Havana/The negotiated of Miguel Díaz-Canel’s wife, Lis costs, falls apart. In charge of the “world of events” of high -end related to tourism, and other positions that it has accumulated in recent years – never before being “First Lady” -, appeared on the weekend in the television program by blocking the box for expose the problems of your sector. As stated, the island at some point was “the fifth destination in events of the world”, with up to 2,000 activities but now it only has 230 of which only a few are sustainable.
Invited by the host of the programMarxlenin Pérez, to discuss “the economy of culture in Cuba”, Cuest Director of the New Millennium Editorial Group.
After a brief intervention of the Vice Minister, it finally talked about what his “world of work” considers, although he did not offer hardly specific data of the events he manages, but regretted that the culture is in a difficult time.
“The relationship with tourism and the world of events has a lot They have gone into minced in recent years.
Before the pandemic, he said, in Cuba a lot of activities were carried out. “We have had to reduce our catalog of events seeking quality, relevance, objectivity, looking at those phenomena that really affect us. Today we have stayed in 230 events. How many of them are economically sustainable? Less than half, ”he said.
The program is condensed in an issue: “Cultural events are a source of waste?”
With the question, Cuesta gave the forced foot to start the real debate, that the Condense program in an issue: “Are cultural events a source of waste?” The panelists answered no, but the reality they talked about indicates otherwise.
Not only the events that have managed to survive the economic debacle are mostly aimed at a foreign audience – the Jazz Plaza Festival, of Havano, of Ballet, among others – but those designed for Cubans are maintained for fear of the Popular reaction. “Tell the people of Santiago that you are going to remove the Caribbean Festival for the energy situation, to see what happens. He cannot remove it, ”says Cuesta, who attributes the decision to maintain those activities to the cultural vocation of the revolution. “Culture is not going to be merchandise,” already clarifies: “But it has to be sustainable.”
To achieve this, Jacomino Leon says to have a plan. “It is necessary, for example, that it does not pay the same for entering the Hemingway Museum a Cuban who lives in the community next door, because we need that foreigner to leave us the currency,” he proposes, a scheme that already already It was implemented for more than 20 years from the dollarization of the economy to the disappearance of the convertible weight in 2021, when the nationals paid in pesos and foreigners in currencies.
The official recalled that many of the island’s cultural spaces are subsidized by the State and, although it considers it an opportunity for Cubans to access them without paying high prices, think that the process is lost opportunities to obtain hard currency. “The Ballet show has to enter the Cuban public that has to pay it at a reasonable price, and the tourist has to enter, who is accustomed to seeing it in Europe paying 200, $ 300 and $ 400 for a function that many times cannot come in to see. And there you have to make a differentiation, ”he explains.
According to Cuesta, supporting the fair is almost an obligation because “Cuba is one of the few countries where huge queues are still made to buy books”
Do not do it, he adds, “it would be suicidal especially when we need that income to be reversed in the culture itself.”
The International Book Fair of Havana, which began this weekend coinciding with the savings measures that the State decreed – and that contemplated the suspension of any non -essential activity for the economy – was another issue of debate in quadling the box.
According to Cuesta, supporting the fair is almost an obligation because “Cuba is one of the few countries where huge queues are still made to buy books.” “I have a teenage nephew and the whole family contributes its economy so that I can go to the cabin,” he says, but admits: “We have to aspire to lower our editorial mattress, to publish everything we want, you have to know how much it is the price of paper in the international market ”.
For panelists, the fair is a sign that Cuba bets on culture and regrets that there is an “opinion matrix that is convinced otherwise.” However, none pointed out the “energy contingency” that surrounds the event and that makes many Cubans prefer a few more current than a diminished book sale.
This thought that, according to the program, maintains public opinion was criticized by Torres. “I cannot explain to you what it costs to do an event in the conditions that the events and the heroicity of which the classmates who organize the events are two, three months without sleep and without resting. I imagine that when you say how much it costs not only it refers from the monetary point of view, but to all the effort, all the sacrifice, ”he told Pérez.
“There are times, at certain junctures, in which the State cannot assume determined investment and there is a tactical replication of the State, but that tactical withdrawal cannot become a strategy,” said the spokesman, although his argument seems to go against of the economic plans of the island’s government.
