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For a dash back into the realm of communist block propaganda tinged with a snobby capitalist ascetic, check out the film I am Cuba [Soy Cuba]. If you grew up in the communist block, it’s likely you’ve never heard of this film. Actually, if you grew up in the capitalist block, it’s also likely you’ve never heard of it, that is unless you’re a film freak. It only became well known after the fall of the Soviet Union, when it was discovered by western filmmakers in the newly opened Soviet archives.

It was made by a Russian team with a more or less unlimited budget. After its release in 1964, it was condemned by the Cuban and Soviet governments for basically not being communist enough. This allowed it to find an honorary place in some dusty Soviet archive where it sat for around 30 years.

The following brief synopsis shouldn’t spoil any of the movie for you. The film is narrated by Cuba herself in a poetic style, then goes on four vignettes displaying different forms of oppression during the pre-revolutionary Batista era. The first story starts at a Havana party full of Americans. The Cubans are treated as their toys with the Cuban men being entertainers and the Cuban women all being prostitutes. This vignette contains a powerful scene where an American gets lost in a Cuban slum. The next scene follows the injustices brought on a peasant and his family working in the sugar cane fields. After this we get to follow a student revolutionary and his fellow classmate’s struggles against the Batista regime. Finally, the film takes us out into the hills where the fighting between the Castro guerillas and the Bastista armed forces is taking place. Here we get to follow a peasant man and his family as they get caught up in the fighting.

If you come upon a film student, they probably have heard of I am Cuba and will then proceed to gush on about its artistic genius, marvelous long shots, and beautiful imagery (They might even use the term mise en scéne). Like most film students, they are most likely repeating what they heard in class or read in some book, but watching the film even the layman can’t help but notice some of the camera acrobatics. This becomes very clear from the beginning when the audience is taken to a decadent party in the Batista era full of Western tourists treating the country as their play thing. According to film aficionados, this is the most famous scene and these film geeks really get gushing when the camera splashes into the swimming pool to join the partiers, then emerges from the pool and continues on without a single cut. I’ll admit, it’s pretty impressive, but if you’re used to the tricks of modern cinema where whole worlds are created from CG, then you might not get as excited. Equally, if not more impressive is a scene later in the movie that follows the funeral procession of a fallen student. The camera goes up the side of the building to what looks like the third or fourth floor, through a window into a cigar rolling factory, then out another window where it dangles above the crowd.

Overall, I am Cuba is a good trip down communist nostalgia lane, but with an artistic style that many can appreciate today. It might even bring out the hidden quasi-socialist film snob buff in you. If anything, the fact that it’s shot on location in early 1960s Cuba is enough to make it historically relevant. The next step after watching the film would be to visit Cuba today for a real dose of communist nostalgia.

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What was it like to travel around the Soviet Union? According to blogger NEXTSTOPJUPITER, pretty tricky!

When you wanted to travel in the Soviet Union you had four options: You went to the Soviet Union

- on an organized trip

- after getting a private invitation

- after getting an official invitation

In all these cases you were restricted in your movement. You could visit only certain areas. It was not allowed to visit closed cities, towns or areas.

- or you went to the Soviet Union on your own with a transit visa

You were not restricted in your movement but you had to avoid police controls or encounters with other authorities

I tried all four options…

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The eternal catchphrase “There is no sex in the USSR” is almost as symbolic of Soviet austerity as clapped out Trabis. Coined during a televised conference between American and USSR audiences in response to a question about sex in the Soviet media, it was quickly hijacked. Of course in reality even the thin walls of hastily constructed shared apartment block flats couldn’t dampen ardours; however sex and Socialism did not overtly mix, and the facts of life went undiscussed on the whole.

Sex was imagined in the USSR as a necessary means of reproducing the labour force. Working mothers for example were exactly that, workers first and then mothers. Mother’s Day was even prohibited in the USSR as a bourgeois relic, although International Women’s Day was celebrated on March 8. Big families were encouraged; there were 454,142 Mother Heroine orders awarded, which celebrated all mothers bearing and raising 10 or more children. It was awarded upon the first birthday of the last child, provided that nine other children (natural or adopted) remained alive. Children who had perished under heroic, military or other respectful circumstances were also counted. These women received special benefits such as free bus rides and cheap or free food.

Sharing a home with parents or parents-in-law whilst waiting for an apartment must have been a bit of a passion killer but ‘leisure intercourse’ certainly was occurring, as standard issue contraceptives of the time testify. Officially they were known as ‘Product No. 2′ (because Product No. 1 was a rubber gas-mask made in the same factory), and were chronically unavailable as they proved profitable black market goods. Data from 1989 seems to prove the short supply of condoms: although women were officially discouraged from having abortions, they were legal and were the chief form of birth control in the country, with an estimated 8 million taking place each year. Abortions were free for working women and cost 2 to 5 rubles for other women, depending on where they lived. Despite their availability, an estimated 15 percent of all abortions in the Soviet Union were illegally performed in private facilities. The approximate ratio of abortions to live births was nearly three to one.

Images courtesy of  English Russia.com

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Even though this Lonely Planet USSR was published in the very early 1990s, apparently the editors had been backpacking around the region for decades before.

Travellers and tourists to the Soviet Union must have some amazing stories to tell – please email yours in to share, as there are not many to find on the internet!

All images courtesy of English Russia.com

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Apparently, diamonds and pearls stolen from Tsar Nicholas II by the Bolsheviks were smuggled into Britain via hollowed-out chocolate creams in order to fund a communist newspaper… Krupskaya chocolate continued the association: it was named after Lenin’s widow, but has just received a thoroughly capitalist rebrand. Read more

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