The Old Man and the Field

A conversation in three acts.

Alejandro Aniseto Maruto Robaina , the Old Man, a tobacco farmer
Fidel Castro Rus , the leader of the country
A Reporter from Moscow
Iroci, a young man of 25 and Robaina's grandson
A man with cigars
A woman with a rice bowl
Fidel's guards
A German
Tourists from a coach
More tourists
Workers

Havana – Moscow , February -March , 2002

Act I

The Palace of Justice in Havana. A vast hall. Numerous guests, invited to a gala-dinner to mark the end of the cigar festival, are seated at tables. The platform, set for speeches, is still empty. On the wall there are banners, one of which says: "The Fifth Anniversary of Vegas Robaina". The Old Man is sitting at one of the tables. He is dressed in a dark jacket with a light blue shirt and a tie. His face is hidden behind a cloud of smoke from the cigar he is smoking. To his right sits a young man of twenty five. From time to time he puts something on the Old Man's plate. Suddenly the noise grows, and the people in the hall begin looking fixedly in one direction. Surrounded by a ring of guards, Fidel Castro enters and heads towards the table where the Old Man is sitting. Castro approaches the table, the Old Man stands, and they embrace. The Old Man is short and Fidel has to bend his head. Fidel says something quietly to him and laughs when he hears the reply. They are surrounded by photographers, and cameras flash on all sides. Fidel leaves.

REPORTER: What were you and el Comandante being so secretive about, Don Alejandro?
ROBAINA : Hardly secretive. Every time we meet, he says: "You've got the best tobacco in the country, so you are the best."

REPORTER: And what did you say to him? That he's also 'the best'?
Robaina laughs.

REPORTER: Do you see each other often?
ROBAINA: Regularly – a couple of times a year at meetings and conferences.

REPORTER: So it's basically an official friendship. Have you known each other long?
ROBAINA: I first met Fidel Castro in 1960, about a year after the revolution. All the peasant tobacco growers had a meeting and Fidel spoke to us. He said that it was necessary to improve the quality of our tobacco, and the best way to do it was to set up cooperatives. His idea was that collective responsibility was better for the business, because quality was easier to guarantee in a group than individually. I didn't agree with him and said I wanted to be personally responsible for my crop. That's how we met.

REPORTER: At home in Russia it was the cooperatives that were the start of capitalism. Maybe el comandante was suggesting a business?
ROBAINA: Our cooperatives were more like your collective farms. That's why I didn't want to work there.

REPORTER: You mean you refused to join the cooperative?
ROBAINA: No, I joined the cooperative as an independent member, and I'm virtually responsible for my own business.

REPORTER: How come, they allowed you to break away from the collective?
ROBAINA (smiling): Basically, no one was forced into the cooperatives. Anyone, who wanted to remain a private farmer could, in principle, do so. Most people joined the cooperative, because it was easier: you got free seeds and fertilizer. But for that farmers had to fulfil the plan imposed from above, which told them how much had to be given to the state. My neighbour almost went bankrupt once. He lost almost the whole of his crop, and he was forced to pay money.

REPORTER: You seem to criticise everything, Don Alejandro. That smacks of dissidence...
ROBAINA: Call it what you want, but I've always believed that a family business is the most efficient. And I've been proved right.

REPORTER: How do you mean?
ROBAINA: Seven or eight years ago Fidel came along to one of the regular tobacco-workers' meetings, where the problems of agrarian reform were discussed. At the time there was a lot of criticism directed against the state tobacco enterprises and cooperatives for inefficiency. Fidel listened carefully and asked a lot of questions. I also spoke – for a whole thirty two minutes. When I'd finished, Fidel said: "If you're such a great tobacco producer, organize your own cooperative and show us how the work should be done."

REPORTER: And did you?
ROBAINA: What do I need a cooperative for, if I can harvest a crop on my own field that's about ninety percent bigger thanthe peasants on a state farm?

REPORTER: Did you say that to Fidel Castro?
ROBAINA: I certainly did.

REPORTER: So what happened?
ROBAINA: The very next day in the morning two officers came along to check whether I'd been speaking the truth at the meeting and to find out how much tobacco I'd harvested. It turned out to be even more than I'd estimated... A month later there was an official announcement that the state recommended that tobacco production should be organized on a family basis. From then on I was officially running a family business.

REPORTER: What are you talking about, Don Alejandro? What sort of business can you have under socialism? Wasn't all the land nationalized after the revolution?
ROBAINA: Only the big plantations and enterprises were nationalized; the small private farmers weren't touched.

REPORTER: So nothing was changed?
ROBAINA: Previously the crops used to be sold at tobacco auctions, but after the revolution it was all bought up by the state at prices, which the state itself decided.

REPORTER: So, to all intents and purposes you lost nothing from the revolution?
ROBAINA: That's right.

REPORTER: You're not being serious are you, Don Alejandro?
ROBAINA: I've got exactly, what I had before – almost six and a half arces under tobacco.

REPORTER: Almost six and a half arces? That's all?
ROBAINA: Well, there's a bit of land, where I grow vegetables – beans and various other things. Then, there's a small pasture for the cows and the buffalo, and a pigpen. Though these days it's easier to buy them than it is to feed them.

REPORTER: Perhaps I didn't make the last question clear enough, Don Alejandro? The point I was making is that sixteen hectares isn't a lot.
ROBAINA: What's a lot? Five hundred hectares – that's a lot. And those that had plantations of this size lost their land and emigrated to neighbouring countries. Now they grow tobacco there.

Act I I

The terrace of a small house in the province of Pinal del Rio. A number of people are sitting in a circle in wicker chairs, waiting.
A man comes on to the terrace, hands out cigars and says: "Don Alejandro sends his apologies and asks you to wait. These are his cigars." Several feet from the terrace, in the yard, the Old Man is saying goodbye to a group of tourists, who are holding out cigar boxes for him to autograph. They leave. Don Alejandro Robaina, the 83-year-old veteran of the tobacco industry and well-known Cuban planter, heads towards the terrace.

REPORTER: Don Alejandro, why did you stay on after the revolution and not leave the country like other tobacco workers?
ROBAINA (thinks for a moment): I stayed on, because five generations of my ancestors have grown tobacco on this land. It has been in our family for a hundred and fifty years. My grandfather was Spanish, and during the War of Independence his house was burnt down and he had to start all over again. But even he refused to quit this land.

REPORTER: And this house where we are – is it inherited from your grandfather?
ROBAINA: Basically, yes. I rebuilt the house and from time to time added bits on. So that, now I've got four bedrooms, a kitchen and a dining room.

REPORTER: By our standards, it's not a bad little house.
ROBAINA : By ours too. But there are a lot of people living here: my wife and I, my wife's sister, my two sons and their wives and children (counts on his fingers) – that's twelve people in all.

REPORTER: Isn't that a bit cramped for a cigar magnate? Our magnates and oligarchs don't live in such crowded homes.
ROBAINA: Of course, it's cramped. And apart from the family members, my workers eat in the dining room.

REPORTER: What do you mean – 'my' workers?
ROBAINA: The ones I hire to work in my field.

REPORTER: What kind of hired labour are you talking about under socialism? According to marxist-leninist theory, these
concepts are mutually exclusive.
ROBAINA: On my farm they're not.

REPORTER: In that case, Don Alejandro, you're not only a dissident but a capitalist in one individual socialist country.
ROBAINA: That about sums it up.
A pause while the Reporter thinks what to reply

REPORTER: How many hired labourers have you got, Don Alejandro?
ROBAINA: That depends on the season and the weather. During the harvest, for instance, we have about sixty to sixty five workers here. And when the tobacco leaves have to be tied in all the fields over a period of, say, two weeks, we might have as many as a hundred and twenty temporary workers here. But my permanent workforce consists of fifteen.

REPORTER: Any problems with the workers?
ROBAINA: No – because I pay my workers more than other farmers and more than the state. And at one time I told Fidel this.

When he asked me how come I had so many workers, I said: "Because I pay them well, Comandante".

REPORTER: And how much is 'well'?
ROBAINA: Approximately a third more than the state pays.

REPORTER: So, they queue up to work for you?
ROBAINA: I wouldn't put it quite like that, but I don't take on just anyone.

REPORTER: Do those, who want a job, have to meet certain requirements?
ROBAINA: The main thing is that they work conscientiously. Here it's very simple: if you work hard, you earn well. If people start idling, my whole system breaks down and we don't achieve the required results. Everyday my workers are given a fixed target and I have to be certain that it will be met. For instance, I plan that two men will hang out one thousand bales of tobacco to dry a day. If one of them doesn't pull his weight, they might only get nine hundred done. So the one that fails to meet the target gets fired.

REPORTER: By you personally?
ROBAINA: No, I run a very democratic system: the workers meet together and decide for themselves.

REPORTER: What, they literally call the guilty party in, give him a roasting, and discuss what he's done wrong?
ROBAINA: Pretty much.

REPORTER: So staff matters on the Robaina farm are decided by a meeting of the workforce?
ROBAINA: That's right.

REPORTER: And is it an effective method?
ROBAINA: It seems to be. And the results prove it.

REPORTER: What do you mean?
ROBAINA: The quality of the tobacco, of course – what else?

REPORTER: So the quality of the crop primarily depends on the system for dismissing slackers?
ROBAINA: You misunderstand me. This is the only part of the system that makes it possible for me to grow good tobacco.

REPORTER: So you've got other tricks of the trade?
ROBAINA: Of course.

REPORTER: Tell me some of them.
ROBAINA: What do you want to know them for?

REPORTER: Just out of curiosity.
ROBAINA (putting up his hands to his face to hide an expression of cunning, but making it look as though he's squinting from the sun): Tricks of the trade are by way of being secrets. And the whole point of a secret is that no one should know about it.

REPORTER: Then I'll put the question in another way. The tobacco you harvest from your plantation is considered among the best in the country. How do you manage that?
ROBAINA: I was lucky that my ancestors settled precisely on this spot. All my success is due to the soil and the climate.

REPORTER: Come on, Don Alejandro, pull the other one! Look at that field over there belonging to your neighbour. The land is exactly the same, so is the temperature – but his crop is nowhere near as good as yours. Right?
ROBAINA: The soil here is quite different from that over there. There are vast numbers of underground water sources and springs, which have nourished the soil for centuries and had their effect on it. As a result, the same area of land has different quantities of minerals and other substances, some of which are good for the soil, some of which are of no benefit, and some of which are positively harmful. So in some places there are greater concentrations of certain types of minerals, in other places others, and in yet other places there are none at all, as they've all been washed away. So, my neighbour's field could well have a different soil structure.

REPORTER: Are you saying that a fine crop depends on a few streams, and you have absolutely nothing to do with it? So it's manna from heaven, is that it? Surely there must be some other nuances?
ROBAINA: It's very simple – you've got to love the soil and work hard. Being able to tell what the weather will be like is, of course, very important, because you have to be able to take measures in time – and that's not something everyone can do.

REPORTER: Can you?
ROBAINA: My father taught me and his father taught him and so on back over the generations. Our tobacco dynasty is one of
the oldest.

REPORTER: And what about the science of tobacco growing? You won't get far on your grandfather's ways today!
ROBAINA (smiling sceptically): Yes, I've heard about the science of tobacco growing. Every region has a special centre, which you could probably call scientific. It gives the farmers seed and makes recommendations that range from the sort of tobacco you should grow in your field to the distance apart you should plant your shoots. And a lot of people agree with these recommendations. But me, I...

REPORTER: ...You probably take not a blind bit of notice of them, and do everything in your own way. Right?
ROBAINA: Well, you see, there are various types of tobacco. Some are suitable for the outer leaf, others for the inside filling.
But there are certain sorts of tobacco that can be used for both. On my fields I plant Criollo-98. If you grow it under the sun, you get tobacco for the inside filling; but if you grow it under an awning, it's suitable for the covering leaf.

REPORTER: And you grow all your tobacco under awnings. That's gauze, isn't it, tied down and stretched across the field, which you have to keep an eye on to make sure it doesn't get blown away by the wind?
ROBAINA: That's right.

REPORTER: Wouldn't it be easier to grow filling tobacco? You'd have a lot less trouble...
ROBAINA: ...And get a lot less money. Wrapper leaf has a higher price.

REPORTER: I never thought of it that way. But maybe your crop would be even better and, consequently, your profit much more, if you tried planting a different sort of tobacco?
ROBAINA: Do you think I haven't tried? I've planted all types of tobacco, including Havana-2000, which is now officially recommended for the outer leaf. But Criollo-98 is what does best of all on my land.

REPORTER: Why is that?
ROBAINA: The land is right for it.

REPORTER: A powerful argument. What else do you do that's considered wrong, or going against the recommendations?
ROBAINA: Well, for instance, I start planting almost a month earlier. Everybody starts planting in October-November, but I start planting in September.

REPORTER: Why's that?
ROBAINA: The earlier you plant, the earlier it matures – and then you can harvest the crop before the rains set in.

REPORTER: If it's so easy, why don't all the others do that?
ROBAINA: Because by planting in September, you run the risk of the heat killing off the young shoots and of there not being enough water.

REPORTER: Why do you see the heat as being less risky than the rains?
ROBAINA: Because I can do something about the heat.

REPORTER: What are you – a wizard?
ROBAINA: No, I can just water the tobacco and give the earth plenty to drink. But there's nothing I can do about the rains.

REPORTER: Even with your ability to forecast the weather?
ROBAINA: Weather forecasting's got nothing to do with it, when it comes to the rainy season. If you haven't harvested the mature tobacco in time, the rain will kill it very quickly. And even if the tobacco manages to survive, it won't have the same quality.

... But, thinking it over, I realize that you've always lived as you wanted to and as you considered proper even before you became world-famous...
ROBAINA: Is that a question?

REPORTER: No, not really. I was just thinking aloud. But of all your family you are the one that has been the luckiest.
ROBAINA: Why do you say that?

REPORTER: Well, it's in your honour that a new brand of Cuban cigar has been named.
ROBAINA: Ah, so that's what you're referring to.

REPORTER: Well, it's something to be proud of, isn't it?
ROBAINA: I am proud of it. But the credit goes to my family.

REPORTER: You're being modest, Don Alejandro. Whom did Fidel Castro call 'the best'? And who saved their crop from the 'blue mold' in 1982, when many other crops perished? Foreign papers at the time predicted an end to the domination of Cuban tobacco. But you managed to save your crop.

ROBAINA: It certainly was a terrible year. The 'blue mold' finished off many of the Cuban tobacco plantations. Something had to be done urgently, because every day's delay threatened more crop losses. I went to Havana and bought something to counter it, and managed to save my tobacco crop.

REPORTER: It all sounds so simple – the way you put it.
ROBAINA: The point was that the farmers and the peasants did nothing. They just waited for the state bureaucrats to find out what was happening, assess the situation, decide what to do about the problem, and give everyone the proper means to treat the plants. Free of charge, of course. But that took too long and many could not manage to save their crops.

REPORTER: And you knew what to do?
ROBAINA: It was the time factor that counted. I didn't hang around, waiting for recommendations by the state bodies. I acted as experience showed me, and for that reason I was able to save my crops. And incidentally, it was the best crop I'd ever grown in my whole life.

REPORTER: Was that the time you first attracted attention?
ROBAINA: I don't know, maybe. But actually my tobacco growing was written about in the papers back in 1954.

REPORTER: So you weren't an overnight legend, Don Alejandro? And the Vegas Robaina brand didn't just drop out of the blue? Incidentally, what did happen?
ROBAINA: Nothing of great interest. Some officials came to see me and pointed out that I produced excellent tobacco and had
a family dynasty. Then they asked if I had no objections to having a brand of cigars named after me. I hadn't.

REPORTER: But were you involved in preparing the blend?
ROBAINA: The tobacco they wanted to use for the new cigars was of a very high quality, but very strong. A lot of work had to be done to find a blend of average strength. Several specialists tested a variety of mixtures for a long time, and in the end by a majority vote chose the blend they considered the best.

REPORTER: Were you there, when they did it?
ROBAINA: Of course – they're my cigars.

REPORTER: And that's all.
ROBAINA: How do you mean 'all'?

REPORTER: Well, it's not everyday a new cigar brand comes on to the market. I'd like to have a few more details.
ROBAINA: There was nothing special about it. They settled upon a recipe, chose a design for the shape, and started making
the cigars. They're rolled at the H. Upmann factory, and they turn out about one and a half million a year.

REPORTER: What a million and a half from your tobacco?
ROBAINA: No, I only provide the outer leaf. But then it's on the outer leaf that the aroma of the cigar primarily depends.

REPORTER: Is your tobacco used in other cigars?
ROBAINA: I don't know the precise figures, but they say between six and eight million cigars a year are rolled in outer leaf made from my tobacco. These include H. Upmann, Montecristo and other well-known brands.

REPORTER: It was five years ago in 1997 that the Vegas Robaina brand name first appeared. Since then your life must have changed radically?
ROBAINA: Not really.

REPORTER: But your standard of living, at the very least, must have improved.
ROBAINA: Three years ago the government put up the purchase price of quality tobacco, so I earn a bit more.

REPORTER: Are you able to put away any savings?
ROBAINA: That's not so easy, but I've a bit tucked under the pillow.

REPORTER: Do you have a car?
ROBAINA: I've always had a car. I've had a Plymouth and a Mercury and a Holiday, but now I drive a Russian Lada – which was a present from Fidel Castro.

REPORTER: Which model?
ROBAINA: I don't know much about the various models. Have a look for yourself – it's in the yard.

Robaina points at a light blue model '5'.

REPORTER: Have you ever been abroad?
ROBAINA: Over the last five years I've been to a lot of countries including, incidentally, Russia. I saw a lot of people smoking Cuban cigars there. Which was pleasing. All in all, my impressions
of Russia were very positive – the people seem kind and the country looks bright.

REPORTER: Have you ever been offered work abroad?
ROBAINA: Many times.
The Reporter says nothing, but there is an unspoken question on his face: "And?.."

But I think I've already answered the question you were going to ask.

REPORTER: You mean, you like it here.
ROBAINA: Pretty much, yes.

REPORTER: You could become a rich man.
ROBAINA: Possibly...

REPORTER: Have you got any state awards?
ROBAINA: I've got a lot of medals. I can't remember exactly how many. And a pile of diplomas so big, I could paper the whole
house with them.

REPORTER: Do all these diplomas and medals relate to the last five years?
ROBAINA: No, I got them earlier. There's one diploma for the best producer, which I got before the revolution. And since then I've been getting more every two or three years.

REPORTER: You're virtually a national hero... How do you spend your working day?
ROBAINA: I usually get up early, before six in the morning. Then I make coffee for my workers, and then I sit on a bench under a tree and light my first cigar. At half past six the workers arrive and they all get a cup of coffee and a cigar or two each. Then I see the manager and we coordinate the work schedule for each worker. At seven I ring the bell, which is the start of the working day. At eleven there's a two-hour break for lunch and rest.

REPORTER: So the workers get on with their jobs. What do you do?
ROBAINA: I go round the fields looking for things that might cause problems. Much may depend on a correct and timely diagnosis.

REPORTER: Don't you find that hard work, running round the fields at your age, Don Alejandro?
ROBAINA: Of course, I do. That's why I've got my replacement coming along.

REPORTER: Is that the young man who was with you at the galadinner in the Palace of Justice?
ROBAINA: That's right – my grandson, Irochi. I've already passed on all my tricks of the trade to him. And, incidentally, the quality of the present crop is to his credit. It's his first crop. So I've got no worries about the continuation of the family
traditions. He loves working with tobacco – really enjoys it. So I can leave the business safely in his hands.

REPORTER: What about your son?
ROBAINA: My son, Carlos, is an engineer-metallurgist. He's not interested in the land or in tobacco growing. But, of course, he'll help Irochi.

REPORTER: Irochi? That's an unusual name for a Cuban, isn't it?
ROBAINA: Irochi was born in Japan, when Carlos and his wife were working there.

REPORTER: Do Irochi's foreign origins show at all?
ROBAINA: Well, he's the only one in the family, who knows English. He started out following in his father's footsteps by
studying metallurgy at university. Later, he worked as a cigar roller at the H. Upmann and the Partagas factories. But for the last five years he's lived here with me on the farm. Now he's practically ready to take over the family business.

REPORTER: Is he in the field at the moment?
ROBAINA: No, he's playing baseball. It's his favourite sport.

REPORTER: Anyway, Don Alejandro, we've gone off the subject somehow. Tell me a bit more about your working day.
ROBAINA: Well, we knock off at five. Then we all gather together to celebrate the end of the working day. We discuss the problems that have come up during the day, smoke cigars and drink rum. Sometimes one bottle, sometimes five – depending how we feel. Then I get washed, have my supper and around nine o'clock in the evening I go to bed. Sometimes I watch sports programmes on the TV.

REPORTER: Baseball? Or do you prefer a different sport?
ROBAINA: I watch rhythmic gymnastics. And before going to sleep I always listen to the weather forecast on the radio.
REPORTER: Why do you listen to the weather forecast, if you know how to forecast the weather yourself?
ROBAINA: That's why I know how to forecast the weather – because I listen to the radio...

Act I I I

Lunch break on the Robaina Farm. The dining room. Don Alejandro sits at the dining table with his workers. A coach drives up to the house. Tourists get out. One of them, a German, goes into the house through the open door. An old woman with a bowl of brown rice is walking towards him. She smiles and says something quickly in Spanish. Going past a corridor, he ends up in a room, where about fifteen men are e ating round a large table. Looking round them, the German suddenly breaks into a broad smile and rapidly approaches the man at the head of the table. He fishes in his bag and hands him a box of cigars. Don Alejandro puts his fork aside and signs the box. A minute later the tourists pour into the dining room. Don Alejandro patiently signs cigar boxes, banners, photographs and pieces of paper. The coach drives off. The workers go their separate ways. Don Alejandro goes into the yard, sits on a bench under a tree and smokes a cigar.

REPORTER: Don Alejandro, have you tried cigars from other countries like the Dominican Republic, Nicaragua, Brazil, Honduras? And did you like them?
ROBAINA: I've tried cigars from practically every country that produces them. But since I smoke Cuban cigars, it seems to me that others have less flavour and less taste. But the ones I like the best were Nicaraguan. If they could use our outer leaf,
they would be excellent cigars.

REPORTER: I'll remember that. Do you smoke a lot?
ROBAINA: I began smoking cigars, when I was ten and in my youth smoked fifteen a day. Now I smoke only four or five a day. In the morning I smoke a small one, then I smoke a robusto over dinner; during the siesta I have another small one and after supper another big one.

REPORTER: Do you smoke Vegas Robaina or some other special brand?
ROBAINA: I smoke the cigars that my neighbour rolls out of my tobacco.

REPORTER: What, can't you roll them yourself?
ROBAINA: Of course I can. But he does them much better...
The tourist coach drives up to the house... Curtain

Cigar Clan 1'2004, vol. 1. Sergey Drozdov