Iron Curtain Remnants

Iron Curtain Remnants

I guess there isn't any iron curtain anymore, and its disappearance has lost for us a big subject of curiosity. Most of us never did venture beyond the iron curtain when it did exist, and now satisfying that curiosity isn't even possible. Well, that is if you don't count Cuba.

Cuba happily placed itself behind that curtain shortly after its successful revolution in 1959. They adopted communist ways and we all watched as their gradual separation from our western world took place. Pretty soon it was hard to get there, even though the island is almost our closest neighbor.

Even today, vestiges of life on the other side of the iron curtin remain. On the streets are an inordinate number of Ladas, a little Russian car that looks like a Fiat and doesn't work any better, either. Cars are precious in Cuba, and if one breaks down, it is repaired by any means possible. Cars are never junked, and local mechanics give them more lives than a cat.

But it isn't just the old cars that hint at the iron curtain. Cuba has a fleet of taxis as modern as any. For the most part they are Kias and Hyundais. A few newer Peugeots can be seen as well. These South Korean and French cars come from the western side of the iron curtain, but it is the absence of modern US cars that tells us of the long years of curtained separation.

By far the most impressive vehicles you can see in Cuba today are the new Yutong buses which come from China. They are streamlined, comfortable, quiet, and ubiquitous. It would be hard to find a bus in the US today that matches them as they move tourists to all parts of the island. They pull up and idle at Havana's big hotels while hordes of Brits, Germans, Spanish, and French board, deboard, and move their luggage around. The omnipresence of Yutong buses speaks to the growing influence of China in today's Cuban life.

Yes, if you look, you can still see vestiges of the iron curtain in Cuba, but it is a different country today than it was in the years before the Soviet Union self destructed. Then it was a secretive, cloistered place suspicious of strangers, while today's Cuba courts tourists from anywhere and moves them around their lovely island in the most beautiful buses you've ever seen.

Les Inglis