Cyprus is a small country, and not especially stellar on the perceived corruption index. Which leads to the question of supermarkets. For years there were three chains, plus various local grocery stores and greengrocers, or fruitarias, as well as endless tiny peripteros. Quebec reading for that last is dépanneur. Have never found a totally satisfactory English term, so in-house we tend to use the Greek, even in Canada. UK would say corner shop, regardless of physical location. Hard to see how so many peripteros survive, but assume that buying wholesale for extended family and having only family work in the shop makes it worthwhile, along with possible tax advantages.
But back to the supermarkets. Metro runs several, and European giant Carrefour did as well, before being bought out by a Greek company. Prices up, variety of goods and number of customers down. But the locally owned supermarket chain, for years, was Orphanides. Despite financial difficulties that involved not paying suppliers, who desperately continued throwing good supplies after bad in the hopes that it would all come right again, it seemed in Cypriot terms too big to fail. Until fate caught up with the family. And so today’s Cyprus Mail reports that Christos Orphanides, currently enjoying fourteen months of state hospitality for issuing €400,000 worth of bad cheques, has had his sentence extended by twenty-eight months on account of another €6.4 million in bounced cheques. And the creditors? Unfortunately he’s now a poor pensioner so they’re out of luck.
So I pursue the question of Mrs Orphanides. Everybody knows (even us) that she was arrested at the airport trying to leave the country with a suitcase full of money. Rumour said €4 million. But only rumours can be found online. Hushed up, fake news, rumour gone wild? Who knows. I can’t even tell whether it is physically possible to put €4 million in cash into a suitcase, never having seen a note larger than €50. How the other half lives.
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