When Mikhail Gorbachev came to Cuba in 1989, there were some 12,000 Soviet technicians and military personnel on the island, along with their families. Cuba sent almost all its sugar and other exports to the Soviet bloc. In return, the island received everything from oil to strawberries. But three decades of official sloganeering about brotherhood and unity left very little mark. The Soviet technicians lived in separate compounds, rarely learned Spanish and sent their children to separate schools.
Today there is almost no cultural evidence of the Soviet presence on the island.
Mr Putin will find only 12 Russian diplomats working in the embassy, which dominates western Havana. He will see a picture of himself in the main entrance hall and may stumble upon, hidden away behind a pillar, a lone surviving bust of Lenin which was too large or politically sensitive to remove. He will find that his host, Fidel Castro, has changed little in style, still firing on all cylinders against the imperialists to the north. But the Cuban leader has been forced to mellow just a little over the last decade. Last week he announced he is now a Lennonist as well as a Leninist, as he unveiled a statue of the Beatles hero whose music was once banned on the island.