Cuba Has Arrived

Five years after embarking on market reforms, a revolution of a different sort is taking place in one of the World’s last Communist countries.

- Aaron De Silva

Cuba. The name itself has acquired somewhat of a mythical aura, conjuring images of vintage American cars against a backdrop of Spanish colonial buildings, patinated but striking in their faded glory; bronzed locals puffing away on Cubanos, swilling rum or quaffing chilled daiquiris a la Ernest Hemingway, perhaps at a social club where the infectious rhythms of salsa, rumba, son and timba play out all day long.

In recent months, the world has turned its attention to this island nation, thanks in part to the latter’s thawing relations with its giant neighbour just 150km away, the United States. Embassies in Havana and Washington reopened last July after 54 years of frosty relations. This comes on the back of economic reforms promoted by Cuban President Raul Castro in 2011. Away from the political arena, no less than The Rolling Stones performed in Havana in March, while in May, Chanel and Zenith both held major global events in the capital, just as Vin Diesel began filming the next instalment of the Fast & Furious franchise.

It is not hard to see why the entertainment industry has set its sights on the country – there is a definitive filmic quality to the technicolour, occasionally crumbling facades of Havana’s historic buildings and the gentle, sweeping arc of the seafront promenade, the Malecon. But luxury brands like Chanel and Zenith – the very epitome of capitalism – muscling in on one of the world’s last bastions of communism? That raised a few eyebrows.