Light waste in Casalinda, the new Dollar store in Havana, where was the Ten Cels

Havana/In a totally shortage country, the “most complete store in Cuba” opened its doors on Saturday, in the most busy corner in Havana, in Galiano with San Rafael, where the famous Ten Cels was. The Casalinda Shopping Center, created by a mixed company between the Cuban State and the Italian ItSAV, offers “home and person products”, that all in dollars with the classic card or in US tickets.

Just two years have passed since the premises, where the popular transval hardware store was closed, and nothing less than a year and a half since It was announced What trade would take your place. This morning, hours before opening the market, still the lack of transparency surrounded the building. “You have to wait for the leaders to come,” replied an employee, with a newly released yellow and blue uniform with the company logo.

Until the last minute, Casalinda’s Facebook profile on Facebook did not announce the inauguration. That did not prevent the facade from in front of the facade, a little before ten in the morning, a small tail began to assemble, under the watchful eye of several Red berets (Army prevention troops). With the sun already entering the portal, the clients took refuge in the shadow of the columns waiting for the doors to open, which complied with the standard of unpunctuality so widespread on the island. The store did not allow buyers to enter until after noon.

“I found out because I went here yesterday, but they have not said anything anywhere. Very quiet who have done it,” he told 14ymedio A woman who joined the row with other relatives. His goal, “buying soap and cleaning things” that in their Luyanó neighborhood are not achieved so easily but fundamentally “look and walk through a new, beautiful and full of things.” In his portfolio, he confessed that he only had three dollars.

Others asked about the currency used in Casalinda and continued by knowing that the store only accepts the American currency, something different from what is initially announced. The plan, according to the official press in 2023, was to sell in freely convertible currency (MLC), but the circumstances of the country have changed. The Casalinda shopping center is part of today Battalion of new stores that open their doors in dollars.

Located on the magnificent facade a few meters from the Havana Boulevard, a screen announces its political products and messages with the image of Ernesto Che Guevara. Within the premises, the full shelves welcomed the clients to whom the opening has taken by surprise after so long in which it seemed that reopening was imminent but never confirmed.

The first remodeling works of the place datan in January 2024, when they polished the floor of the entrance. That was the first opening date that the authorities had given. It did not materialize. Very slowly, news were adding, without the doors opened or news.

For a few days, through the windows it was guessed that this time the thing was serious. Shelves full of shampoo, conditioner, detergent, cleaning liquids and a wide variety of personal and domestic hygiene products were visible from the outside. With the face attached to the crystal, passersby sought on Thursday some signal that would give away what had confirmed employees of a business close to 14ymedio A few weeks ago: in Casalinda, no Cuban weights.

“We accepted dollars and classic cards, visa or mastercard,” an employee explained to two women who approached early to be interested in the offers of the new premises. Before the discomfort that came out of the mouths of both clients when he heard the answer, the worker went further and invited them to look for the Fulas To get the hair dyes and facial creams on display: “To tell Daddy to recharge!”, The man ironized.

Once inside, a poster indicates that Casalinda is “the best store for your family” and on the roof of the large room on the ground floor all the lamps shine, almost blinding for some users increasingly accustomed to the gloom of the blackouts. In a corner, in the background, the soap and water letterhead, the Italian firm in the hands of Bartolomeo Sabina Tito.

The Italian businessman, president of the Itrsav conglomerate, has a long relationship with Castroism. Since the beginning of the dollarization, in the 90s, the products with the company logo filled the shelves of the very popular stores of all by one that extended on the island. From cleanliness supplies to any type of plastic baratijas, their merchandise entered the cuban stores, houses and kitchens.

The merchant has been managing the Casalinda digital portal for years, in which he sells food, home decoration, drinks and plastic furniture. But the cherry of the cake of his business on the island is, without a doubt, the opening of the premises in Centro Habana, located in one of the most important mercantile arteries of the city, with an impressive capacity to house merchandise and clients, in addition to being an indissolubly linked to the economic imaginary of the capital. The opening on Saturday of the Casalinda physical store places it at the head of foreign entrepreneurs linked to trade in Cuba.

The history of the building where Casalinda is now well could serve as a metaphor to tell the complicated paths that trade in Cuba has followed in the last 66 years. Before January 1959, when Fidel Castro and his nationalizing fever took power, the three -storey place housed the very popular Ten Cels, from the American chain Woolworth. Shortly after he was renamed, under the strict standards of the rationed market, as Galiano varieties.

In the 90s, the fall of the socialist field plunged the giant of stores per department of Havana in shortage and structural deterioration. From that dark period, it emerged with dollarization, from the hand of the Trasval hardware store, managed by the military and currently in the list of Cuban companies sanctioned by the United States. In those years, the beautiful neoclassical -style building was filled with tools, furniture and even garden barbecue.

Then, he fell into crisis again. The painting of the walls began to fade, the dust covered the wide portal and the darkness swallowed its large rooms. Thus, until in 2023 the news was disseminated that the Italian company Italsav and the Cuban Caribbean stores had signed an international economic association contract to manage the Varieties Galiano Casalinda shopping center.

Together with the Spanish Vima and the Mexican Richmeat, Itrsav has always had the shadow of actually being a business of the regime registered abroad. The three companies are practically unknown in their countries of origin and the quality of the products they sell in the Cuban markets are far from what they could trade under the strict regulations of the European Union or under Mexican standards.

With a neat suit and escorted by two great portraits of Fidel and Raúl Castro, Sabina Tito is seen in one of the few photographs that are known. It extends her hand to strengthen that of Ana María Ortega, general director of the Caribbean stores, the state company with which a couple of years ago sealed the agreement for the management of the Casalinda market. The Italian smiles kindly and with that image disappears again from the official Cuban media.