonna
Speaker A
be the biggest thing yeah if you want to spend your holidays properly in cuba just come down to santiago all right to the world [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] hold up [Music] let's do it [Music] hi i'm tony ah my name is jorg how long
Speaker A
have you been driving a taxi for more than 20 years mostly cubans or uh tourists no tourists most of them in spanish italy even people from canada a lot of canadian people you from santiago yes i was born in
Speaker A
santiago i was staying in spain in santiago i used to live in russia for 6 years i studied there really yeah i was really young and i really enjoyed it oh yeah because it must be cold there oh no could you
Speaker A
imagine that the difference uber erosion snow first time i saw snow i sent to my mom a lot of pictures yeah holding snow throwing snow so what were you studying again russia uh mechanical engineer that's so you went from engineering to
Speaker A
taxi driving yes yes yes in 1990 erosion laid flat along we got in trouble with the economy so i have to change my job so it looks like the embargo might end you know a lot of money gonna start
Speaker A
coming to cuba oh it's gonna change i think that the american businessman will invest in cuba and that will be good for everyone how about how about going back to engineering uh you know that will depend on how much it
Speaker A
will pay right okay [Music] what next for cuba something is coming it will come from out there but also from within cuba it's already happening but what is it everybody knows everybody can feel it it smells like freedom
Speaker A
but will it be victory [Music] [Music] [Music] so [Music] [Music] you
Topics:CubaAnthony BourdainParts UnknownHavanaUS-Cuba relationstourismCastroprivate enterpriseCuban arttravel documentary
