The outskirts of Matanzas City feature large, government housing projects originally built in the 1960s and 1970s, often based on the latest Eastern European or Russian designs. First-time residents included former slum dwellers and peasants whose small plots were collectivized, as well as many young revolutionaries, like the owner of this apartment, whom the state rewarded for voluntary service as teachers and social workers with a home. Two factors haunted these programs then as today: first, their Soviet designs were often intended to retain heat, not release it, and living there meant getting everywhere on oil-and gas-dependent government buses. The many privately owned horse-drawn buggies lining this main street attest to the area’s continuing transportation needs. (July 2016)
