Please tell us about yourself.
My name is Nina Aguilar. I was born in the Ukraine to a Ukrainian father and a Russian mother. I studied Russian, Spanish and French at the Pedagogic University of Kiev. I fell in love with a Cuban and we married in the ex-Soviet Union. I came to Cuba in 1982 with a young child in my arms. I have been living in Havana for 37 years now. I came to Cuba, and I loved it. I still love Cuba.
So you have been living in a socialist system for all your life. What does this feel like?
I do not know what capitalism is. I know capitalism from studying Marx and Engels, and Lenin criticized capitalism a lot. I know socialism well. I lived in a socialist system until 1982, and here in Cuba I arrived in a socialist system once again. At my arrival, I knew that Cuba had been socialist since the revolution in 1959 and that the Soviet Union helped the country, along with other countries that belonged to the socialist alliance. I tell you one thing: it was as if Cuba were/had been state number sixteen of the Soviet Union. All the shops were Russian. Many products were from the Soviet Union, from ventilators to condensed milk.
What has happened to socialism since these days?
When it is well developed, then you can live well in socialism. With reforms and changes. What happened in the Soviet Union? It was the second greatest power in the world. Military power, power in space, economic power. But we cannot say that socialism was well developed there. They did not care enough about the population. I remember that in the shops, we looked for Italian clothes. We did not want any Russian clothes, because those were all the same.
What does socialism mean to you?
We often have American students staying with us and they are always surprised about the country because they come here and think that socialism is a monster. I always say to them: people who are educated in socialism have respect for each other. That is what I have observed. They are brothers, friends. They help each other and they help other countries. This is remarkable! No one is threatened. No one gets attacked.
Cuba assists other countries, especially in the medical sector. Cuban doctors are deployed in many countries. If there is an earthquake or any natural disaster, they take the next airplane and there they are.
Cuba has tried to correct many errors. There have been economic reforms. But Cuba is a Third World country. It does not have the same potential as the Soviet Union had. Cuba has some resources, it produces nickel, agricultural products such as coffee, sugar, and tourism is an important economic sector.
Here, we have different forms of property existing next to each other, cooperative and private property. You can open a restaurant. Why? In order to raise the income level.
There are two reasons for the impeded development in Cuba. One is the economic blockade of the United States and the other is natural catastrophes. As soon as we have recovered from a cyclone, a tornado hits. We deal with floods all the time. And this affects the economy a lot, especially agriculture. This also affects the population because houses are damaged. The money that people make from tourism they need to repair their houses.
How to improve the system? I am not a specialist but observing things, I would say: partly it is the responsibility of the government and part of it is the citizens’. Everyone has to work according to their capacity but salaries should be increased overall. Especially people in the medical sector, teachers, and professors have to be paid better in Cuba. There are hardly more important jobs than these. Doctors save lives. Teachers prepare children for the future. They are the future of the country. Increase pensions because no one can live off 300 pesos.
Claudia Sandberg led this conversation with Nina Aguilar in March 2019