Category: Cyprus

I live in Cyprus for many years now. It is a beautiful little island in Mediterranean Sea. It features warm weather for most of the year, sea, very kind and hospital people, plenty of jobs in IT industry, good food and plenty of alcohol, stable currency, and more. It’s really a nice place to live if you can handle small towns and villages. It’s also a great place to raise the kids.

Not much happens here. It is a quiet and simple place. Yet, when something happens or when I write about it, I post it to Cyprus category.

Troodos Rally 2004: Section 6

As I have already mentioned, Cyprus Automobile Association (CAA) has sent me the itinerary for Troodos Rally 2004. Tomorrow, the last day of the event, has two sections – Section 5 and Section 6. Races of Section 5 are way too early in the morning, so I guess we’ll skip them all. Section 6 though is a bit later and it does progressively gets closer to Limassol. I am thinking of watching one race, either from Delikipos at 10:00am or from Monagrouli at 11:15.

In case you are interested in the event, I have pinned down few points of tomorrow’s Section 6 on this map of Cyprus (2.6 MBytes JPEG with 3232×1993 pixels).

Troodos Rally 2004

There are some indications in the web, that Troodos Rally 2004 starts today and will proceed for the next couple of days. Cyprus Automobile Association has a tiny bit on its website. There is also a brief mentioning in the news by Cyprus News Agency.

I have both called and emailed Cyprus AA for more information. Email hasn’t got a reply yet. Phone is very tricky for handling Special Stages information – names of Cyprus villages are tricky to foreigners (me and the lady on the other end). I’ve got only few tiny bits.

The ceremonial start will be today in Nicosia at 20:30. Tomorrow, Leg 1 will go through the villages Tseri (6:53 and 12:41), Rouva (not sure about the name, but time is 7:51), Kalo Chorio (8:19), Pyrga, Kalavasos, and few other. Leg 2, on the day after tomorrow will go through the same stages, but in reverse order, if I understood correctly.

I will update this post if I get any more information via email or otherwise. Please use comments or email to let me know if you have any information regarding the event.

Update (1 Oct 2004, 13:30): I’ve found another news article, which mentions Kronos village.

Update (1 Oct 2004, 13:36): RallyBase has an entry for Troodos Rally. Currently it lists only the event of 2003. Winning drivers information might be useful.

Update (2 Oct 2004, 13:17): I’ve got a reply to the email. They have sent me
this file (MS Excel format, but OpenOffice nicely opens it) with all the locations and times of the event. Cool! They also said that fans can pass by Cyprus AA office in Nicosia to get maps free of charge. Office address is on their website.

Update (11 Oct 2004, 20:04): Links to RallyBase in the article were wrong. Fixed. Thanks to RallyBase website webmaster Tjeerd.

Girl and ice cream

Olga and I went for a sunset walk in Molos promenade today. I was surprised to find a lot of people there. Some were running, others walking, yet another others – sitting on the benches.

There were a few photo opportunities. The best two were the girl with an ice-cream and a couple of kittens. The girl was the best ever, but she was almost running trying to catch up with her parents, so I had only one shot. I guess with better cropping the image can get better. Kittens, though were very atmospheric and would have been much better on the video. They were very synchronized. They were sitting and moving their heads in exactly same directions at exactly same time. Very cool. But they were wild and were scared away when I tried to get closer.

Album location: /photos/2004/2004-09-28_POTD

Yet another trip to Akamas

Yet another trip to Akamas we had today with Olga, Hazard, Lev, my brother, and Olga’s two cousins. Traditional visit to Viklari tavern for some pork and red wine, and then some beaching nearby. Since we went a little bit later than usual, we didn’t go to Lara Bay. That saved us about 15 minutes of road trip each way, and added some experience with waves. We also scared away a couple of nudists.

I have made a few pictures. The album is here.

Experience with CID

Today I have spent the first half of the day in Nicosia at Russian Council. My brother, my wife, and myself all had to do some paperwork. After I have finished with my part and was waiting for my brother, I walked around and made few pictures. Apparently, the guard at Egyptian Embassy was all alerted and reported me to CID (if anyone knows what this abbreviation means, let me know). Two officers came, checked all my papers and questioned me. They checked my story over the phone with another guy who confirmed my status, my visa, and stuff like that. They have asked me (although I was first to suggest) to delete the pictures of the Egyptian Embassy building and the guard at the gates. Of course, I did. This is one of the beauties of the digital photography – you can delete a couple of images without ruining the whole film.

The only few pictures I was allowed to keep from Nicosia were with the photographer you can see on the left. He looked really cool, and when noticed me taking pictures of him, he shot me in return. Later, when the CID officer saw the picture of this guy on the display of my camera, he told me that this is a very famous photographer in Cyprus and that everyone knows him. Heh, looks like not everyone. Again, if anyone can recognize the guy, let me know.

The moral of the story (confirmed by arrived immigration officer) is: do not photograph any government buildings, military setups, courts, embassies, police offices, and the like. It can easily get you into trouble.

P.S.: Both CID officers that questioned me were very calm, polite, and generally positive. I was really impressed on how delicate and politically correct they handled the situation.