It's August 7, 1962, 8.15 a.m. We're in Havana, Cuba. The weather is typical for this time of year. Days of scorchingly hot sun punctuated by torrential, refreshing showers. This morning, the capital is bright and bustling. Down by the docks, ships unload

their cargo. Visitors file down gangplanks. Among the vessels decanting their content is a passenger

liner from the Soviet Union. The liner's doors open. a massive people begin to disembark.

Into the sunshine emerges a young man, dressed in a distinctly Soviet-smart, casual outfit,

neatly pressed khaki trousers and a dark, buttoned-up polo shirt. He's followed by another youngster, dressed almost identically,

then another, and another.

The ship is like a Marxist Noah's Ark.

Down they come, not two by two, but in rows of four,

doubtless thanks to the hyper-efficiency of Soviet industrial production.

They're tourists, apparently, though this cohort of foreign youths don't look much like your typical

sightseers. Soon they file onto trucks. They're driven away.

This isn't the first strange arrival in Cuba this summer,

not by a long shot. Pavana is swamped by goods arriving from the USSR. They pile high on the docks before being distributed through the city streets. In the center of town there's gridlock.

Long convoys of huge vehicles gum up traffic as they carry the cargo out of the capital.

The convoys stretch out into the provinces.

Rural roads are churned underneath the weight of 18-wheelers.

The rumbles and shutters break the usual tranquillity of the Cuban countryside.

Everything is cleared from their path.

Telephone poles, post boxes, sometimes even entire houses.

The convoys reach their journey's end at large construction sites.

There forests are felled, fields leveled, pipes and cables laid.

Behind huge impenetrable fences, buildings are erected.

...