The 3rd and 70th Supermarket in Havana, emblem of dollarization, half empty and with unpayable prices

Havana/A little over a year has passed since the grand opening of the Supermarket 3rd and 70figurehead of dollarization in Cuba, but it seems like a lifetime. The establishment, located on the ground floor of the luxurious Gran Muthu Habana hotel, in Miramar, is far from being the one whose shelves were completely full and stocked with variety. Although still clean and well lit, it is now just a shadow of that.

Bare rows, shelves repeatedly occupied by the same product and prohibitive prices even for those who receive remittances or income in foreign currency, is the panorama that the supermarket offered this Wednesday. “If this is empty, anything can be expected, because it was the best stocked store in the country,” says a Havana woman who used to shop at the supermarket since it opened.

Where once preserves, pastas, oils or cleaning products were alternated, now only metal shelves remain. In other sections, scarcity is disguised by an artificial overabundance, with the same item repeated over and over again, as if quantity replaced variety. “There are more empty spaces than normal,” says a customer as he walks through the store without a cart, aware that there is not much to choose from.

Added to this poverty of supply is the problem of prices. The few products available are sold at “excessively expensive” prices, according to several buyers. These same items – or equivalent – ​​can be found on the street, in informal markets, and paid for in Cuban pesos, although at the cost of illegality and runaway inflation. The supermarket, conceived as a showcase of order and supply, has lost any advantage over informal commerce.

One of the clearest symbols of this transformation was the closure of the market that operated in freely convertible currency (MLC) in front of the same establishment on 3rd and 70th, with the same name. Not only has it been “dismantled,” says a local resident, but it has also been converted into a warehouse for the neighboring market that operates in dollars. “This is the prince and the pauper,” the man says ironically, summarizing the coexistence of privileged spaces for those who can pay in foreign currency and the growing precariousness for the rest.

Opened on January 31, 2024, the 3rd and 70th Supermarket was the first of the establishments that paid exclusively in dollars, which since then began to proliferate in all Cuban cities. Destined to supply foreign currency to a State that was increasingly scarce, they offered in exchange, at least, the illusion of variety and abundance. Now, it is nothing more than a shell displaying an economic system in a terminal phase.