In Havana yesterday; at school. Picture: Ramon Espinosa/AP Source: AP

Onions and an American classic. Picture: Desmond Boylan/AP Source: AP

A makeshift barber shop. Picture: Ramon Espinosa/AP Source: AP

Construction workers take a break. Picture: Ramon Espinosa/AP Source: AP

Although the deal means ­profound change is set to sweep through Cuba, it will not come quickly in a nation still living on ration cards and subsidies.

Cubans have long grown used to the lack of freedom of speech, the neighbourhood snitches and the privations of a command economy.

Until the announcements of a deal yesterday by Mr Obama and their own President, Raul Castro, it had seemed impossible that life would improve soon.

For Cubans who smoke, ­another important announcement was made yesterday: tobacco was being removed from the ration cards that every citizen ­carries, just as potatoes were taken off five years ago.

That means the dirt-cheap, state-subsidised cigarettes will no be longer available, yet the average salary of Cubans is just £12 ($23) a month, making it difficult to afford anything that is not ­supplied in government-subsidised stores. Dubbed by Mr Castro as an “updating of socialism”, the ­removal of staples from the ration list is an attempt to wean Cuba’s 11 million people off the creaking welfare state system, even without a viable market alternative.

The rationing system was introduced in 1962, and entitles Cubans to a small amount of flour, sugar, chicken, fish, eggs, rice, ­coffee, cooking oil, pasta and bread. Many Cubans say the amounts are so small that they last only half the time they are meant to, and many risk lengthy prison terms to smuggle black market commodities, such as beef.

Since 2010, limited economic reforms have been made, such as allowing people to rent out their property or own cars without a special permit. However, the difficulties of supply and demand in the state-run economy mean that even with the freedom to buy a car, few have the money to do so. A standard Peugeot can cost $US260,000 ($320,000), and car dealers reported that in the first half of the year, only 50 vehicles were sold.

That is part of the reason ­Havana is so renowned for its well-maintained, pre-revolutionary 1950s Cadillacs, and why it is obligatory for any state-owned ­vehicle that has a free seat to stop and pick up hitch-hikers.

Under Raul Castro, Cuba has relaxed travel restrictions for its citizens, but some who have been refused US visas still risk drowning at sea to try to reach the US in homemade boats, taking advantage of the “wet foot-dry foot policy” that means if they can land on US soil, they are allowed to stay.

What preys on the minds of many Cubans, however, especially the elderly, is the exiles across the Straits of Florida, those who fled after the revolution and their children. Vociferous opponents of the communist regime, they have denounced the nationalisations and seizures of their property, much of which is now inhabited by Cuba’s poor.

In Havana, many of the poorer residents live in “barbecues”, crumbling old houses whose high-ceilinged rooms have had extra floors installed to create more rooms, and which have a teeming, decrepit feel to them. These residents have no idea what would happen if a market economy ­appeared, or the properties were restored to their pre-revolutionary owners, as happened in many eastern European countries.

And while Cuba has a national health system that boasts a lower child mortality rate and longer life expectancy than the US, it has often suffered from shortages of essential medicines and supplies. Its efficiency is essentially based on the vast number of trained doctors the island has, something it can afford because they are paid only about £30 a month.

In the past decade, those doctors have become a key economic export for Cuba, being dispatched to Venezuela in exchange for cheap oil and more recently to Brazil and even sent by the hundreds to west Africa to fight ebola.

That has left a shortage at home, and some doctors have ­defected while abroad, or complain that their professional development is hampered by their difficulty of travelling outside the country to attend international conferences.

The Times