The participation in the history of Cuba of the Ukrainian-Canadian engineer Paulina Zelitsky is poorly known. Few know that she was a team under his command who located the remains of the battleship Mainenear the coast of Havana in the year 2000, or that before escaping to Canada, she was involved in the organization of a secret Soviet submarine base here on the Island.
His name is nowadays more closely related to the Discovery of strange underwater megaliths west of Pinar del Ríostill mysterious. Her appearances in the media have been few. Once retired from a working life that has taken her to work in countries as diverse as the former USSR, Canada, Mexico or Cuba, Zeletsky has dedicated himself to the distance of writing and, from the tranquility of her home on the outskirts of Ontario, produces self-edited volumes about her life and reflections, sometimes in collaboration with her husband Paul Weinzweig. One of these volumes, the novel Dog Days in Cuba (Dog days in Cuba), whose translation into Spanish is currently being prepared, places its plot in Havanaat the time when she launched a project to search for sunken Spanish treasures, back in 1997. Indirectly, the author claims, that volume rIt reveals episodes in the history of Cuba that are not only unknown, but also secret.
Although the formation of Zelitsky It is scientific, Dog Days in Cuba It achieves pleasant, well-articulated prose and an even tone from the character-narrator that makes it very easy to read. The story is told by a dog inspired by that Doberman Benz that the author found on the streets of Havana: “I felt very sad when our Cuban Doberman died at age 11. So I started therapy writing notes about his experience. Dog Days in Cuba It’s my farewell.” But there is also a rhetorical justification behind the choice of the imaginary perspective of a dog to tell the story, and that is that it favors the oblique approach to difficult-to-deal-with events, especially those based on real facts and people.
According to Zelitsky, most of the episodes narrated in his novel happened in reality.. We have, first of all, the anecdote that justifies the name of her Doberman dog, Benz, a puppy rescued in Guanabacoa that preceded the theft of the Mercedes Benz car belonging to Zelitsky’s husband by the Cuban Customs. According to the story, while the couple was settling in Tarará to start the company that would collaborate with CARISUB in the search for Spanish galleons, the Customs authorities evoked a strange law to confiscate the dark red 1977 Mercedes Benz 450SL that Zelitsky’s husband had brought from Canada two months earlier.
According to a rule mentioned, which no one showed them, and which, coincidentally, came into force that same day, it was illegal to use cars that were more than 20 years old in Cuba. Those from Customs sadly admitted that it was too late to seize the old Cuban cars that were constantly driving through the streets, but in the case of the Canadian couple’s Mercedes, this could be done perfectly because it had just arrived.
“When I protested, Ramiro Valdés called me to his office and took off his pants in front of me,” Zelitsky says. According to the author, the commander received her in an office in Miramar in her pajamas and while she spoke she proceeded to change her outfit as if no one was in front of him.
“I didn’t like it,” Zeletsky recalls with irony, “so I left the office.” After that, she knew that the battle for the car would be lost because “it would mean waging war with Ramiro, it would mean losing the investments in Cuba of our relatives and friends.” Her husband, however, in rebellion, removed the insignia that distinguishes the car brand from the car and gave it to the new puppy, Benz, who would wear it on his neck as an omen.
The company dedicated to underwater exploration, CARISUB, had fallen into disgrace. So the Army took action on the matter through the companies Geomar and Sermar. An obscure officer was then assigned to Advanced Digital Communication, Zelitsky’s company, to act as the Cuban counterpart in the treasure hunt.
After an agitated incident between Benz and that officer, which put the animal in danger, they decided to include the dog in a new project that had nothing to do with their company, but was rather a personal arrangement. In the novel and in reality, according to the author, Benz was trained in metal detection to help the location of a treasure that would be supervised by Fidel Castro himself.
Hidden in one of the many caves of Guanahacabibes —legend has it— the gold of the Church of San Idelfonso in Mérida would be found, which was brought to Cuba in 1642 by Franciscan friars while they were fleeing pirates and Mayan uprisings (the true owners of the metal). Several facts in history point to the truth of the protection operation devised by Archbishop Fray Juan Alonso y Ocón. In the novel and in reality, according to the author, clues were left such as the first volume of the Book of Deaths of the Parish Registry of Guanewhich tells the story of the surviving friar who knew about the treasure.
Zelitsky says, in reality, that when Fidel Castro was on the trail of the loot, would have written a letter to John Paul II asking for technological and information collaboration. The deal sealed after the negotiation with the Church was that the loot would be transferred to the Vatican, in exchange it would pay a ransom and, as a result, John Paul II would be invited to the island.
The Vatican then sent someone it absolutely trusted to join the group of men (and a dog) who pursued the treasure to the inhospitable caves of Guanahacabibes.
Zeletsky did not assist in the rescue. But he knows what those in the party told him: that the gold was found in one of the caves, indeed, and that Benz participated in the discovery. The trusted man sent by the Vatican was none other than Andrea Sodano, nephew of the infamous (also for the Cuban opposition) Cardinal Angelo Sodano, Vatican Secretary of State and right-hand man of John Paul II.
“There was also a Cuban in charge of security, whose name in the novel is Gaspar and in reality Argelio Suárez, and professional archaeologists from Pinar del Río led by Dr. Francisco Guío, people who briefly and very secretly told us what happened in the caves,” Zeletsky confesses.
Two hermetic institutions and several people are mentioned by Paulina ZelitskyThe Catholic Church is not well known for its transparency (especially when it comes to its money). The Cuban state is even more opaque — as close as 2016, the newspaper reported. Gramma He spoke of the elusive treasure and the parties that have been organized to search for it, without success. It would be up to the Cubans involved to contribute to the history of their country by confirming the story.
