Sandro Castro, grandson of the Cuban dictator Fidel Castro, once again sparked outrage on social media after posting a video on his Instagram account in which he mocked the power outages affecting Spain and Portugal, as he often does with the daily struggles faced by the population in Cuba.
With a sarcastic and carefree tone, the "great-grandson" appeared wearing a t-shirt that displayed the face of his grandfather and the text “Just that,” while holding two stalks of guano and performing one of his usual twirls down an empty street in a residential area, in the light of the sunset.
"How cool, man! The day is perfect for enjoying some shade, because in Europe there are a lot of blackouts and we like the darkness. I'm heading to my ranch, man!" Sandro exclaimed in the clip, which features the text overlay "the only vampire immune to the sun."
The video appears to have been recorded in the exclusive Havana area of Siboney, where the dictator's grandfather had residences and where members of the regime's elite and the diplomatic corps currently live.
Once again, Sandro reinforces his image of privilege by referring to "his ranch," one of the numerous family mansions of the Castros, completely disconnected from the hardships faced by the average Cuban, who daily contends with power outages lasting over 12 hours, a food crisis, and an almost total collapse of public services.
The T-shirt featuring the image of his grandfather is not just a mere aesthetic choice: it symbolically represents the connection between the main architect of the national energy disaster and the privileged descendant who does not know what a blackout is; between the disastrous messianism of the bearded one and the unparalleled foolishness of the clean-shaven.
It was Fidel Castro himself who, during the so-called "energy revolution" in the 2000s, imposed a series of measures that proved to be ineffective and costly. He replaced thermal power plants with low-efficiency generators, distributed faulty transformers, and shifted the load to an outdated electrical grid, which led to a regression in all economic and social aspects of the country.
Today, those decisions weigh heavily on the lives of millions of Cubans caught in a systemic crisis that is starkly reflected in the daily darkness of their homes. But that is what the so-called "continuity" led by Miguel Díaz-Canel is for: to make everything appear as a historical and heroic continuum, and yesterday's "revolution for, by, and with the humble" today turns into state capitalism under the control of the Castro family and their obsequious oligarchs.
While Sandro mocks the context in which the majority live, thousands of Cuban families continue to suffer the consequences of irresponsible policies. The phrase "I'm going back to my ranch," used sarcastically, is a direct insult to the people enduring a deep housing crisis, with dilapidated homes, living in precarious conditions, and displaced individuals ignored by the authorities.
The video is yet another example of the disdain and disconnect of the ruling class, embodied by Sandro Castro, for whom the widespread misery continues to be a spectacle from the comfort of his privileges.
It is not the first time that Sandro Castro has sparked outrage with his posts. In December 2024, he celebrated his birthday at his bar EFE in Havana, amid a widespread blackout in the country, which was seen as a sign of disregard for the hardships faced by the Cuban people.
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