No credits - no flags

Decided! Russia leaves Cyprus. Report of our special correspondent from the capital of the financial crisis

Decided! Russia leaves Cyprus. The Russian community speaks of the exodus from the island as a matter of 3-4 months. Most contributors have children in local schools. Plus, it will take time to withdraw the remaining money from the accounts ... Report from our special correspondent from the capital of the financial crisis

- Sasha, damn it, leave with the oncoming one! I yell at Sasha.

“Let’s say you underestimate me,” Sasha shouted judiciously over the motor. “But ceramic brakes with carbon fiber reinforcement…”

- What?!

“You are too nervous,” Sasha said.

Our matte 911 Porsche Carrera speeds along the Gheorghiu promenade. Eleven pm. The roar under the hood cannot be interrupted even by the rumbling audio system. Signboards of hotels, banks, restaurants, casinos blur like an endless blur. Carrera flies already for 130. We are already collecting four-five-six ... we are collecting all the "red" traffic lights that are on the way. Cypriots in tiny cars resignedly crowded to the side of the road. And I squeeze into the passenger seat. You asked for it. Although I didn’t shout, leaning out of the hatch: “How dear Limassol evenings are to me!” This was shouted from a charged Honda with the daughter of a top from Rostelecom at the wheel. They raced after the 911. I didn't drink wine from my throat. Didn't give the middle finger to the police car. I didn't do anything wrong! I just got into a damn car with a drunken banker.

...Sometimes similar cases pop up in the European media. Sources in the police supply journalists with pictures from video recorders - and now the whole of Europe is savoring the stories about the goofy show-offs of Russians. But today there will be none of that. The daughter of the top from Rostelecom said that the local police would wipe all the records at her request. “Dude,” Victoria reassured me later *, “they won’t go against the Russians!” "Why won't they go?" - "Putin is for us!" Probably so. They didn’t follow after seeing the fakes from our cars…

... The financier Sasha finally gave up on the brakes. "Carrera" and soon "Honda" were again at the famous restaurant "Taras Bulba" ... On weekends, the most influential Russians in the city gather here - businessmen, bankers, traders, their wives. Although the last “crisis” week they gather almost every day, they celebrate the upcoming outcome on a grand scale. Cypriots stay away from the restless "Russian raspberries" these days. And I got to the right place.

Limassol is something like the capital of Russian Cyprus. The second largest city on the island. And the main financial center. For ten years now, Russian money and its numerous human servants have been setting the tone here - expat clerks (Moscow lawyers, IT specialists, auditors), Russian-speaking establishments, media, shops, casinos. Only according to official data, 30 thousand Russians permanently live in the 250,000th Limassol. Plus another 5-7 thousand people in a semi-legal position - these are cooks and governesses with expired visas, prostitutes, drivers, armed bodyguards. At the top of the community are the children and wives of the largest contributors (officials and multimillionaires), floated to a quiet, safe island, and the contributors themselves, who come to visit their families for the weekend and have started a business in Russia as a rentier. With their money they tamed the island and accustomed it to their manners and needs.

Only the British, who are on the sidelines, look with resentment at the Russians. Once they owned the island, even up to zero, British pensioners massively moved here to meet their old age at modest Cypriot prices. But everything was spoiled by the Russians and their appetites. By populating the island and simply investing here, they warmed up prices to the southern European maximum. Real estate has become inaccessible in Moscow. And the life of an English pensioner every year became as faded as in his native Liverpool and Manchester. What can I say? Now the British have good reasons for optimism.

The Russian community speaks of the exodus from the island as a matter of 3-4 months. Most contributors have children in local schools. Plus, it will take time to withdraw the remaining money from the accounts.

All week this is the main theme in Taras Bulba. Although many restaurants are closed due to food and cash shortages, everything is surprisingly here, except for desserts. Rentiers flock to the restaurant from all over the area. Agents from mainland European banks - Luxembourg and Swiss - also hang around here. Like Jehovah's Witnesses, they sat down at every table, whispering to each other to talk about salvation—transferring deposits to their banks. And in Moscow, scammers have become more active. Over the course of one evening, Sasha received several phone calls from “dealers with connections to the FSB”, for 2-3% they offered to get money out of Cyprus, bypassing a 30% haircut.

- They want to throw a throw, - Sasha was angry at our table. - And this is all the Motherland can help?

Putin will not leave us! Victoria repeated everything.

- Yes, you already relax with your Putin, - Sasha sighed.

It seems that only relax and remains. In the end, Moscow did not dare to help Cyprus, which means large Russian investors. And this is despite the hysterical comments of the first persons that followed initially. Russia's lethargy offended even the Cypriots. At the last rally in the capital of Nicosia, I saw several posters where, in an embrace with Angela Merkel (traditionally she is depicted here with a swastika and Hitler's mustache), Vladimir Putin was already there - also with a mustache, as well as with a pipe, in the uniform of a generalissimo. On the posters, they again divided Europe. But just a couple of days ago, the Cypriots hung Russian flags from their balconies. But it turns out that since there are no loans, there are no flags.

“We hoped for fraternal help,” Andreas Demidos, a protesting lawyer at Laiki Bank, told me with a poster. - It would be salvation, but now, according to Merkel's insidious plan, Cyprus will be destroyed. Thousands of bankers will lose their jobs, lose a lot of money and go to other offshore Russians. How could Putin let this happen? Here is 20 billion money of its citizens! I don't understand.

And in Taras Bulba, a retired Navy officer, and now the owner of the winery, Sergei Nitochkin, is indignant.

- This is a betrayal! The murder of the patriot in me,” says Nitochkin.

He has 6 million euros stuck in the troubled Laiki Bank. And sailor Nitochkin will lose almost two of them forever.

- What are they thinking about? Both of them, with ... a tandem, - Nitochkin is loudly indignant at the counter. - Cyprus offered them almost everything: military bases, gas, loyalty - and they turned their noses, did not protect me, no one at all!

- They did not protect dirty money.

- And what else should they protect? There is no other Russian money in Cyprus. I give you my word as a sailor!

But the most famous Russian in Cyprus is Alexei Voloboev. “Secretary General of the Russian community”, “Cypriot mother Meadows”, as he is affectionately called in Limassol. He owns several restaurants here (including Taras Bulba), a winery, a large real estate portfolio, and the Russian Wave radio station. For ten years, Voloboev invested 15 million euros in the island, received citizenship, but never learned - neither Greek, nor even English. “The main thing is that the children speak! I took them out of Russia and now I can calm down.” He claims to have earned his fortune in Russia honestly by trading in real estate, oil and stocks. And he moved to Cyprus "because of the good business climate and transparent conditions." Although, as gossip in the community, Voloboev left under pressure, giving away part of the business to the persecutors.

Voloboev walks between the tables and pours vodka to the guests. Orders Olivier and fried potatoes. "Come on while I'm kind!" says the businessman.

- Lyosha, where will you go when Cyprus collapses? they ask him.

- I'm going to England! - Voloboev shouts to the whole hall. - England is the fate of decent entrepreneurs from Russia. Nowhere else are we welcome! In England!

The restaurant answered the appeal with applause. Toasts were spoken for England (someone, however, spoke for Canada and the USA), Voloboev said that he had real estate in the kingdom ...

The "suitcase conversations" of the rich subsided after half an hour. One by one, the mobile guests received calls about Berezovsky's death. Depositors left their tables and went out into the fresh air. It is very warm in Limassol in the evenings.

Limassol — Nicosia

^{*The names of some characters have been changed.}