From the divided city of Paphos to the divided capital of Nicosia

Whereas Nicosia is known as the last divided capital; the old town and new tourist area of Paphos actually feel more divided than Nicosia. However, before elaborating on this hunch I got from spending two/three days in the capital is based solely on my observations on the Greek side of the capital. The first impression I got when setting foot in the center of Nicosia was that the local population seemed to be a lot more mixed than that of the old town or new town (tourist area) of Paphos. In Nicosia, besides Greek and Turkish Cypriots I spotted many Lebanese, Armenian, Syrian, Russian, Romanian, Bulgarian and Middle eastern and south East Asian people amongst which Pakistani, Indian and Philippine citizens. Also there were many Africans from several countries as evident from the fact that some spoke English, others French and yet others Arabic. I was told that a majority of them actually came from Somalia. Besides the local residents there were also tourists from other countries that I hadn't encountered in Paphos before such as German, French, Belgian and Spanish tourists. Interestingly enough on the first day I went to have lunch with Axel and Taha in a well known Armenian cafe/restaurant where they served delicious 'fast food' and light meals. As we were waiting for our food to arrive I saw two Russian women pass by and greet the waiter in Russian asking him 'kak dela?'. He kindly replied to them, made some small talk and they continued walking. The waiter didn't look Russian or Bulgarian at all but rather Armenian or perhaps Turkish. From this minor interaction I drew the (correct?) conclusion that not all Cypriot citizens dislike the presence of Russians on their island and that actually many of them have learned some basic Russian because of their presence here. This assumption was confirmed later, on the following Saturday, when Hesther and I went out for a walk outside of the city walls of the old town. At some point the kimonos walking guide lead us to the two best bakeries in town where we indulged in their pattiserie and salad bar. In line for the cash register I overheard the cashier help the woman in Russian. When it was my turn to pay she also started talking to me in Russian because she assumed I was Russian too. I told her that my Russian is not that good and asked her how come she knows Russian. She seemed to only speak Greek and Russian and explained to me in Greek that she learned it from interaction with customers throughout the years. Previously, Nepheli's dad amongst others, had told me that Cypriots are not too fond of Russians on the island and that some people do cater to them (by learning the language or providing information in Russian) but only for financial purposes. More or less, strictly for business, I suppose. However, this business usually concerns a lot of money, think of property, luxury yachts, water sports, helicopter flights etc. This made me think about the motive of this ordinary greek cypriot woman working in the bakery to be able to speak Russian. Honestly, it doesn't seem like there's tons of money to be made or missed if an employee doesn't speak Russian and yet, this woman at the bakery knew how to communicate in Russian. From this I then inferred that whereas there might be a lot

of Cypriots that feel that their island is being invaded or taken over by Russians; there are also many Cypriots that enjoy their presence and the foreign culture that they add to Cypriot society. However,  I don't want to be too hasty in drawing any conclusions and it must be mentioned that all Russian interaction that I observed whilst in Nicosia was that of communication with friendly and good looking Russian women. Interaction with Russian men might have been rather different given the 'general' nature of Russian guys (with money). Yet, another Greek Cypriot that I met on the beach of Ayia Napa told me that the beginning when the Russians came, several decades ago, they were very rude and always tried to go about doing business in a threatening kind of manner. They would try to intimidate the Cypriots into making deals with them until the Cypriots said 'No, that is not the way to do it, you should just ask us'. After a while the Russians learned that actually they got much more out of it if they asked politely rather than being offensive. He elaborated that 'now they live amongst us' and they have become part of the makeup of our society. 'They have been around much longer than the Chinese, who just got here a few years back' and Cypriots have learned how to live side by side with them. He mentioned that they have settled themselves mostly in Limassol and it's surroundings but that their new city of settlement seems to be Paphos, especially now that this city will get a big development boost because of winning the title of capital of culture 2017. We also spoke about how they were financially involved and the topic of money laundering but he sidetracked the conversation to the fact that 'yes, they do launder their money here but at the same time I don't mind that they spend their money on yachts, villa and expensive things here because they have also created many jobs for Cypriots' so I guess it is not all that bad. Another important development that surfaced our conversation was the launch of low cost charter airlines flying into Cyprus. He told me that they had never had so many Russians, Italians and Spanish people some years back; but since Transavia, Ryanair etc started flying into Paphos and Larnaca the amount of tourists and the diversity within this group has increased immensely. All in all, Cyprus has always been a society of migrants ever since its settlement but in the last few decades this trend seems to ever grow stronger. Hopefully, the need of the ‘common’ Cypriot will not be overlooked in the years to come because that is a fear that many locals do have.

by Nino