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By Ian James
.c The Associated Press
September 5
HAVANA (AP) -- Soviet-made cars rumble over pot-holed streets.
Concrete-block apartments built with Soviet aid cast shadows over afternoon
soccer games. And from a hilltop, a 30-foot-tall marble bust of Vladimir Ilyich
Lenin stares northeast toward the Motherland.
Seven years after the Soviet Union's collapse and the withering of its Cold
War alliances, the Russian imprint on Cuba remains.
Just a decade ago, roughly 20,000 Soviet citizens lived in Cuba, many of
them sent by the Kremlin as soldiers, engineers and other technical specialists.
When communism collapsed, Soviet aid vanished, and many people from Russia and
other former Soviet republics returned home.
But about 2,000 Russians stayed behind.
``I am a Cuban, practically,'' says Elvira Taskaeva, 54, who arrived two
decades ago with a Cuban man she met in Russia. The two married and had a
daughter, and Taskaeva worked devising industrial design standards for the Cuban
government.
When Taskaeva divorced, she had no family in Russia to return to. So she and
her daughter stayed, living in a fifth floor apartment on Havana's outskirts.
Taped to the door are the words of Isaiah 40:8 in Spanish: ``The grass withers
and the flowers fall, but the word of our God stands forever.''
Taskaeva, an ardent Christian, believes Cuba is where she is to live out her
life.
``I am never going back,'' she says. ``I don't have anywhere to go.''
Many former Soviets in Cuba tell similar stories. During the Cold War, Cuban
students studied everything from aviation to engineering in cities throughout
the Soviet Union. Many returned home with spouses.
Tatiana Gaidemskaya came with her Cuban husband. A blonde Ukrainian with
bright blue eyes who grew up trudging through snow in boots, she soon learned to
wear thin dresses and sandals.
At first, she didn't know Spanish. He didn't know Russian or Ukrainian. But
they married and had a daughter.
When they divorced, Gaidemskaya had no easy way home. Now 35, she sells
small pizzas from her barred front porch for Cuban pesos while her 11-year-old
daughter plays inside. The girl speaks Ukrainian and Spanish, and sometimes
tells her mother she wants to see her relatives.
But going back is a distant hope.
``I can't go. I don't have money,'' Gaidemskaya says, sullenly running her
eyes across the cracked concrete floor. ``For the moment, I have no other
choice. I live here like any other Cuban. At least I'm able to have this little
business.''
A man calling outside interrupts. Any pizza for sale?
``No,'' she calls back. ``We aren't working today.''
The reason: The water is off.
``Without water, I can't do anything -- not even bathe, or clean or cook,''
she says. ``We've been without water for three days now. And I don't know if
tomorrow will be different.''
Not far from Gaidemskaya's house, a flame burns at a memorial to Soviet
soldiers who died during service in Cuba. To aid the Cuban government during the
Cold War, the Soviet Union sent military personnel, along with thousands of
civilians with needed skills.
One was Dimas Garcia, who died in 1982. A Spanish-born Russian, he was the
type of worker Cuban revolutionary Ernesto ``Che'' Guevara had sought when he
visited the Soviet Union in the early 1960s, says Garcia's widow, 74-year-old
Basilisa Alvarran.
Most importantly, Garcia could speak Spanish. The Cuban government needed
people like him to fill the positions of well-educated Cubans who left the
island after Fidel Castro won power in 1959. Garcia taught metal working in a
Havana technical school.
Years later, one of his sons moved back to Moscow and married a Russian
woman. His other son, Antonio Garcia, mastered Russian in Cuba and still uses
the language when speaking with his mother.
``There are times that we use both languages, mixed,'' says Garcia, 37.
``Sometimes my mother tells me: 'Take the clothes down from the line because the
`dozhd' is coming.' That means rain.''
Until several years ago, many Cuban schools taught Russian. With the end of
Soviet communism, Cuban interest in the language waned. Some Russian teachers
returned home; others began teaching English.
But children in primary grades through high school can still learn the
tongue of Lenin from teachers who speak it fluently at Havana's Russian school.
Pavel Alba Arbakova, 9, is one of those going to the school this fall. His
Russian mother, Svetlana Arbakova, and Cuban father, Eduardo Alba Cabrera,
decided it would be good for him.
``He knows Russian, knows how to communicate with you. But he doesn't know
how to read or write,'' Alba says while driving the family's Soviet-made Lada
hatchback to visit friends after work.
``What I know how to do is talk,'' the boy blurts from the back seat.
Pavel says he considers himself mostly Russian; after all, he was born
there. But he looks like his Cuban father when he gestures with his hands,
raising an open palm or an index finger as Spanish words roll from his mouth.
His mother sells vodka and other imported goods inside the Russian Embassy
-- a walled complex topped with a colossal rectangular tower that dominates the
seaside landscape of Havana's Miramar district. She speaks Spanish, but is more
comfortable in her native tongue.
``The `official' language at home is Russian,'' Alba says. ``When the three
of us are talking, we speak in Russian.''
They also do other things foreign to most Cubans. They celebrate with a
costume party on New Year's Eve, eat hot soup in the summer and drink tea
instead of coffee.
Over tea at his friends' house, Alba looks across the table at the wife he
met studying in the Soviet Union. ``Are you happy, or are you married?'' he
quips.
``No,'' he says before she can answer, giggling and grinning. ``We're
happy.''
``I am happy,'' she says in accented Spanish. ``The country doesn't matter.
It's my family.''
AP-NY-09-05-98 1052EDT
Copyright 1998 The Associated Press. |