I find it so heartbreaking driving around Larnaca and seeing yet another shop has closed down, and as dramatic as it sounds, it feels akin to a kind of death.
The closures are happening at such a frighteningly rapid rate, and sometimes it really surprises me which stores have fallen victim to the economic massacre. Shops I had thought were popular or doing well are suddenly empty with the horrible big, red 'for rent' sign plastered on the front. I now find that sign so ominous and loaded with deeper meaning… representative of how the owners struggled, and a black mark added to the unemployment statistics. Each shop is more than a shop, it's lives and livelihoods, and I find myself wondering who the people behind the shop window are; how many people they employed both visibly and behind the scenes, and how they will now all cope. It just goes to show that you really never know what is happening behind closed doors.
It must look terrible too for visitors. Some shop rows - such as the one that leads towards the police station and seafront – are almost completely empty. They look abandoned, sad, pitiful and ugly, but most of all, desperate. For me, they really are the defining symbol of how badly we are doing, just as they will be the symbol of prosperity when they are (eventually) full again.
I am not very mathematically or business minded (an understatement, the truth is I am completely useless at both!), therefore I cannot understand the mechanics of all this closure. Is it possible that every single business is suffering to the brink of collapse; that every single person is completely without money? Where has all the money gone if no one has it? If everything keeps on closing, what then happens? Where will we 'get stuff from'? Surely people still need some things and surely not every single person is at the point where they cannot afford to buy anything other than bread and milk? I am sure that sounds very dim-witted to a lot of people, but none of it makes sense to me.
In trying to see the silver lining, I wonder if this means there will be a real shake-up and change to our commercial face? We had lost the Larnaca of old when we replaced it with lots of international franchises. They were welcome for various reasons, but they also meant that Larnaca's town centre just became another cloned European town centre with exactly the same brands and shops that you can find in any other generic European town centre. I hope that after they have all fled our little town (as many have already done so), that local, independent shops will open in their place. Of course, there has to be a lesson learned here for local businesses – that they cannot charge extortionate prices and that to survive they have to respect the customer in both what they offer and how they treat them – something which was sorely lacking previously, and a reason that I – and I am sure others – stuck to the shops they knew from abroad whose prices were more reasonable.
We have many lessons to learn, and much regeneration to put into motion, and I hope this time, that we do it right, because we simply cannot go through this all again, and those lonely empty shops are crying out for life.
First appeared in The Cyprus Weekly, 01/02/14
