Dear Readers:
Everybody has probably read about the arrival of a small Russian flotilla (from Russia’s Northern Fleet) into the Havana harbor. For a Meet & Greet and Visual Display for the American benefit.
KP reporter Sergei Gapchuk describes how the residents of this Cuban port are thrilled to see the Russians back in town.
Cubans have flocked to the port every to look at the boats. Yesterday (Saturday) was no different. As always, the Russians agreed to allow willing tourists to board [what? it doesn’t say.. one of the boats? the submarine?] – В субботу, 15 июня, желающих снова будут пускать на борт...
A colleague from the RIA Novosti news agency interviewed a Havana resident named Gabriel Soneira: “My children have never seen a submarine before. Neither have I. Nor have we ever seen such a big tug. We simply couldn’t pass up the opportunity to come here and enjoy this naval spectacle.”
KP spoke to military expert Viktor Baranets, who offered his opinion, why Russia has dispatched this rocket-bearing frigate, a submarine, and few other boats to the shores of Cuba. In his words, the arrival of this flotilla caused a genuine sensation on the Island of Freedom. It was met by the Cuban army, with all military honors. The frigate, the Admiral Gorshkov, carries cruise missiles; and the nuclear-powered submarine, the Kazan, also carries powerful rockets. Say no more!
Awful Avalanche 
That sounds exciting to be let on to a modern naval ship!
I remember many years ago in Vancouver (or maybe it was Victoria?) where the Russian Navy had a wooden sailing ship with masts and sails and everything (and engines of course) in harbour where they let us tourists come on board for pictures and tours about the ship, how they sailed it, history, etc. That was a fun day
Lucky Cubans! I have a feeling that this sort of visit will not happen again in Canada for at least a generation, or longer depending on how long it takes for the West to sort itself out.
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I’ve been on a few ships before. I’d even be willing to tour a Russian submarine, in spite of my claustrophobia!
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No problem with claustrophobia for a Yasen-class submarine. They’re 13 000 tonne ships 130 metres long. It’s like being in a cruise liner. And no problem with overcrowding — they’re so mechanised there are only 80 crew.
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One has to question the timing of this visit. I would have thought that anyone in the Northern Fleet would want to plan such a visit in January or February not in June.
IIRC, the Canadian navy always used to carry out Caribbean exercises in the winter. If they have any spare ships, they probably still do.
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Why does it have to be in winter, I don’t get that?
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Think of the mean temperature in Murmansk in February and the mean temperature in Havana in February. I am making the assumption than most of the people in the Northern Fleet are neither rabid skiers nor avid fans of ice-fishing.
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Well, I think they probably sail where they are ordered to sail, regardless of their personal wishes or the season(?)
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Well, I think they probably sail where they are ordered to sail, regardless of their personal wishes or the season(?)
Oh, definitely, but on “show the flag ” cruises there may be a bit of latitude < and a bit of lobbying. 🙂
BTW, you mention, somewhere, that Carlos Fernández de Cossío Domínguez, Cuba’s Deputy Foreign Minister, was complaining about the US and Canadian ships visiting but I cannot see any indication that Cuba was particularly upset by the visit of HMCS Margaret Brooke. They may not be overly pleased but they don’t seem all that upset.
Given the number of Canadians who visit Cuba it may be something like a reunion. I, sometimes, think I am the only Canadian I know who has not been there.
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AustralianLady mentioned, in her comment, that Canada’s Prime Minister is most likely the child of Fidel Castro. It true, that might explain the emotional connection between Canadians and Cubans. Although I secretly hope it isn’t true, because how could a great man like Fidel spawn such a weasel? Oh well, I suppose it happens sometimes.
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This visit was planned/disclosed a year ago. It’s just anglo-media-world making a big deal of it. I am sure there are Russian subs stationed off the east & west coast of the US already.
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Because you mentioned the Canajun navy, allow me to drop a link about what the Great Wet North did in response to the Russian sub’s visit. Apologies that the link is to ZeroHedge, a festering hive of filth and villainy. A friend sent this to me and I can’t be bothered to search for a better source. As far as posts from the Hedge go, it’s not as bad as most of their coverage. I skimmed a bit of the comment section and it wasn’t filled with Nazis like the site used to be several years ago. The place was worse than UNZ, Yalensis. Maybe they’re cleaning it up.
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/us-nuclear-attack-sub-canadian-warship-cuba-just-behind-russian-naval-group
To sum it up for those who don’t click, Amerika sent an attack submarine to pop up in its Cuban Prison Colony as a response to the Russian visit, and the Canoopoodles followed with one of their surface ships. Which were probably tracking the Russian flotilla. Nothing odd there; that’s just how life in the maritime military world goes. It just amused me that the Canadians were tag-alongs. Did you ever read “The Black Book of Canadian Foreign Policy” Kane? I got a copy of that when I lived in Vancouver. It detailed a lot about how Canada used to act as the Brutish Empire’s policeman in the Caribbean, something that I never knew. Which explains why there are so many good places to get Jamaican meat pies in Toronto!
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Thanks for the interesting comment and link Bukko. I read the hedge piece and it’s not bad. Even the comment section is not as bad as it used to be, I mean, I just skimmed it quickly, but the comments seemed mostly on point, some mild banter, lots of Moose & Squirrel jokes. Nothing really hateful or Khazarian jumped out at me. Maybe you’re right, they decided to clean out the neo-Naughty filth? I sure hope so!
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According to several of the well-known US pundits, Russian navy ships visiting Cuba are an annual affair. So not new at all. Takes months of planning and is not carried out off the cuff. But, considering the state of the war, more public fuss was made by both sides this time / year. Can’t speak for Cubans gazing at the flotilla in Havana, but I notice it was the sub that got mention as a first time see, not the frigate.
Back in ’56 I visited a Soviet ship as a kid living in Portsmouth UK. Just a tour about the main deck, open to the public. It was the cruiser Ordzhonikidze that carried Khruschev ad Bulganian to talks in England. A British frogman lost his life having a dekko at the ship’s underside.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/hampshire/8345951.stm
That article I link doesn’t jive with why I and many schoolboys went to watch these Soviet ships cruise in, and then visit them. The newsrags had complained that the Soviet cruiser had maintained 40 knots whizzing down the North Sea “and why doesn’t the Royal Navy have ships like that?” Usual British Daily Mirror/Express/Mail bullshit. So frogman Crabb died checking out the propellers.
There are dozens of online articles about the ’56 visit to the UK. First overseas trip by Soviet leaders after Stalin croaked.
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Very interesting. I wonder if there is any truth to that rumor that Crabb got his head cut off by a Soviet diver. Wouldn’t it be difficult to cut somebody’s whole head off underwater? It would be easier to just cut their oxygen tank line, I imagine.
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I was quite a warship fan when I was a kid, and I had to admit that those Russian cruisers of the Sverdlov class were beautiful — every bit as beautiful as the American Newport News class. Apparently the original Soviet gun-cruiser, the Kirov, was largely designed by Italians (who were the big dogs in cruiser design between the wars, although the Italian Navy never knew how to use them properly).
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Fascinating!
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According to Martyanov they could visit the upper deck of the Admiral Gorshkov.
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Oh, thanks! That makes sense. So tourists can visit the upper deck of the Gorshkov, but not the Kazan nor the submarine. Even so, I bet this is a real treat for little Cuban kids.
P.S. – that CNN tool, Matthew Chance, is pure CIA implant, if ever there was one. He is not a real newsman, all he does is carry water for the Hegemon for many years now.
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P.S. – just watched the CNN clip again and noticed, on second viewing, a hilarious Freudian slip on the part of the female puppet. After dismissing Matthew and moving on to the Havana story, she burbles: “And now thanks very much to Matthew from Moscow tonight. And now, as promised that exclusive asset… I mean access that we have gained…”
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I’m in the mood to reminisce.
We spent several months tied to a concrete pier at Hemingway Marina, about 20 minutes by bus from Havana. This was during the latter part of the Obama administration regime, when Fidel was still alive. We were preparing to passage through the Panama Canal into the Pacfic. Back then there were cruise ships in the harbour, not Russian battleships and subs, though I had my suspicions about this U.S. rapprochement with Cuba even then- was this the groundwork for another “colour revolution “, this time in white? Those who were disenchanted with the revolution were clad in eye catching white, quite photogenic against all that tropical colour. I suspected state department NGO activity, and there were plenty of “gimme 5” posters plastered around. The westerners there were an interesting lot. Some U.S. yachties who sailed from Mexico, and quite a lot of Canadian tourists with the benefit of that “special relationship” with Cuba that I’ve mentioned before. Lots of Canadian imported food in the few western styled not-so-supermarkets, for example. And yes, I do suspect that Justin Trudeau is Fidel’s love child. They really do look alike, Fidel being one of those aristocratically pale Iberian types of Cuban. Of course Trudeau is foolish enough to imagine he is a revolutionary too.
Money could be a difficulty too far- our card was not accepted there (sanctioned) so we had to give our card to a Canadian air steward holidaying on a yacht who returned with the cash from Canada on a working flight. Canada had direct flights into Havana. Then we managed to get onto the much more affordable black market local currency and could buy vegetables, fruit and fresh pork from the local Saturday market. The guavas were divine.
So was Havana. Imagine walking through this lovely dilapidated city where live bands play those Cuban rhythms and couples dance the salsa con muchos brio at lunchtime! Ah those Cubans, they are irrepressible. They have a speakers’ corner, and a local art market on Sundays on the Prado. There appeared to be a tolerant attitude to homosexuality. They like small dogs, often seen in the windows of the Havana houses that are right up against the pavements, and on the balconied second stories washing flaps and women sit perched on chairs against a sky of clouds and sunshine. All the women seem to have been ballerinas, and the men boxers.
One of the most wondrous things I’ve ever seen in my life was when we were walking through the main Havanan thoroughfare one evening. The light there at that precious time of the evening guilds everything in that golden honeyed colour (the east side of New York, from the 79th street yacht marina, sometimes undergoes this magical transformation). In the middle of an intersection of busy streets, with the traffic moving in all directions, was a couple embracing and passionately kissing, oblivious to everything except each other. It was the most spontaneously romantic thing ever, a couple overwhelmed by love and light.
Of course there are those cars, a veritable cavalcade of retro motors, but often the flashy ones can be operated by Cuban sleazebags, so dilapidated ones are preferable. I loved the way mechanical repairs are performed streetside. Eating out was possible in private home specially liscenced to serve food and beer, like the excellent casa particulars that provide accommodation for tourists. And the Museum of the Revolution is not to be missed. Loved those diaramas of the revolutionary battles. I also loved the very extensive botanical gardens (Cuba actually practices genuine green ecology). We tourists were driven to the distant parts of the gardens in a trailer pulled by an ancient red tractor, like a life sized dinky toy. And in the little restaurant there we ate the best cinnamon icecream ever, second helpings please! (No doubt a recipe courtesy of the Russians).
I’m writing from a hospital bed right now, and doctors are trying to work out why I’m experiencing a very debilitating sodium deficiency. Thanks yalensis for this topic which has given me joy to write and think about.
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Thanks for sharing a great, well written memory…get well dear lady!
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What wonderful memories! Thanks for these stories, AustralianLady. Cuban culture and people sound truly awesome. I hope you get better soon, I am glad you can write comments from your hospital bed, so please keep us posted as to your medical progress.
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My wife and I went to Santiago. The place itself was glorious (best rum on the island, best drunk on a hotel balcony overlooking the plaza, apparently where Graham Greene stayed when he was writing Our Man in Havana). The mountain range visible from the city is the Sierra Maestra, where Fidel lurked and plotted under the banana-leaves, fortified with iced mojitoes from El Commandante’s personal gas-operated refrigerator. We went up the hill (on a Russian-built road) to visit the refrigerator and other things which are up there, and on the way our guide discovered we were from South Africa. Being black he naturally wanted to know what the hell this thing called apartheid had been, so we told him about it. But when we started to explain about the segregated toilets, he became angry. “I may be just a small-town Cuban,” he fumed, “but you can’t fool me with nonsense like that! Nobody would do something like that!”
Sigh. Good times.
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So fascinating. I love that Castro had his own refrigerator out in the mountains, the man had class!
It’s hilarious that your guide thought you were spoofing him with the segregated toilets thing in South Africa. It must sound so ridiculous, but it was a real thing. That was also a thing in the American South, in the Jim Crow era. Have you seen the Hollywood movie “Hidden Figures”? about a group of Southern black women mathematicians who worked for NASA as human computers, before actual computers were invented. They got the gig because white men and even white women mathematicians were in short supply. The action takes place in the South, where state regulations require separate bathrooms for Negroes.
A major plot point revolves around the toilet situation. The white women workers have a bathroom near the shop floor, but the black women have to walk half a mile off campus to use a segregated bathroom. The team manager (played by Kevin Costner) eventually has to deal with the situation, because productivity is going down, given all the time needed for bathroom breaks.
This stuff really happened. The underlying reason in a caste system such as the Indian caste system or the American racial-caste system (this is unpleasant to talk about) is that the lower caste (Negroes, in this case) were traditionally relegated to dirtier jobs, and so the higher caste didn’t want to share sanitary facilities with “dirty” people. Ironically, the higher caste expected those same “dirty” people to clean THEIR bathrooms. And, even more ironically, they often expected them to cook THEIR meals. With those same “dirty” hands! I never understood that bit, myself. I mean, if I own a filthy disgusting slave who cleans my house all day and sanitizes my bathroom and changes my baby’s nappy, then I for one DON’T want that person to touch my food. Does that actually make sense to anyone? And yet black slaves were also the cooks!
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