Now Reuters offers us a sob story of Russian women who migrated there and now live to regret it.
HAVANA (Reuters) - They came from Russia with love to a tropical socialist utopia when the going was good.My heart breaks.
They were young women romantically drawn to Fidel Castro's revolution, a breath of fresh air on a distant Caribbean island for those who were disillusioned with Soviet communism.
But when the Soviet Union fell apart in 1991, hundreds of Russian women who married Cubans and moved to Cuba were cut off from home and stranded in poverty as the Cuban economy plunged into deep crisis.
For those who had lived through the hardships of World War II in Russia as children, the long blackouts and the lack of food, medicine and fuel for transport were a cruel flashback.
"We were young and Cuba was beautiful when we got here," said film historian Zoia Barash, who arrived in 1963. Cuban leaders were so young compared to the Soviet gerontocracy and abstract art was not seen as incompatible with communism.
Her hopes of finding "true socialism" were dashed, though, as Cuba copied the Soviet model, with sweltering heat added.
"Today our situation is difficult, as it is for the whole country," said Barash, 72, who cannot make ends meet on her 260 peso ($10) monthly pension after 30 years working for the Cuban film industry.
About 1,300 women from Russia and former Soviet republics Ukraine, Belarus and Kazakhstan still live in Cuba, scraping a living as best they can.
Though on the upside, I'm told they have a wonderful healthcare system.
Maybe if all the lefties who propagandize for Fidel pitched in a few bucks, these old women could flee the island prison.
Michael Moore was unavailable for comment.
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