Soviet Estonians Stashed Love Notes to Cuba in Potato Boxes

Soviet-era Estonian farmers ordered to send potatoes to communist ally Cuba took advantage to stash love notes in the shipments, but never got an answer, a newspaper reported Friday.

"In the spring of 1961, our Soviet collective farm got an order to pack all the potatoes we had left and prepare them to be sent to Cuba," Hans Uba, who worked as an electrician at the time, was quoted as saying by the weekly Maaleht.

Dreaming of warmer climes than their Baltic homeland and of Latin charms, the farm workers decided to break with the language of Marxist solidarity and penned cheeky messages in rudimentary Spanish -- two years after the start of the Cuban revolution under Fidel Castro.

"We wrote things like 'besame mucho'," said Uba, using the Spanish for "kiss me loads".

"But nobody ever replied," he added.

Estonia, a nation of 1.3 million, was taken over by the Soviet Union during World War II and only regained independence in 1991 as communist rule finally crumbled in Europe.