April 25, 2019 at 10:00Cyprus - a moment of soft psychedelic
Flamingos in Larnaca, Cyprus. By the way, the settlement, in our opinion, will be “Grobovo”, because the “Larnaca” is a sarcophagus, and a lot of them were found here in the vicinity. So the city was called.
The first impression of Cyprus or the “island of IT specialists” is the island of incredibly kind gouging. It is warm, pleasant, near the sea, around the sun, the sky - well, how can one do something serious in such circumstances? For example, for the cafe owner it’s normal to see a large flow of customers, decide that it is too tiring, close the restaurant, tell everyone “Relax!” and go across the road to drink coffee. To rest. Typically, everyone will relax and go about their business.
On the other hand, moderation from the state is also almost not felt. Everywhere graffiti (and very well inscribed in the urban environment), I went through passport control in both directions in 15 seconds (you can’t do it faster, this is the time to search for a free place under the stamp in the passport), there are no caretakers in museums (and that’s all), but on the roads you can go a little under a degree, everyone exceeds and rearranges through a solid one, even in front of the police.
- Here everyone breaks, look! - the driver told me on the way from the airport.
- Uh ... Does it bother you that we now exceed 40 kilometers per hour?
In general, a miracle island. And at the same time interesting from the point of view of infrastructure. And with flamingos.
Typical construction of Cyprus: two thermal panels (these are not even solar panels, just heat exchangers for heating water), a water tank, a pump for pumping into the house. When upgrading with solar panels, an autonomous power supply for the pump appears. Usually a satellite dish is still mounted on top.
Often they are placed in arrays.
Why is the "island of IT specialists"?
Because quite liberal legislation, good tax conditions and the sea. And many Russians like to live here. Russian is the third default language of the island. On the Greek side, the gradation is "Greek - English - Russian", on the Turkish side - "Turkish - English - Russian". Many indigenous Cypriots finished our RUDN University. Many moved here to freelance and stayed. The island has heap offices of gaming companies, financial institutions, and the foundations of the Internet infrastructure, the porn industry. But the IT part, and not the one that is about unsuccessful attempts to reproduce a person. Prices are slightly higher than in Germany, salaries are at a good level (if you are an IT specialist or from digital), the food is delicious, summer is all year round except August. In August, double summer, it becomes hot and scary.
There are three languages in the southern part: Greek, English, Russian.
In northern, Greek is replaced by Turkish.
Although the feeling that you can read any inscription, and then rrrraz and you can not at first very strange.
It rained this April, and the reservoirs rose almost to the limit.
Why such a spirit of indifference?
I will not say for sure, but I have a hypothesis that this is a combination of the political situation and the climate. In many nomadic cultures, the time is not linear, but cyclical. In the sense, “do by noon” can mean any noon, because there will be many more of the same. Missed one or two - not scary. In Cyprus, in the natural cycle, there are no things that can be drunk and then regretted for a year (for example, we can easily not get ready for winter, and this is a pitchfork). Somehow it turned out that the Mediterranean climate defines something like this approach to life. This is neither bad nor good, it's just a different cultural code. Things are being done, but not at the pace and not in the way we are accustomed to.
The second feature is a fairly unobtrusive control. This is what is called in the business “marketing must be directed outside the company.” In the sense, it seems that there is enough of its affairs inside the management system, and therefore much is supported on the principle of “works - do not touch”. According to the locals, it began around the year 76, when the island was divided into two parts.
A cliff in the eastern part of the island, where English troops after a demobilization jump into a green spot. They have a green spot instead of a fountain in the park on the day of the Airborne Forces.
Two parts?
If very briefly, then it went like that. Persians settled in Cyprus a long time ago, then the Greeks drove them out with the city-states and the usual structure, in the Middle Ages the Byzantines came with castles, then the French, Ottomans, then the British. In 1960, Cyprus gained independence from Great Britain.
Now, according to local residents, there is still a controversial situation and holivars. The British left a condition: there will be a republic, and here is a constitution for you. Or we are not leaving. And two of our military bases remain. Cyprus accepted the conditions, a republic with a constitution appeared. Guarantors are England, Greece and Turkey. Guarantors of the constitution are countries that can, in case of violation of this constitution, enter the country with the army and pierce until the constitution is no longer violated. The peculiarity of the abandoned laws is that it is necessary to observe ethnic equality in parliament and in general around, and there are ethnic quotas. The Turkish Cypriots with a quota of 18% are dissatisfied with the size of their quota and begin to block the adoption of laws. Various conflicts begin. In an atmosphere of rules that are written so that these conflicts in fact cause (it’s not clear, however, is it social engineering of the British or they really wanted justice) everything around turns into a sluggish swara. In 63, the swara ceases to be sluggish, because of the outrage that there is a threat of the invasion of Turkey as a guarantor. UN introduces peacekeepers. "Cyprus has maintained integrity, but has not maintained statehood." In 74, all this warmed up again and became a civil war. Turkey fences the north side and protects the Turkish Cypriots.
This site is not officially recognized, but in fact there is a piece of Turkey. If you need an analogy, we have a similar peninsula.
In 2004, Cyprus is a member of the European Union (in fact, only by the Greek Cypriot side). Welding between the parties continues to this day. As a result, the island is delimited by the zone into which abandoned settlements fall. The euro runs on one side, and the lira on the other. Locals cheerfully travel across the border for cheaper gasoline, cheaper food and generally purchase (a trip of 100 kilometers pays off at the cost of gasoline and cigarettes on the Turkish side), which, again, causes fierce seething in society.
The driver from the Greek side looked at the flag for a long time, but then decided that he would not take pictures.
I did not have much time to navigate the local features of the policy for the trip, but I have a strong feeling that the Turkish PR position is stronger: they do not create problems for Greek Cypriots to cross the border, they are calm about everything and generally quite correct in terms of statements. The other side complicates the border crossing (again, according to the locals) and joyfully circulates news about the failure of the northern part. Euro runs on both sides, the lira is only in the north.
As a result, the division of the territory is as follows: 36% The Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (do not confuse with Turkey), 3.7% - the United Nations (buffer region), 2.7% - England with military bases, 57.6% - the
Republic of Cyprus.
What about the economy?
Just a quote from Wiki :
“Cyprus entered the eurozone in 2008. Due to the deterioration of macroeconomic indicators in the world, a gradual deterioration of economic indicators in the economy of the Greek part of the island began, which coincided with the deterioration of economic indicators in other countries of the periphery of the euro zone. At the same time, bank interest on deposits in Cyprus (+4.45%) is several times higher than interest rates in the same currency in Germany (+1.5%); about 55% of deposits in the system contain an amount in excess of 100,000 euros, about a third of all foreign deposits are Russian. These high percentages were mostly paid by new investors, that is, there was a financial pyramid. These and other problems brought the economy of the republic closer to collapse, and the country faced the need to receive financial assistance from international lenders. "
March 22, 2013 there was an epic “haircut of deposits” under the law 17 (1) 2013 - they simply took a certain percentage from deposits (depending on the amount of the deposit, for example, 6.75% for small investments). Since then, the fervor for the local banks has somehow calmed down.
Now the economy is largely based on tourists
But to hell with the details, let's talk about biome and urbanism
Cyprus is an island in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea with an appropriate climate. That is, frost in Cyprus is +10 in the afternoon (at night it can be +5 in winter), and +40 in August. That is, it’s warm and windy all year round, at Christmas +19, but around the beginning of summer the heat begins, which burns out the vegetation.
A few years ago, there was a sharp change in the weather in February, which forced the beautiful lady Olya (our former employee) to meet flamingos slightly frantic from the weather and collect them in a bag. To carry warm. In about the same way, this year we had to warm in Moscowbullfinches and waxwings. Only here they froze drunk (the mountain ash cooled several times and warmed up, as a result of which it fermented inside the berries), and in Cyprus flamingos froze for nothing because of a surprise. This year there was a hurricane, and reservoirs overflowed there. I also wanted to collect flamingos in my bag and warm them up, but my arrival day coincided with the last cold rain, and then the weather was sunny.
So, in general, let's dwell on flamingos. Flamingos are cool. Although fabulously stupid (they have a rather old bird's firmware, not like modern coronal ones), but they are still awesome. So, the birds grow up to one and a half meters in height. In fact, they are white (gray, if young), but they eat all red garbage, so they are gradually painted. In zoos, by the way, they need to be fed something with a natural dye, otherwise visitors will decide that they are being deceived.
The ends of the wings are black and the surfaces are red. This is necessary for the disorientation of the predator: when the flock takes off, the predator cannot understand where the silhouettes of the birds are, because they seem to be shifted between the birds.
Fly by default 60 km / h. Mostly the crowd walk slowly in shallow water and filter food from the water. That is, they turn their heads, put their beak in the water and blow it. Water passes, every tasty little thing remains. They swim well, in their youth they try to dive, but adults don’t do that anymore.
The chicks are gray and shaggy, almost the size of adult birds, so if you see ugly birds in a heap of flamingos, these are chicks. They become completely beautiful in 3-5 years.
They molt according to the schedule pre-maritally and after the breeding season. They do this iteratively, that is, the feathers are reserved by N + 2, and drop out by these +2. That is, the bird can fly all the time and molt at the same time. They are also reserved at the level of the flock cluster, that is, they do not molt at once by the whole crowd, but by groups. To do this, move away from the main pack, comb out and then come back. Distributed around the edges of Africa and the southern edge of Asia. They fly into Kazakhstan on the lakes. In the fall, the young go wild and fly wherever they want - often going far beyond their usual distribution. For example, in 2014, one flew to Magnitogorsk. Winters in the Mediterranean, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan. They try to return to where they spent the winter last time, if there was no stress at this place.
They can stand for a very long time because the straightened leg is a “latched” pattern, that is, it is so convenient for them. They hide the second leg in themselves often to warm, because heat loss goes just through the straightened one, it is very long and bare. They also sleep in a crowd, if one flamingo falls at night, it causes a domino effect. During the day, they keep an individual distance, in Moscow they have a characteristic winter pavilion, and so there you can see someone mowing for 3-4 minutes, and they peck at him for nothing, correcting him. By the way, in our zoo, they complete the beak under water completely, and in Cyprus the salt level is higher, it irritates the tissues, and they simply dip it without turning or with a partial turn.
You will be surprised, but about 50 thousand hunters are registered on the island (according to local people). You can shoot a hare (two animals per hunt, each next 1000 Euros), the mouflon is fully protected, the fox is almost unlimited. Birds - partridges, wild pigeon, quail, woodcocks, snipe. There are a lot of birds. But after one of the flamingos was poisoned by lead, eating a fraction from the ground, the hunters got a bit of an effort.
The island has a little less than 2 thousand plant species, and of which about 7% are endemic (for example, Cypriot cedar). The fact is that in the middle of Cyprus there is a huge Troodos mountain range, which is very uncharacteristic for the region. It has an interesting origin, but in short - thanks to double isolation (island + mountains) it turned out that a lot of species either survived here or forked several thousand years ago.
Once there were swamps, warm and pleasant for different parasites. But the British did not like malaria, and they began to massively plant eucalyptus trees. Eucalyptus trees quickly (by environmental standards, of course) reduced the swamp area, and now everything is much healthier.
This is the legendary mandrake, it, like the root, grows on the island, and Gerald Darrell spent his childhood next to her (on the neighboring island and sometimes here). Therefore, it is indispensable against the basilisk in the beautiful "Talking Package":
But pumpkins, they are of this shape, and they just need to be dried and a cork is found. Now I understand where the bottle trees came from in the same “convolution”: The
fields are very yellow due to mustard, colza and other flowers:
In Kyrenia, in the north of the island, there is an old castle, which has become a miniature ark of the flora: huge biodiversity grows behind its walls:
And even the walls are in flowers:
Here grows a carob, it’s also a carob tree, from the pods of which you can make chocolate (not so much) and an analogue of coffee (not very):
Chestnuts can be found in the store:
Olives are
systematically grown: Lizards were brought to fight insects in the gardens. But they still do not shake the foundations of the ecosystem:
Given the climate, greenhouses part of the season work as “cold meat” so that the plants do not burn out. By the way, potatoes nearby grows all year round, every 116 days the harvest of potatoes.
Developed meat and dairy farming:
Urbanism: A Good Psychedelic
The cities are low-rise, so even a small number of residents covers a very large built-up area:
Cyprus is made very special by the urban structure that has developed in a kind of anarchy without excesses. If in Rome at every house there are statues that from childhood teach the young Italian the understanding of beauty and form a very special visual culture for him, then here the dominant is graffiti. And they are very beautiful:
Although, of course, in some places strange. They are not painted over, because these are works of art with signatures.
Even when the drawing becomes part of the display case. In our country this is simply an impossible picture:
In some places they have a history. For example, this orange grandfather always traded at this place, and then disappeared.
Residents of the city learned that he died and made him such a monument exactly where he had been selling juice for several years in a row. Here are some more graffiti examples .
The second most important thing is the limited chaos of architecture. As on the islands of Portugal, they are not building a house here so that it is always new. There are very old objects:
Incredible doors:
Lovely little things in the courtyard:
the green part of growing directly from the walls:
The number above the door - the year of foundation of the house:
water reserves around buildings are often right on the parking
is very much powered by the sun and small batteries:
Sidewalks frightening:
In a donkey can put a car in the face:
In fact, it is inferredfor many generations, a good herd of donkeys on the northeast cape.
Counters are protected from rains:
Here we are visiting a local Russian resident Michael. This is not Michael himself, but a rare blue-language skink. Functional name:
Mail from England, only the color is different:
Even in Limassol there are a lot of things that close at 18. But there are 24 supermarkets and fast-food outlets especially for those who like to eat at night:
Showcases right on the street, climate allows:
In the Troodos mountains there are abandoned villages where a couple of people remained. Here , for example:
An hour away is the Hotel Berengaria - an old complex dating back to the time when the stars rested in the healing mountain air, and not by the sea. Then the hotel went bankrupt, but the locals came up with several tragic stories of how the three brothers got it, and they all died in a very special way.
The middle brother, according to legend, fell from the balcony into the pool and broke his neck. He is an Olympic jumper, if so - 12 meters is not a joke to you. Pictures below are here .
By the way, when it’s hot below, in the mountains it’s like this:
And on the lakes it’s like this:
And on the beaches there is nobody:
Banks damn often rob, so there are special gateways at the entrances to the office:
There are a lot of strange:
There are also very beautiful solutions. For example, red numbers are for rented cars. To make it clear who here does not know the rules:
Of course, one cannot fail to mention cultural monuments as points for tourists. This is an ancient water complex, which is more interesting than the temple nearby:
And here you can touch the stove from the time of Richard. There is no caretaker:
Inside the establishments there is a wild holiday atmosphere:
Plumbers from the following castle can sell ice cream:
A, and yes. There is a festival here. Like in Rio, only local. In April. A whole day of carnival procession without stops, and they are very seriously preparing for it. So, perhaps, my perception of reality was greatly limited by the fact that the holiday was coming.
In general, if you have not been to Cyprus yet, you should watch it in the spring, before the sun has burned everything, and the flamingos have not departed, and the festival has not begun (in order to catch it). Just get ready for the fact that it will be “outbursts” - like weekends, but these days will fall out of life. Because the place is really relaxed, with its passage of time and strange. If you do not work in the IT sector, of course. Well, it’s very interesting to listen to those who already work there, in this kind fairyland of Darrell.
UPD: here is a very useful comment by amarao .