outside looking in
Time to Talk
to the World
N
atalia Kardash, Editor-inChief of several Russian-language publications in Cyprus,
is Vice-President of the Association of Russian-speaking
residents, founder of the Cyprus-Russian Festival and one of the founders of the European
Russian Alliance, an organisation affiliated to
the European Parliament. As someone with
her finger on the pulse of the Russian community here, she spoke to Gold about how she
sees the way forward if Cyprus is to maintain/
regain the confidence of her compatriots living
in and visiting the island.
Gold: Let’s get straight to the point. Will it
be possible to restore the trust of Russian
business people in Cyprus?
Natalia Kardash: After all the events that have
taken place and are still taking place in Cyprus,
it will be very difficult to restore the trust that
Russian businessmen had in the island. But
while the pessimists might say that it is “impossible”, I would say that it is possible…but
extremely difficult. We can look at Russia itself. The last banking crisis (1998) affected the
economy greatly and it is only now, 15 years
on, that the Russian president can confidently
announce that “Our banks are strong and can
be trusted”. I hope that the Cypriot president
will be able to make such a statement much
sooner.
Gold: So