A video posted on Facebook by content creator Reinier Cruz shows Línea Street in the Vedado neighborhood of Havana, completely empty and silent at eight in the evening, an image that sparked a wave of reactions among Cubans both on and off the island.
"It seems like it’s two or three in the morning here on Línea street, but no, it’s just eight o'clock at night," Cruz said at the beginning of the night tour of Vedado, which garnered over 37,000 views and 172 comments in which nostalgia and sadness are intertwined equally.
The first comment that summed up the general sentiment was blunt: "It's a desert."
Another user expressed it bluntly: "Cuba is already a desert. The malecón was always filled with people 24/7. What a shame I feel for my country."
Those who lived in or frequented that street in past decades remember it as radically different.
"It was a busy street, lively and with a good atmosphere in its prime," wrote one follower.
Another person, who grew up on Línea 51 between M and N, recalled in detail: "It was a beautiful area, bright, clean, with the scent of the sea and salt on the balconies. We would hear the cannon shot at nine while sitting on the balcony, listening to the traffic and the smell of the buses and the sea breeze."
The comments mention places that shaped generations: the Trianón cinema, the Mella Theater, the Estudio Theater, the Adolfo Llaurado hall, the Potín, the Club Tropical, and the El Amanecer nightclub, among others. "I lived on Línea between Paseo and 2. Those were very fulfilling years, full of happiness," recalls a user who emigrated years later.
The contrast with the present is striking. A visitor who walked down the street about a month ago confirms this: “I was in Havana strolling down this street around 10 PM and what a shame, almost everything was closed, there were no people on the street, it was very sad.”
A current resident of the area added another revealing detail: "I live around there, and it's a miracle it has electricity because I was there recently, and the outages were dreadful. Even that part of Vedado isn’t spared."
The surprise of several commentators at the presence of electric light in the video—expressing remarks like "Is there light?", "Is there electricity?", or "They had power, that's great"—reflects how normalized darkness has become in the capital.
On July 17, there was a cacerolazo in Vedado after 30 hours without electricity, and in April, twelve families from that same neighborhood accumulated over 100 hours without electrical supply due to a specific malfunction.
Loneliness on Línea Street is not an isolated phenomenon. The 23rd Street in Vedado also appeared deserted in the middle of the afternoon, and the Monumental Avenue in Havana has been similarly documented without traffic or pedestrians.
Behind these images converge the energy crisis, the collapse of public transport, and the massive exodus: demographer Juan Carlos Albizu-Campos estimates that approximately 1.79 million Cubans left the island between 2021 and 2024.
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