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I’ll see you in Cuba: Memories of battles at Museum of the Revolution

Of socialist souvenirs and memories of battles lost and won in Havana’s Museum of the Revolution.

cuba, havana, museum of the revolution, memories of battles, museum cuba, havana museum, cuba trip, cuba travel, indian express, indian express news The revolution never dies: Museum of the Revolution. (Source: Suman Basuroy)

“Look at the bullet holes in the marble wall,” says Ana Elena as we make our way to the second floor of the Presidential Palace in Havana. Elena, our official tour guide, is trying to draw our attention to the great white marble wall facing the staircase that has, what seems to be, over two dozen small, perfectly round bullet holes. I touch a few of them and my finger goes in about an inch inside one. I have been to many museums around the world but have never seen bullet holes sprayed on the main entrance wall that are perfectly preserved and on display. As I gaze at these bullet holes, the recent frightening television images from Charleston, Mumbai, Istanbul, Paris, Lahore, Kabul, London, Denver and so many places cross my mind — you feel rather eerie and uncomfortable at the sight.

But this is totally different; this is the Museo de la Revolución (Museum of the Revolution) in Havana, Cuba, and the historic bullet holes on the wall comes with an explanation: “The holes in the wall were made during the attack to the Presidential Palace on March 13, 1957. Members of the Revolutionary Directory, armed organisation of the University Students Federation, whose purpose was to execute the dictator Fulgencio Batista, carried out the attack.” The students arrived in two cars and a delivery truck (now on display outside the museum) and opened fire at the guards at the entrance, went up the same stairs that we took, and stormed Batista’s office on the second floor. Batista had escaped to the third floor through a hidden door next to his office. After a few hours of gun battle, almost 40 students were dead, along with several palace guards. You witness the chilling remnants of that bloody day on the walls. In the 2015 movie, Papa: Hemingway in Cuba, directed by Bob Yari, there is a scene of this attack on the Presidential Palace with Hemingway witnessing the gunfire, ducking behind a truck with the young journalist, Ed Myers, played by Giovanni Ribisi.

Signs of revolution in the streets of Havana. (Source: Suman Basuroy)

The museum is a gorgeous neoclassical building, inaugurated in 1920 and designed by a duo of Cuban-Belgian architects — Carlos Mauri and Paul Belau, and decorated by Tiffany of New York. We make our way quickly to the opulent rooms on the second floor. At the centre of the second floor is a lavish ballroom with Tiffany chandeliers, light fixtures, mirrors and a beautifully frescoed ceiling. In the next room, which is the Presidents’ Office, our guide points out a golden telephone resting on a small stool that was used by Batista and all the other presidents. A few days before departing for Cuba, I had watched Francis Ford Coppola’s classic The Godfather Part II (1974). In this sequel, Michael Corleone travels to Havana to discuss his future business prospects under protection from Batista. In one scene, Michael is in a meeting with several dignitaries and mafia men. Batista opens a wooden case and takes out a golden telephone and announces to his guests that it is a Christmas gift from the American Telephone and Telegraph Company. Upon my return to the US, I did some research and found that the golden telephone “is an icon representing power or communication with a higher power.” The golden telephone in the Museum was presented to Batista in an award ceremony in 1957 by the US Ambassador Arthur Gardner. Several rooms on the second floor are devoted to the history of the Moncada barrack attack of 1953, and one can see the model apartment where the plan of the attack was conceived,  and the robe that Fidel wore in the court to defend himself where he delivered the historic “History will absolve me” speech.

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Children taking a break. (Source: Suman Basuroy)

Then, we make our way to the rear entrance of the Museum to see the ‘Granma’, housed in the Memorial Granma Pavillion. There are lots of tourists from all over the world — French, German, Spanish and Latin Americans. Among them, I notice a young French girl of about four or five, holding her parents’ hands and walking in front of us. Her parents point out the Granma to her, the yacht in which Fidel and 81 of his comrades came to Cuba from Mexico, now displayed in an air-conditioned glass enclosure. We climb the wooden stairs leading to the platform that surrounds the circular enclosure. The yacht is rather small, only about 13 metres in length and our guide tells us that it should only hold about 10 to 12 people. It was bought in October of 1956 with money raised in the United States. On the night of November 25, 1956, Fidel and Raul Castro, Che Guevara, Camilo Cienfuegos and 78 other revolutionaries of the 26th of July Movement sailed for Cuba from the Mexican port of Tuxpan, Veracruz. After a very difficult sea voyage, they landed in Playa Las Coloradas in the Oriente Province, now called the Granma province. This is the same landing point where Jose Marti had landed 61 years earlier to free Cuba from Spanish colonial rule. About this journey, Che Guevara would later write: “We reached solid ground, lost, stumbling along like so many shadows or ghosts marching in response to some obscure psychic impulse. We had been through seven days of constant hunger and sickness during the sea crossing.”

Cuba celebrates the landing of the Granma on December 2 every year as the Day of Cuban Armed Forces. I see the little French girl lift her left hand, pointing to the Granma and asking her mother: “Pourquoi le bateau est-il enfermé ici derrière le verre et pas dans l’océan si près? (Why is the boat enclosed behind the glass and not on the ocean?). A fairly reasonable question. Her mother responds: “C’était sa destination. C’était leur destin. (This was its destination. It was their destiny.)

First uploaded on: 24-09-2017 at 00:00 IST
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