Havana
CNN
 — 

In twelve years of dwelling in Cuba, I’ve waited in every kind of traces.

Strains to purchase meals, traces to pay payments, traces simply because individuals had been lining up for one thing perhaps value lining up for.

However now I used to be in a line for one thing surprising: to board a Russian warship docked in Havana’s harbor.

When a Russian diplomat instructed me that beginning on Thursday, the Admiral Gorshkov frigate would provide excursions to the general public for 3 days, I used to be considerably skeptical.

The Gorshkov is likely one of the most fashionable vessels within the Russian fleet, able to firing hypersonic missiles that journey at greater than 6,000 miles per hour. I had hassle imagining that President Vladimir Putin’s prized ship could be opened for anybody to see.

When the Gorshkov arrived in Cuba on Wednesday, it fired a deafening 21-shot salute. The Cubans answered with cannon fireplace from an 18th century fortress overlooking the harbor that the Spanish had constructed to guard the town from pirates. With the frigate got here a rescue tug, a gas ship and the Kazan, an imposing nuclear-powered submarine.

Cuba’s Ministry of Protection mentioned that not one of the ships had been carrying nuclear weapons and that they didn’t signify “a risk to the area,” clearly that means the US, Cuba’s neighbor 90 miles to the north.

However for a lot of Cubans, the go to of the most important convoy of ships in years from their previous Chilly Struggle ally appeared like a return to the previous, significantly as Moscow and Washington more and more spar over the struggle in Ukraine.

“I by no means thought I’d see a Russian submarine so up shut,” mentioned a Cuban man subsequent to me as we waited in line in view of the 4 vessels. We had been standing exterior the port terminal in Havana which, simply years earlier, had been full of US cruise ships, till then-President Donald Trump banned their visits to the island in 2019.

Although a line had shaped, it was not clear if any of us ready there have been going to get aboard. An hour handed within the broiling Cuban solar.

“We’re roasting out right here,” a lady carrying a small child subsequent to me mentioned. Cubans are champion line-waiters and I anxious that I’d don’t have anything to point out for my interlude exterior the port aside from a worsening sunburn.

Lastly, a Cuban Navy official in a glowing white uniform got here out to talk to us, resting his hand on my shoulder.

“You possibly can go aboard however want to go away any sharp objects like knives, scissors or hair clippers behind,” he mentioned.

Two plainclothes state safety officers started to run everybody’s identification card numbers by a database on their telephones.

I handed my carné, or ID card, that lists my birthplace within the US to one of many officers who appeared too younger to shave. He checked out my carné and turned to his older colleague for recommendation.

“Are we letting overseas residents on board?” he requested.

The older officer, who was carrying a New York Yankee’s baseball cap, nodded after which ran my card data by the database.

“You possibly can go forward,” he mentioned.

Contained in the port, previous officers manning a steel detector, Russian sailors in darkish blue unforms waited to take a bunch of about 20 of us aboard the Gorshkov.

In entrance of the ship, the sailors had posted an indication in English that declared the Gorshkov’s “foremost function” was “fight operations in opposition to enemy floor ships and submarines.”

The Russian sailors spoke extra English than Spanish and I often translated to assist the opposite members of our group, who had been all Cuban. We had been instructed we might movie and everybody instantly took out their smartphones to snap movies and selfies.

We began out on the ship’s huge helicopter pad after which walked by the ship to the bow. Each few ft a Russian sailor stood preserving watch.

On the entrance of the ship, one of many sailors confirmed me an anti-rocket system for use within the unlikely occasion we got here underneath assault. I requested concerning the huge cannon and the sailor replied that it might fireplace shells a distance of 23 kilometers, or about 15 miles.

A stage up, the place there gave the impression to be delicate communications tools, a Russian soldier in tactical gear with an assault rifle at his facet appeared down at us.

Simply off the bow we might see an unobstructed view of the Kazan, the 430-foot lengthy submarine that stretched out into the harbor.

I seen one of many Russian sailors taking within the blue skies and calm waters round us.

“Cuba good?” I ask him.

“Cuba good,” he laughs in reply and offers me a thumbs up.

The struggle in Ukraine has severely degraded the Russian fleet and as soon as once more pitted the US and Russia on reverse sides of a bloody battle. For a Russian sailor, Cuba could possibly be pretty much as good because it will get today.

I disembarked the Russian warship in Havana feeling that the Chilly Struggle didn’t appear to be such a distant reminiscence, after I noticed an alert flash throughout my cellphone.

It was an announcement that the Pentagon had simply dispatched its personal nuclear powered assault submarine to the opposite facet of the island: the US Navy Base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, barely greater than 500 miles away from the the place the Russian ships are docked.