"It's an outrage that one stubborn old man with a beard and his brother can efficiently deprive 11 million people of the opportunity to live a decent life," cries out my old friend from Havana — let's call him Juan. Havana's old town has been a Unesco World Heritage Site since 1982, with money flowing in to prevent the dilapidated historical buildings from collapsing even without an earthquake. The area around the Plaza Vieja has been restored and looks so picturesque that one could almost forget that, only a block away, Havana displays the dismal features of a stinking, crumbling dump. Juan's mother still believes in socialism. She even displays the collected writings of Kim Il-Sung, the late North Korean despot, on the shelf in her living room. "It's too late for her to change her mind," explains Juan. But he himself is very clear and frighteningly outspoken. He worries about his young son: "How can I let him grow up here?" If he didn't have to look after his parents, he would leave. His siblings have already gone. 

Most families are similarly incomplete. Since the revolution, almost one million people have turned their backs on the island. Even though Fidel Castro preferred to have the discontented leave and send money home, travel is not free. "Wild" emigration is already limited by nature. People are imprisoned by an ocean that serves as a low-maintenance wall. But in order to leave the country legally, for a single or return trip, residents must first request permission. Without a clean record with the secret police, the answer is negative. If positive, permission can take weeks, months or years. 

Without the expatriates sending money home, Cubans would have starved long ago. The cause is the dramatically inefficient economic system, and the embargo hasn't helped. Like all socialist countries, Cuba provides few individual work incentives. Private property is suppressed. The only titles of property that exist in Cuba are inherited ones — probably a concession to the fact that at the outset, the revolution was not meant to be socialist. The socialist constitution was introduced only in 1976, mainly as a product of the Cold War. 

Juan owns a flat. His father passed the property on to him. If he had been a little luckier, it would have been one of the heritage buildings with 40ft-high walls. He could then add a floor, double the space and rent it out. That would make him a capitalist. But he isn't so lucky. The odd property rule explains the multitude of vintage cars in Cuba, all miraculously sustained in fairly good shape. If your inherited car falls to pieces, you will not get a new one, so you'd better learn to repair it, even though that's illegal. 

Juan's father is recovering from surgery in a Havana hospital where the sanitary conditions are horrifying. Juan takes him food, drink and medication. But surgery, like all public services, is free of charge — a fact that Cubans repeat, trying hard to persuade themselves that their system is not so unbearable after all, ignoring the simple truth that what costs nothing is worth nothing. The hospitals are yearning for technical equipment and staff. Yet well-trained doctors have been sent to Venezuela, together with military experts and schoolteachers, in a trade for oil and gas. It is better to avoid being ill.