Turkish

In the silhouette of Havana, two new elements have stood out for months. The tallest building in the country, which is being built in El Vedado, on K Street, and the column of smoke that the Turkish floating plant anchored in the port sends into the sky. If the first is a symbol of the construction fever in pursuit of a tourism that has not yet arrived, the waste from the Suheyla Sultan They represent the current energy crisis and the inability of the national thermoelectric plants to supply the Island. That dark cloud of failure spreads at dawn and partly covers the sunrise.

“It’s ugly to see the smoke in the sky but at least it calms me down because it guarantees that there aren’t so many blackouts,” says Julia, 68, who lives in an 18-story building with views of the eastern part of the city, the bay and the Morro lighthouse. “We are very used to the scenery from our balcony and sometimes I get scared, because early in the morning it seems that there is a fire somewhere, but then I realize that it is the Turkish ship.”

From the two groups of funnels on the boat, thick dark columns extend and join higher up. Depending on which way the wind blows, the polluting cloud advances towards the interior of the city or is distributed along the coast. No official media has alluded to their presence and they have only had room for the triumphant headlines about the energy guarantees offered by the plant, but about the smoke or the costs of renting the plant. Suheyla Sultan They haven’t posted a word.

No environmental group has stood up to the ship and its emissions. No neighbor close to the port area has written a letter to the local newspapers to complain about the odors it spreads everywhere. No economist has denounced how much the debt each Cuban incurs for a single day that the ship is still connected to the country’s electrical system. No biologist has rebuked the Ministry of Energy and Mines for the possible impact of their presence on wildlife, especially fish and birds.

The smoke is there every day but it is as if it did not exist. To the newest point of skyline habanero no one wants to repudiate it. People fear that the day it can no longer be seen will be because the city has been left in the dark, without power.

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