Carnival of Luxury boss blasts critics

Eva Aydelman, the initiator and leading figure behind the Carnival of Luxury staged recently in the Arade Pavillion near Portimão, is angry about the controversy surrounding the event.

Mrs Aydelman says she has been subjected to malicious rumour and inaccurate press reports, and that she is “disgusted” by allegations of previous convictions for fraud committed in the UK.

The “ultimate lifestyle fair” as it was billed, did not live up to her expectations because of “jealousy, extortion, defamation and lies. My lawyer and I have proof of it, but it is for the courts and not for the so-called truth-loving press to decide,” she said.

She quoted the 20th century American writer Robert E. Howard: “Civilized men are more discourteous than savages because they know they can be impolite without having their skulls split, as a general thing.”

So annoyed is she by her hostile critics that she intends submitting a case to the European Court of Human Rights because she does not feel she could get proper justice in this country.

Asked why she initiated a luxury event here at a time of financial crisis, Mrs Aydelman, an Israeli citizen born in the former USSR, said that on first coming to Portugal to look for investment property she fell in love with the Algarve.

“I just wanted to add some glitter to the world’s best kept secret. It was a dream. The beauty of the nature hypnotised me, but now when I look around all I can see is ugliness – dirt, actual and moral.”

So far she has paid off 90% of the bills arising from the carnival and is in the process of settling the rest, but she will end up well out of pocket. “Don’t get me wrong, the financial losses are painful, but the emotional suffering is the worst.”

Mrs Aydelman declined to say how much she had lost. To do so would only “provide satisfactions to all of you (the press) and become a new topic for public discussion.”

Having promised to contribute to charities before the event, she said that despite her losses she would honour that pledge.

“I still believe that good causes should not suffer because of people that don’t have the first clue about humility. And if the press would stop for a minute smearing my name and intentions, they would have heard the announcement I made (at the Carnival) during Sunday afternoon:  that charities would still get donations, maybe not as big as we hoped. For this they can thank the sensational and scandal-hungry press.”

Would she consider staging such an event in the Algarve or elsewhere in Portugal ever again? 

“At this specific moment I would like to make a time capsule with the message that not only my children, my grandchildren and my great-grand children should avoid this place more than the plague. But this is regarding my children or my descendants. In regards to myself, I don’t really know.”