Visual Project Management | Grant Work: Democracy + Communism: 2. Cuba: Communism Relived: Cuba_Paskova_016

Apartment blocks with a crumbling infrastructure are seen in the provinces on the way to the port city of Mariel, Cuba, on April 19, 2015. Statistics label 7 out of every 10 Cuban houses in need of major repairs, with the province surrounding the capital requiring approximately 300,000 more inhabitable properties.Mariel's tranquil appearance belies its important place in both the history and future of Cuban-American interaction. It is where Russians unloaded nuclear warheads in the 1962 Cuban missile crisis, and the gateway through which 125,000 Miami-bound emigres fled during the Mariel Boatlift of 1980. The town is now the site of construction of a deepwater container port and a free-trade zone, a critical ingredient for which will be the future of the U.S. embargo against Cuba, in place for more than 50 years but now under speculation of being lifted.

Apartment blocks with a crumbling infrastructure are seen in the provinces on the way to the port city of Mariel, Cuba, on April 19, 2015. Statistics label 7 out of every 10 Cuban houses in need of major repairs, with the province surrounding the capital requiring approximately 300,000 more inhabitable properties. 

Mariel's tranquil appearance belies its important place in both the history and future of Cuban-American interaction. It is where Russians unloaded nuclear warheads in the 1962 Cuban missile crisis, and the gateway through which 125,000 Miami-bound emigres fled during the Mariel Boatlift of 1980. The town is now the site of construction of a deepwater container port and a free-trade zone, a critical ingredient for which will be the future of the U.S. embargo against Cuba, in place for more than 50 years but now under speculation of being lifted.