The Museum of the Revolution: As Americans, we didn’t feel much love here. You can imagine why.
What follows are snippets of the most interesting things we saw.
This building used to be the Presidential Palace. What do you do when you overthrow the government to form an egalitarian society, and find yourself with a giant palace? Why you make it into a museum, of course!
One of the most important battles of the revolution actually took place inside this palace and left bullet holes as an eerie reminder.
This place was, indeed, palatial. It was far and away the most lavish place we saw in Cuba.
Corner of the Cretins. The plaques read as follows. “Ronald Regan: Thank you cretin for helped us TO STRENGTHEN THE REVOLUTION. George Bush Sr: Thank you cretin for helped us TO CONSOLIDATE THE REVOLUTION. W Bush. Thank you cretin for helped us TO MAKE SOCIALISM IRREVOCABLE.”
This third grader’s drawing won an honorable mention in a contest to represent the spirit of the Museum of the Revolution for an anniversary event. It was shocking to me at first, because we wouldn’t usually reward this kind of thing in the US. But taken in the context of the larger rhetoric… perhaps it’s not so surprising.
The tank reads “26 of June. Constructed by the workers of C. Andreita”
A recurring motif from our trip was that if Cubans are lacking something, they *will* figure out a way to make it. Including armored vehicles. Out of tractors.
The gift shop has a selection of books, all are used, and over half are about the United States taking military action against Latin America.
Those subtitles do not mean the same thing. Read carefully…
“Between 1971 and 1989, CIA agents introduce in Cuba the pigs fever virus. More than one million animals died and so the supplies of pig meat for the population decreased.”
“Body of one of the members of the commando that took over the Civil Hospital. He was murdered on the 26th”
This giant barrel was put out on the street to collect voluntary donations for agrarian reform. Imagine what they could have done with Kickstarter.
