A Cuban content creator recently walked through the streets of Tarará, the exclusive coastal neighborhood east of Havana, and what she found can be summed up in one phrase: "It's a ghost town."
The video, published by the Facebook user "La negri cubana," has accumulated over 31,000 views and shows empty streets, completely destroyed houses, and virtually nonexistent services in what used to be one of the most sought-after vacation destinations in Havana.
"Many years ago, this was a beautiful place where we had incredibly fun times, but in the midst of 2026, it has become a city of terror, empty, filled with abandoned houses, completely destroyed," the author describes during the tour.
Tarará is located 27 kilometers from the center of the Cuban capital, in the municipality of Habana del Este, and has 520 Art Deco-style houses built in the 1940s and 1950s.
The neighborhood was designed by The Tarará Land Company with American capital. It was considered the first gated community in Latin America, featuring a yacht club, church, restaurants, drive-in theater, and market.
After 1959, the Cuban state expropriated all luxury homes, and most of their owners emigrated to the United States.
Since then, the site has been successively used for various purposes imposed by the regime: City of Students, City of Pioneers José Martí, the headquarters of the humanitarian program for children affected by the Chernobyl nuclear disaster—which cared for 26,114 patients between 1990 and 2011—and the base for Operation Miracle for Latin American ophthalmology patients funded by Venezuela.
Most of those 520 houses remain abandoned. Schools, a daycare center, a theater, and a health clinic have been closed for years, as documented in the accumulated deterioration since at least 2019.
Abandonment is not uniform
The few houses that are well-preserved belong to private owners and are rented out for 120 dollars a night. The chalets located near the coastal strip are owned by the military group GAESA and are marketed by their company Gaviota.
The state-run houses available for Cuban tourists are offered at 3,000 pesos for three days and two nights, but the experience falls far short of what was promised.
"No gas was available; that kitchen was just for show. There was no drinking water, and the electricity kept going out," the creator recounts in a first video about her stay in one of those homes.
This brutal contrast between widespread abandonment and pockets of opulence reflects the unequal management of the Cuban state, and is particularly striking in the context of the severe housing crisis affecting the island, where thousands of families live in precarious conditions while 520 houses of historical and architectural value decay by the sea.
Filed under: