{"id":519,"date":"2015-12-14T04:05:27","date_gmt":"2015-12-14T04:05:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nick-rider.com\/blog\/?p=519"},"modified":"2016-01-23T11:50:50","modified_gmt":"2016-01-23T11:50:50","slug":"cuba-bizarre-cathedral-ice-cream","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nick-rider.com\/blog\/cuba-bizarre-cathedral-ice-cream\/","title":{"rendered":"Cuban Bizarre: the foreigner’s room at the Cathedral of Ice-Cream"},"content":{"rendered":"

Catch Cuba while it’s still there, people\u00a0say\u2026 Get a taste of the island and its revolutionary quirks\u00a0before the opening-up of relations with the USA sweeps all its strange tropical-Soviet otherworldliness away, and it becomes just like any other country, like\u2026 (what? In this part of the world, maybe, the Dominican Republic,\u00a0that shining success story). \u00a0Cuba is different, something else, for good or bad, so get a look at\u00a0it before globalised uniformity spreads there too.<\/p>\n

When you get there, it’s clear that Cuba has already changed a whole lot since the\u00a0ardent heyday of the Revolution. Tourism seems to be the main\u00a0(if not the only) growth sector in the economy, big hotels have been leased to international hotel corporations and in beach villages over half the houses are casas particulares<\/em> offering rooms for rent, many of them\u00a0morphing into small hotels. However, the idea that the thaw in US-Cuban relations \u2013 leaving aside the question of how this will pan out after the next US election \u2013 will obliterate\u00a0all the particular ways of doing things Cubans have got used to\u00a0in the 50-plus years since the Revolution\u00a0and make the country\u00a0‘ordinary’ in just a few months\u00a0seems pretty simplistic. And in the meantime, despite its now-more conventional appearance, Cuba’s regime\u00a0can still surprise you with strange neo-soviet experiences.<\/p>\n

\n

\"Coppelia1a\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The Coppelia ice-cream parlour in Havana, the catedral del helado<\/em> or cathedral of ice-cream, is one of the largest such places\u00a0anywhere in the world, with capacity for over 1,000 customers at any time (theoretically). Opened in 1966, it was one of the most distinctive early creations\u00a0of the revolution: the idea was that the Castro regime would show it could bring fun, joy and bright new things for the people, not just hard work and sloganising. Built in the same Vedado district of Havana that in the ’50s had been filled with Mafia-run hotels and casinos, it initially offered over 25 flavours, as many as US commercial ice-cream chains, but at much lower, people’s prices. In the regime’s ‘good years’ of the\u00a01970s and ’80s, when the economy ran relatively<\/em> well on the back of subsidies from the old Communist bloc, a trip to Coppelia became a symbol of uncomplicated\u00a0pleasure for ordinary Cubans, a national institution. As such it features in the groundbreaking 1994 film Fresa y Chocolate<\/em> (Strawberry and Chocolate), about a gay romance in the rigid atmosphere of 1970s Cuba, and named after Coppelia’s most popular flavours.<\/p>\n

\n

\"Coppelia-2\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Having got to Havana, and seen that Coppelia was only a few blocks from our hotel, we naturally wanted to try it out. Coppelia occupies a whole Vedado block, with trees and lush little\u00a0gardens in the gaps around the buildings. The main building is like a giant flying saucer raised on concrete pillars, an image of 1960s space-age, here-is-the-future modernity. Four giant arms reach out towards the\u00a0corners of the block, forming the main entrances. And in each corner, from well before opening time every\u00a0day we looked, there was a long line of Cubans, families, young kids, all sorts, waiting patiently under\u00a0a\u00a0blasting 35\u00baC sun\u00a0to be allowed in.<\/p>\n

As we walked towards Coppelia we wondered whether we were supposed to join the wait, and whether we were really up for it in the fierce heat. However, we also saw an abundance of staff, some in uniform and some not, who of course immediately\u00a0clocked our foreigner status. \u00bfDesea consumir?<\/em>, asked\u00a0one particularly severe lady in a white blouse with blue tabs indicating some seniority. Si, por favor<\/em>, yes, er\u2026 un helado?<\/em>\u00a0(pretty superfluous, I know). Por all\u00e1<\/em>, that way, with an authoritative wave directing us away from the lines and towards, we thought, a separate stairway we could see in front of us. But, \u00a1NO!<\/em> she yelled, when we went\u00a0to climb up it, por ALLA<\/em>, pointing to another smaller staircase deep in the shadows beneath the flying saucer. We were passed between three different people before we eventually emerged onto a plain landing in a service section of Coppelia, and were led to an unmarked door that looked\u00a0like an anonymous office.<\/p>\n

\n

\"Coppelia7a\"<\/a><\/p>\n

This was\u00a0the foreigners’ room, where tourists are taken to sample the joys of Cuban state ice-cream.<\/p>\n

It’s a closed box, from which you can’t see out \u2013 the only windows are at roof level, or frosted perspex \u2013 but with effective air-con, a privilege absent elsewhere in Coppelia. A quiet, smiling man served us from a small bar. All payments were unsurprisingly in CUCs, the ‘convertible’ Cuban tourist peso tied to the US dollar, not the much lower-value moneda nacional<\/em> pesos normally used by\u00a0Cubans. And there the two of us and three Canadian women, the only other customers, sat, a little awkward and hushed in our splendid, bizarre isolation. Around the jaunty orange and blue walls are pictures of ballet dancers \u2013 the Coppelia theme \u2013 and a history of Coppelia as the people’s pleasure palace, beginning Todo surgi\u00f3 de una idea de Fidel\u2026<\/em> ‘Everything came out of an idea of Fidel’s’ (Jesus, you think, the old bastard even has to take the credit for ice-cream). It goes on to recount stories such as that of the package of Coppelia flavours, carefully\u00a0frozen to stay\u00a0fresh, sent by Castro to Ho Chi Minh in 1968 for his birthday, and to congratulate Ho on the Tet offensive that had crushed US hopes of victory in Vietnam.\u00a0Ice-cream, as well as cigars, played its part in Cuban diplomacy\u2026<\/p>\n

\n

\"Coppelia2a\"<\/a><\/p>\n

And, of course, we finally got to try the famous product itself. Menu boards at Coppelia still have space for\u00a0the 25-plus flavours and even\u00a0more combos the place offered when it opened, but for a long time, as every Cuban knows, only three have been available: the famous fresa<\/em> and chocolate<\/em>, and vanilla. They’re usually served together, three scoops in a little bowl topped with a few crushed nuts and a little honey. Perfectly nice ice-cream, it seemed to us, if a bit\u00a0over-sweet (a Cuban taste). Nothing special, really \u2013 though\u00a0if you’ve grown up in Cuba any time\u00a0in the last 50 years, these three flavours probably set off a whole load of extra, subtle\u00a0associations.<\/p>\n

\n

\"Coppelia5a\"<\/a><\/p>\n

We had\u00a0sampled\u00a0Coppelia’s ice-cream, but from our air-conned\u00a0little box we had seen virtually nothing of the world-of-tomorrow\u00a0fantasy architecture for which the ice-cream palace is just as celebrated. However, when we left the foreigners’ room, we saw across the landing a doorway through to the main section. Can we take a look through there, I asked a non-uniformed man standing\u00a0next to it, we\u00a0only want to see the building, and maybe take some pictures? S\u00ed, \u00bfc\u00f3mo no?<\/em>, yes, why ever not?, he answered, as friendly as Cubans usually are\u00a0when not on the spot to fulfil an official role. So, after all the rigmarole to get into the building, on the way out we were free to wander wherever we liked, through the pod-like areas on the upper floor with their stained-glass-style coloured panels, up and down the grand hardwood main staircase, and into the big, airy\u00a0open space on the ground floor with its long metal ice-cream bar and ’50s-style stools. It is an extraordinary, unique place. And, just as strange,\u00a0as we walked around not a single area was even half full, and there were empty seats and tables everywhere. While outside,\u00a0as we saw as we left, the same long lines were still waiting resignedly to get in, struggling to catch\u00a0some of the scant shade from the trees.<\/p>\n

\n

\"Coppelia9a\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The combination of Cold War-theatricals with something as innocuous as ice-cream at Coppelia was so bizarre as to be utterly\u00a0baffling\u00a0at first sight, and demanded interpretation. After some pondering two likely rationalisations occurred, at least for the existence of the foreigners’ room:<\/p>\n

\u2022 The regime knows foreigners want\u00a0to see\u00a0Coppelia and doesn’t want to turn them\u00a0away completely.<\/p>\n

\u2022 However it doesn’t want them to join the queues, mix with ordinary Cubans too much or share the inconveniences of their daily lives either. So it came up with the foreigners’ room.<\/p>\n

What truly seemed beyond\u00a0comprehension, though, was just why these same ordinary Cubans were obliged to line up\u00a0for god-knows how long\u00a0for their ice-cream, when the place was nowhere near full. After further thought\u00a0I came up with another possible explanation\u00a0that has a vague logic to it (like those above, this is\u00a0purely a speculative theory, so\u00a0alternative suggestions are perfectly\u00a0possible).<\/p>\n

\u2022 Coppelia is a success of the Castro regime. Cubans love its ice-cream. However, the regime cannot supply enough of it to meet this demand. So, rather than cutting back demand by raising prices, which would challenge a basic principle, it does so by restricting\u00a0admissions\u00a0and forcing people to stand in the sun as uncomfortably as possible.<\/p>\n

At times like this you wonder what the hell the Castroist elite that runs Cuba thinks it’s doing. Getting ordinary Cubans to open up about how they see their country is hard. Many may be longing for drastic change. However, it’s also evident\u00a0that for the moment the Castro regime can still call upon a residue of goodwill among a large number of\u00a0people as well, who feel the regime\u00a0has given them things they don’t want to lose: health care, the absence of crime, Coppelia ice-cream. But boy, does it like to try their patience.<\/p>\n

\"Coppelia-10a\"<\/a><\/p>\n

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Catch Cuba while it’s still there, people\u00a0say\u2026 Get a taste of the island and its revolutionary quirks\u00a0before the opening-up of relations with the USA sweeps all its strange tropical-Soviet otherworldliness away, and it becomes just like any other country, like\u2026 (what? In this part of the world, maybe, the Dominican Republic,\u00a0that shining success story). \u00a0Cuba […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":757,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[12,45,57,8,6],"class_list":["post-519","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cuba","tag-architecture","tag-cities","tag-cuba","tag-food","tag-travel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nick-rider.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/519","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nick-rider.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nick-rider.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nick-rider.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nick-rider.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=519"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.nick-rider.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/519\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nick-rider.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/757"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nick-rider.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=519"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nick-rider.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=519"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nick-rider.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=519"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}