In the so-called “market alley” there are, from Mártires to Gómez, Rhino’s Bar, Benjuly, Gato Negro and Destellos Café, all private
14ymedio, Miguel García, Holguín, May 18, 2024 — Mártires Street and three avenues named after heroes – Martí, Máximo Gómez and Luz y Caballero – frame the brand new red light district of Holguín, Cuba: Plaza de la Marqueta. In the old colonial market, restored several years ago, coming together are the prostitutes, their clients, local millionaires, scammers of various kinds and several yarinis* — named in honor of the mythical Havana pimp — who do not lose sight of their employees.
A decade ago, the tenants of the square – the center of Holguín life in Republican times – were very different. “Beggars who urinated and defecated,” recalls Heriberto, an employee in one of the bars that Marqueta enjoys today, taking advantage of the abandonment and ruin. The change from a homeless shelter to a brothel does not seem to have been too radical, he believes.
In the past there were shops, inns, butcher shops and fishmongers in La Marqueta. Now, however, the cartography of the square is made up almost exclusively of “upscale” bars and restaurants, at whose tables no one sits without knowing what’s happening. “They,” says Heriberto, referring to the prostitutes – who “are always groomed and well dressed” – “make their clients sit in a bar and consume.”
The cartography of the square is made up almost exclusively of “upscale” bars and restaurants
The price, depending on the services requested by the client, ranges between 3,000 and 5,000 pesos. Having a drink at the bar, explains Heriberto, is a kind of rite of passage or “password” to close the deal. “I don’t know if the owners of the establishments have any business with the yarinis, but that’s always the case,” he adds.
The Police know it, of course. From the red light districts of Havana – the same ones that made Alberto Yarini famous — his wars with rival pimps cost him his life in 1912 – to those of Santiago or Camagüey, passing through the nooks and crannies of El Condado Santa Clara, the Police always know and don’t get involved. “It’s a complicated territory,” says Heriberto, and not only because everything hap
