Elliot El Guiri, an American content creator based in Málaga, Spain, published a series of videos this year exploring Cuba that have gone viral on social media, with a clear message: communism is to blame for the destruction of the country, not the American embargo.
The most striking reel of the series has garnered over 14,500 views, 916 likes, and 353 comments on Facebook. In it, Elliot shows Cuban farmers living in dilapidated houses, cooking with charcoal, and almost exclusively feeding on sugarcane, while vast stretches of land remain in the hands of the State.
"Communism destroys everything it touches," asserts the creator in that video. "This is what Fidel Castro fought for: to make people poor."
Elliot, originally from Wisconsin and known on social media as @el.guiri.de.malaga or Adventurer Elliot, traveled through areas of eastern Cuba that, as he himself acknowledges, hardly receive foreign tourists, especially amid the fuel crisis affecting the island.
One of his stops was Baracoa, the second oldest city in the Americas, which he visited at night during a power outage. What he found was a city with all its buildings constructed before 1959 and in a state of ruin, while people slept on the street.
"The real culprit is Cuba's socialist politics because all these buildings you see here were built before 1959 and are falling apart," he pointed out in another of his reels filmed in Baracoa. "How can Cuba have money to build new hotels but not have money to fix this type of infrastructure?"
The YouTuber also documented the contradictions of the Cuban agricultural model: farmers are required to deliver most of their harvests to the government without any economic incentive, and for years there was a law that prohibited killing one’s own cattle, which led people to abandon livestock farming.
"Those are the things they don't tell you about socialist policies," he pointed out.
During his tours of rural areas, Elliot spoke with former supporters of the regime who have changed their stance. "They are true revolutionaries, staunch followers of Fidel Castro, but almost none support the current government. That is the truth," he stated.
Despite the bleak outlook, the creator highlighted the hospitality of the Cuban people. In one of his videos, he left his camera and money unattended in the middle of the street and claimed he never felt in danger at any moment. "Cuban people are incredible," he said.
In Havana, Elliot showed a nurse selling garlic and other products on a corner: "There are no jobs, there is no food," said the content creator.
Elliot was emphatic in rejecting the argument that the U.S. embargo is primarily responsible for the crisis: "This is not America's fault; it is the result of failed policies over the past 67 years. Absolutely shameful."
This is not the first time this creator has documented the Cuban reality. In May 2025, he went viral by showcasing dilapidated buildings inhabited in Havana, garnering over 2.1 million views on TikTok, and in June of that year, he published images of a Havana lot where about 500 people lived in overcrowded conditions without running water.
His Cuban series of 2026 offers a deeper insight into the island, away from tourist circuits, and its conclusion leaves no room for ambiguity: "Communism destroyed Cuba. Nothing more, nothing less."
Filed under: