MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Cuba keeps to the old calendar: celebrates 92 anniversary of Soviet revolution

Vladimir Ilich Ulianov Lenin is still the hero for Cuban officials

The Cuban government and official media celebrated this weekend the 92 anniversary of the Bolshevik revolution headed by Russia’s Vladimir Lenin, and completely ignored the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall which marked the end of the Soviet empire.

Official media made ample coverage of the military ceremony and the wreath dedicated to “the triumph of the Socialist Revolution of October in Russia, 1917, headed by Vladimir Ilich Ulianov Lenin”. The event took place at the Mausoleum of the International Soviet Soldier in Havana.

The official newspaper Juventud Rebelde said the “ceremony is organized every November 7 (October 25th according to the old Russian calendar) by the Revolutionary Armed Forces, in the name of the Cuban people and government, to pay tribute to those men and women that led the historic feat that changed the course of humanity”.

The celebration was headed by the top brass of the Cuban Armed Forces.

According to the official press of “the former Socialist republics those participating included Russia, Ukraine, Byelorussia and Kazajstan”

The report says the military commanders and diplomats placed a “red gladioli in each of the 67 niches of the mausoleum where rest the remains of 67 Soviet soldiers who died in Cuba while accomplishing their international duties”.

The Soviet Union was Cuba’s main ally and supplier until the European Socialist block collapsed two decades ago, forcing the island into a recession which Cubans refer to euphemistically as the “special period”, of which they still haven’t managed to climb out.

In Europe and other regions of the world the November celebrations have been dedicated to the fall of the Berlin Wall which put an end to the Democratic Republic of Germany, a satellite of the Soviet Union.