Santiago Carnival with prices through the roof: Beer at 240 pesos and pork snack at 200.

The Carnival of Santiago de Cuba, which officially began this Thursday and will last until Saturday, is one of the most important and anticipated popular festivities in the country; however, with beer at 240 pesos, pork snacks at 200 pesos, and pizza at 120 pesos, many will be excluded from enjoying the so-called "Rumbón Mayor" due to high prices.

A santiaguero, who prefers to remain anonymous, told CiberCuba that with his professional salary (around 7,000 pesos), after buying some food, he is left with approximately 1,500 pesos at the end of the month, with which he can barely enjoy one day of carnival.

"I have already calculated it, my wife and I are going to go out one day, we will each have a couple of beers, we will eat 'something,' we will walk for a while, and then head home," said the person who works as an economist for a company.

The complainant sent a gallery of images showing that the price of beer ranges between 200 and 240 pesos, fried chicken costs 400 pesos, malt 300 pesos, and canned juices about 250 pesos. Cheese pizzas are priced at 120 pesos, while the traditional pork snack (bread with lechón) costs 200, although he noted that it is also at 250 pesos.

The young man said that he walked this Thursday along Céspedes Avenue, in the carnival area of Sueño, and he found it normal that there was a lot of food and drink, particularly in both cases, but very few people consuming.

"The last few years have been like this: traditionally, there are more people celebrating at night, however, there have always been people consuming during the day, but we can hardly survive, and there's no thought of drinking or eating. Of course, there are always those who can, but for those of us living on a salary, we only go out one day." she pointed out.

The so-called Rumbón Mayor, considered the biggest popular festival in Santiago de Cuba, is celebrated this year amidst uncontrolled inflation, with the city besieged by various diseases and constant blackouts that offer no respite.

However, for several years now, the local government has left the sale of drinks and food in private hands, imposing prices that are far from affordable for the "average Cubans."

In 2023, young Yasmani Castro Caballero criticized on Facebook the prices of the carnival in Santiago de Cuba, where a small pork snack was sold (at that time) for a hundred pesos and a beer for 250; as if we were in Dubai, he joked.

A pizza cost 80 pesos, Castro specified, who admitted to being excited while walking along the central Céspedes Avenue, noticing that there was everything - just like in Marianao - until he encountered the prices and then thought he was walking through the wealthy emirate of Dubai.

"The Céspedes avenue was empty compared to other years. Most of the kiosks were privately owned, there was no uniformity of any kind in the prices, and not far from there were the state entities, whose products were not very accessible to the entire population," lamented another Cuban on social media.

Félix Font described the 2023 carnival of Santiago de Cuba as "the worst in history" and criticized not only the high prices of the food offerings but also the poor organization of the festivities.