From our Bureau of Vanishing Tourists with some assistance from our Bureau of Twenty-First Century Neocolonialism
Not all the Russians who travel to Varadero beach in Cuba return home. They simply go missing. And some end up in the United States, which they enter through Mexico.
That some Russians are dodging conscription into Czar Vlad’s army seems clear. But it is also highly likely that some of those who enter the US and claim asylum are spies. The draft dodgers go through Cuba because as “tourists” who book hotel rooms, they become harder to trace by the Russian government. The spies do it because it is easier to sneak into the US as a draft dodger or a “persecuted” opponent of the war in Ukraine.
That some Russians are staying in Cuba, but invisibly so, is also highly likely. Grand Putinia now owns Cuba, and Czar Vlad could very well be sending secret agents who evade attention by flying below radar, so to speak.
Any way you look at it, this mystery of the “disappearing” Russians who never return home after booking hotel rooms in Varadero spells potential trouble for the U.S. and also for Cuba.
Abridged and loosely translated from Diario de Cuba
Varadero seems to be in high demand among Russian tourists these days, when hotel prices drop and flights to Cuba increase in frequency from the Eurasian nation. But not all of them return to their country, warned the specialized Tourdom.ru service following an exchange that took place on their networks.
As a reader who has just returned from the island said in the forum of a publication, the procedure is simple: first, the citizens of the Russian Federation go to the hotel in Varadero, then they go to Havana and from there they travel to Mexico. All legally. Finally, they cross the northern border of that country and emigrate to the US.
According to the tourist, in just two weeks, six of that class of emigrants passed through the hotel where he was staying.
Several of the Internet users who participated in the exchange pointed out that this migration corridor is strange, taking into account that it is cheaper to take a direct flight to Mexico from Russia. But, the editors of Tourdom.ru warned that at the moment that kind of itinerary does not exist.
“In any event, attempting to reach the United States in this manner can very easily end in deportation and a five-year entry ban,” the article’s authors warned.
However, several forum members claimed to have acquaintances who successfully crossed the United States border without a visa. “A colleague ended up in Boston like this. He’s waiting for a refugee permit,” he commented.
Currently, flights from Moscow to Varadero are covered by Nordwind Airlines, but as of July the Rossiya airline, linked to the state-owned Aeroflot, will join the offer, in what will constitute the resumption of direct flights by that company to Cuba.
Whole story HERE in Spanish