Santo Domingo.-If you stand on the east sidewalk of the iconic avenue of commerce, entertainment, large establishments and the glamor of today’s Santo Domingo, you can see from the foot of the Blue Mall building, looking towards the west sidewalk, the emblematic Churchill Multicentro, one of the large establishments of the Ramos Group.
In the social base of this building is one of the country’s great commercial companies and, as today’s Dominicans like to think, one of the great fortunes still vital from that original moment that began with the fall of the Great Dictatorship.
The one chaired by Román Ramos Uría is certainly one of the country’s important economic groups, but just over 50 years ago it was barely The mermaid, a business in a tailspin that was sold to him on credit for 110 thousand pesos.
Today it may seem like a chilata to anyone, but it was then a considerable sum if you think that a peso and a dollar were the same thing, that is, it represented about 6 million in these times, quite difficult for any employee even of a bank commercial.
With an amount of money like this, a typical Dominican immediately thinks of a SUV, an apartment in one of the Bisonó complexes, and a big party.
We invite you to read: Román Ramos started as an employee of a stocking factory
Of course, if the country has large commercial companies, it is because the population is willing to consume and has the ability to buy.
Money was beyond the possibilities of this young Spaniard, so he confronted his aspiration on the basis of his social network —in the old sense of the concept, of links of collaboration, friendship and solidarity— and looked for “the fourth ”, and a partner, to collect 50 thousand pesos that had to be contributed immediately. The partner sought 25 thousand and his mother-in-law lent him 25 thousand. A great undertaking had started without a chele!
unbeatable year
Those were the days of the civil war and the then young Román —arrived from Asturias to work as a clerk— was involved in an economic operation to which he has never stopped putting desire.
It was that, 1965, a great year for Ramos Uría, who despite having lived through the war in the colonial part, got married in August and in December he was in debt for 8 years to channel his vitality towards an economic-social unit.
The transformation
The Mermaid was not his invention. The store existed before it was born, on October 18, 1941, in Pola de Allande, Asturias. His is the shift towards the area of cosmetics and glassware printed in the profile of the business, today covered under the Grupo Ramos tent, which he gave rise to.
This entrepreneur had arrived in Santo Domingo in 1959 with the precarious luggage of most Spanish migrants of those days.
One day Santo Domingo will have, in the Museum of Fray Antón de Montesinos, a room with suitcases, shirts, shoes, hats and work contracts of hundreds, or thousands, of pilgrims who settled in this land their precariousness, called Arabitos, cocolos or Spaniards between 1880 and 1980.
Short of baggage and full of illusions, they and their descendants have become a vital part of the economic, social and political development of the Dominican people.
While they worked, sheltered by routines that may seem sordid to those who prefer other lifestyles, they built a part of the Dominican destiny.
If you haven’t gone overboard when talking about yourself during an interview in your spacious, modern office at Churchill Multicentre, He arrived “braking in the hoop”, as the colloquial speech of the Dominican says to describe a very precarious economic condition.
The genes of the trade
Born into a family with a modest commercial tradition, upon his arrival he entered a factory located in the María Auxiliadora neighborhood of what was then Ciudad Trujillo, where he worked as a laborer and one day he was transferred to a store on Calle del Conde as a clerk.
At 80 years old, Don Román says he likes the good life.
With this transfer, Ramos Uría reached the then distinguished trade route, the fun and glamor of the Dominican capital and since then he would not leave this activity, to which he decided to link his personal history.
Once with La Sirena, he did not want to get involved in the sale of textiles, a specialty of most of the Spanish businesses on Calle del Conde, because it did not give him the money.
“With what I bought a roll of cloth, I filled a shelf with shampoo,” José Monegro, Ányelo Mercedes and Miguel Febles told journalists like someone who collects memories parked in a neuron.
That circumstance led him to specialize in glassware and cosmetics, care and beautification products that would end up giving his business a particular profile when the partner’s departure led him to go into over-indebtedness to buy his part in the business.
As you can see, and in this there must be free education for young or enterprising people, regardless of age, this 24-year-old man had more will than financial resources at his disposal, and he used it.
La Sirena grew, expanding to other parts of the country, particularly Santiago, and also reached Churchill in a move that some merchants considered risky, but that Román Ramos celebrates today as a visionary investment.
With the expansion of the city, which has not stopped moving since it was founded within walls, the centers of interest have also changed places, among them the streets of Conde and Mella, which were once the mirror where people went to see themselves. the best and most distinguished of society.
Román Ramos has been a witness and actor of these displacements since the days in which attention was focused on a small perimeter, until today, when it seems widespread and can be found anywhere in the country and some do not hesitate to point out its climax. , the summun, on Winston Churchill Avenue.
leave Spain
—1— By boat
He traveled from Vigo to Puerto Rico in six days and there they lent him 35 dollars for the ticket to Santo Domingo. He has not paid them.
—2— Fate
He arrived in Santo Domingo on October 15, 1959. Three days later he would be 18 years old.
—3— Key
The year of the war was key in his life: he got married and bought La Sirena!
