Business Company, unit number 037. The severe colorless sign on an old public telephone and the wall painted in two colors, pale and peeling, leave no doubt that this is one of the state stores in Havana. In this case, the one that borders the market on 19 and B, in El Vedado.
Inside, however, the establishment is now “diversified.” On one side, the dispatch of the food that arrived this Tuesday as part of the rationed market: eggs, rice and coffee. On the other hand, the private home delivery business They are clients.
The part occupied by this entrepreneurship was shocking in this Soviet-style store, whose counters have been almost always empty for years, and the products for sale were a painful contrast to the customers who entered with their notebook. Decorated cloth bags on the walls, soft drinks and cookies on the displays, all kinds of meats and sausages in the refrigerators. The brand of these foods also attracted attention: Cuervo’s, founded by actor Alejandro Cuervo.
Zona K’liente began dedicated to household supplies – towels, sheets, bags, glassware – but has been migrating to the sale of groceries, at a time of extreme scarcity on the Island.
“I barely have enough for eggs, how am I going to buy any of that,” lamented an elderly woman as she took the few products distributed by the State and saw the exorbitant prices of the MSME. And he ironized: “Crows are these prices that will put your eyes out.”
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