On board the Russian warship visiting Cuba

“I never thought I would see a Russian submarine so up close,” said a Cuban man next to me as we waited in line in view of the four vessels. We were standing outside the port terminal in Havana which, just years earlier, had been full of US cruise ships, until then-President Donald Trump banned their visits to the island in 2019.

In twelve years of living in Cuba, I have waited in all kinds of lines. Lines to buy food, lines to pay bills, lines just because people were lining up for something maybe worth lining up for. But now I was in a line for something unexpected: to board a Russian warship docked in Havana’s harbor. When a Russian diplomat told me that starting on Thursday, the Admiral Gorshkov frigate would offer tours to the public for three days, I was somewhat skeptical. The Gorshkov is one of the most modern vessels in the Russian fleet, capable of firing hypersonic missiles that travel at more than 6,000 miles per hour. I had trouble imagining that President Vladimir Putin’s prized ship would be opened for anyone to see. When the Gorshkov arrived in Cuba on Wednesday, it fired a deafening 21-shot salute. The Cubans answered with cannon fire from an 18th century fortress overlooking the harbor that the Spanish had built to protect the city from pirates. With the frigate came a rescue tug, a fuel ship and the Kazan, an imposing nuclear-powered submarine.