Havana Cuba. – “The first supermarket managed by foreign investors will open in Havana”, “An Italian company will open a supermarket in Cuba”, different media have published in recent days. According to how they have replicated the news, it seems that there is now confidence in the Cuban economy and that foreign investors began to fall, attracted by business opportunities with the communist regime.
However, when it is announced that this “new” business comes from Italsav and its owner, the Italian Berto Savina, an old friend of the Castros, we immediately recognize that it is, as the saying goes, the same dog, even with the same necklace
And it is that Berto Savina has been in Cuba for more than 30 years with the same business, which he has been renaming as economic circumstances demand. In addition, the Cuban counterpart is, in reality, the true owner of what in principle (in the 1990s) were called “Todo por 1” stores (when one dollar was equivalent to 1 convertible peso or CUC) and which, by losing value and meaning the system of the double national currency, was quickly transformed into the chains of establishments named “Bubbles”, and “Soap and water”where too many price limits were not established.
“In the propiety [Italsav] has been the exclusive supplier in agreement with TRD Caribe since the mid-90s”, he explained to CubaNet, on condition of anonymity, a former official of the Ministry of Foreign Trade and Foreign Investment (MINCEX). “But both those [Todo por 1] Until the current Agua y Soap, have been created and administered by the GAE (GAESA), as well as the new supermarket; The difference with the above is that it will expand the types of products for sale, they will no longer be just hygiene and beauty items, now they will include food and even some electrical appliances (…). It is a new concept that stems from that Todo por 1, which later had to be renamed ‘Todo por un precio’ when the initial concept that each issued CUC had to be backed by a physical dollar was lost. When it became unsustainable, the [establecimientos] Soap and water, and Bubbles, following the Italian business models suggested by Savina himself, although the final decision is made by the GAE”.
Berto Savina had imported the original idea to Cuba from the “Tutto a 1000 lire” establishments. GAESA liked the proposal and in just a few weeks it was successfully implemented in all Tiendas Caribe stores.
“[Al inicio] some refused saying that it was something very capitalist”, he told CubaNet a GAESA source. “But in the midst of the shortage, they could not refuse, even less when they realized that Berto could be useful in other things. That’s why the company grew. Italsav would have been nothing if the Cuban government had rejected it. It can be said that it is a Cuban company that operates in Italy, not an Italian company that operates in Cuba, that is the truth”.
Savina, the tourist who stayed to do business
According to Berto Savina himself, in interview with an Italian media outletHis first visit to Cuba was made as a tourist in 1991, in the midst of the so-called “Special Period”, the serious economic crisis that occurred after the collapse of the socialist camp in Eastern Europe.
But already as early as 1992, according to information published in Italsav slr’s own official page, began to import merchandise to Cuba for an average of between 10 and 15 containers per month. Currently there are more than 80 containers per month; and add up to more than 1,600 containers moved to the Island in the last year, including the company’s own merchandise and some favors done to the Cuban Government at its request and even on personal initiative, such as donations of medical supplies made during the wave of COVID-19.
Although he has also said that the idea of creating Italsav was born from his desire to help Cubans, after learning about the deficiencies and hardships they suffer, the truth is that his company’s own reports speak of a turnover of more than 10 million of dollars only between 1992 and 1994 in sales to Cuba, a figure that has increased to more than 300 million in 30 years of operations.
“Berto arrived in Cuba in 1990. He came with several of Tony’s Italian friends. [Antonio] Castro, although I didn’t know him personally,” says a source closely linked to Fidel Castro’s son on condition of anonymity. I don’t remember if he was Sandro Cristoforetti who introduced them in Varadero but the following year he came to bring him some car parts and two gift boxes of wine. They became good friends and it was then that he began to import the first goods for Todo por 1. At first he used the containers from Sandro’s business [Cristoforetti]. They left Cuba loaded with tobacco and rum, headed for the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Italy, Asia, and then returned with everything that was sold in Todo por 1. Later, Berto created his own logistics because in a couple of years, with all the cheap merchandise he brought, he was earning more than Sandro with rum and tobacco.”
By 1996, Berto Savina’s company, with the support of Tony Castro, had billed another 10 million dollars, a figure that, according to various sources consulted by CubaNetpossibly tripled for the Cuban counterpart of TRD Caribe which, also according to information from the company itself, had extended the Todo por 1 business to more than 45 points of sale, in addition to several Benetton brand establishments, and having absorbed almost 100% of the distribution of “Cuba” stamp souvenir items in all hotels and airports on the Island.
Possibly such success, as well as the proximity to the Castro clan, meant that Berto Savina was included among the Italians who were able to get close and share with Fidel Castro during the visit that the dictator made to the Vatican in November 1996.
From that date to the present, Berto Savina has been received with honors in Cuba by both Raúl Castro and Miguel Díaz-Canel, after he was appointed as president.
It is precisely those moments of intimacy with the dictatorship that the Italian businessman likes to display on the walls of his office, because they are the ones who have made his small fortune from Cuba, increased in more than 50 points of sale for water and soap (distributed by Island), 20 Bubbles, eight businesses selling children’s toys, among others. In addition, he owns the exclusive distribution in Cuba of Benetton and the brands Yamamay, Carpisa, Paglieri, Mil Mil, Conter, Bergen, Mirato and Italsilva.
Dinosaurs for the regime dinosaurs and fireworks
Individual prosperity in Cuba absolutely always comes hand in hand with loyalty and complicity to all tests with the dictatorship. Berto Savina’s business had started out arousing distrust in some communist leaders, including Fidel Castro himself, but ended up liking everyone because of the dividends it left behind, without risking too much, but also because of the utility represented by dozens of containers arriving at Cuban ports. from Europe without much control.
Between soaps, detergents, perfumes, body creams, and trinkets, the Italian also imported everything they asked for for his friends in the regime, from car parts, including bodywork, to household items that left directly unloaded from the port of Havana to their final destination, in the home of a high-ranking military man.
The regime placed so much trust in Berto Savina that in 2006, to celebrate Fidel Castro’s 80th birthday, the dictator’s own son ordered the friend a load of fireworks that the businessman later entered the island without no type of obstacle, having camouflaged the load of explosives between the merchandise containers to be able to transit without problems through the Panama Canal.
“It was such a big load that there were leftovers to later celebrate the 81st birthday, although everything was done as if it were part of the carnival,” he told CubaNet a source consulted on condition of protecting his identity. “The 1980s and 1981s were celebrated. On television they put it as part of the carnival but they were the fireworks that Berto gave Fidel,” the source concludes.
In 2019, for the celebrations of the 500th anniversary of the founding of Havana, Berto would repeat the adventure of evading port controls to pass explosives, this time in an even larger load that was justified by the gift of 12 life-size replicas. of animatronic dinosaurs that were later installed in the so-called Forest Park, near the so-called Zoo 26, in Nuevo Vedado.
“I don’t think it was a joke,” says a source close to the businessman. “Berto is very careful with that, he knows that his business depends on the Cuban government, that if he falls into disgrace it ends. Although it is funny that he thought of hiding the fireworks in the same load as the dinosaurs. Someone told me later that the dinosaurs were commissioned by William [García Frías] to put them on his farm, and that they finally didn’t let him, or that they convinced him to donate them to the park. (…) Berto has always repeated that it was a gift. A tremendous gift for these guys who are really dinosaurs, and the funniest thing is that they put the explosives inside,” the source concludes.
In November 2019, exceptionally, a great fireworks display illuminated the night of celebrations for the 500 years of Havana, but very few of those who watched in amazement from the public were aware that the lights in the sky —which was said to be a gift from an “Italian friend of Cuba”— had actually paid for them themselves.
The same millions of Cubans tired of making sacrifices to buy with dollars despite receiving their salary in pesos are the ones who have made a business more Cuban than Italian prosper. Now with the new Italsav supermarket, there is no doubt that they are going for more.
