The Spanish Basque Nicolás
Gregorio Rodríguez, an 89-year-old "war child", has kept the
olive-green beret he was given by Fidel Castro all his life. Nicolás met Castro
in Cuba where he worked as a translator for the Soviet military.
"Fidel gave it to me, and
afterwards he did not wear any beret anymore," said Nicolás, a native of
Bilbao, at his home in Moscow.
The octogenarian keeps the beret along
with a discolored photo in which he appears next to the deceased Cuban
communist leader in a Soviet military unit on the island, where he was destined
for two and a half years.
"I told him that I was
Spanish, but that I now live in the Soviet Union, and that I had come to Cuba
as a volunteer.
At the time, Castro was
"interested" in the workings of the T-55 tank, a tank that the
Soviets kept secret for years and ended up giving away to the Cuban regular
army.
"They needed a regular Army
to defend themselves against a possible US invasion." Everybody was on the
street with guns in their belts, Fidel carrying a Soviet Stechkin pistol with a
wooden handle, "he says.
Nicolás, who arrived in the USSR
in 1937, was deeply affected by the death of "compañero" Fidel, as he
called him, since he was a "fantastic" character.
A book on Fidel written by the
daughter of the commander, Alina Fernández, and a diploma of honor signed by
Raúl Castro, is kept in a privileged place.
The Spaniard traveled to Havana
in December 1962 on the same boat as the young Cubans who had been instructed
by Soviet military at the Georgian naval secret base of Poti (Black Sea) as
part of the Kremlin's aid to the Cuban Revolution.
"I saw myself more often
with Raul, who was the head of the Revolutionary Armed Forces. When I was on
duty and he came, I translated for him, since I was fluent in Spanish and
Russian." He also met Ché Guevara, with whom he spent some time when they
sat together in the Havana stadium to see Valeri Lobanovski's legendary Dinamo
Kiev.
"He smoked cigars that were
long, even though he had asthma," he recalls, gesturing graphically.
Nicolás liked Cuba so much that
he asked to have his stay extended so as not to have to return to Moscow in the
winter, and he stayed on the island until May 1965, after which he returned to
the train parts factory where he worked at Outskirts of the Soviet capital.
