‘We are already at zero’: Italian resort counts cost as Russian visits dry up

Covid pandemic and invasion of Ukraine have brought sudden halt to years of flourishing business in Calabrian town of Scalea

The services listed on the billboard outside Rotondaro Costruzioni, an estate agency and builder, are written in Italian and Russian, as are the details of the properties advertised for sale in the window display.

Inside, about a dozen thick red folders, filled with plastic envelopes containing details of customers dating back to 2010, spill out of a cabinet. The majority of those property buyers were Russian. A short distance away is a stretch of Italy's southern Calabrian coastline lapped by clear-blue sea. This is not the glitzy Costa Smeralda in Sardinia or Tuscany's Forte dei Marmi, where lavish villas and yachts belonging to Russian oligarchs have been seized over the last two months, but Scalea, a low-profile holiday resort with a medieval hilltop village whose economy has flourished over the past decade, partly thanks to the ordinary Russians who flocked here for the cheap property and sunshine.