Coppelia is Havana’s popular ice cream parlor. It was started by in 1966, and served 26 flavors of ice cream in honor of Fidel’s 26^th of July Revolutionary Movement.

Today, there are fewer flavors, and Coppelia illustrates two dilemmas facing Cuba. The first is what to do with its confusing dual currency system. Most shops in Cuba accept only the national currency, but so-called “dollar stores” accept the convertible peso that was created in the 1990s and pegged to the dollar. This was done in part to stimulate a tourist industry that would make up for the economic chaos that struck after the USSR collapsed and could no longer subsidize Cuba. The exchange ratio is about 25 national pesos for one convertible peso.

Coppelia accepts both the national peso and the convertible peso. But paying in convertible pesos gets you more flavors and shorter lines than paying in the national peso.

The currency discrepancies at Coppelia could be eliminated by scrapping the dual currency system and moving to a single currency. But the Economist magazine pointed out a dilemma in doing that. If the national peso were replaced by the convertible peso, the likely result would be rampant inflation. On the other hand, if the convertible peso were replaced by the national peso, it would devalue the savings of people who had built up a nest egg in convertible pesos. Either way, Cubans suffer.

I wanted to set a scene for my CROSSHAIRS ON CASTRO at Coppelia. But, alas, my novel is set in 1962 and Coppelia wasn’t built until four years later.

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