immigration

You are not welcome to Cyprus

Just a few days after I’ve posted “Welcome to Cyprus“, Cyprus News reports about the clash between the anti-racism festival goers and nationalist groups.

THE effects of last Friday’s fracas between nationalist groups and festival goers at the antiracist Rainbow Festival were still being felt across Cyprus.

With one Turkish Cypriot singer stabbed and at least 12 others – foreigners and locals alike – injured, it was commonly agreed that even this violent outcome was nowhere as bad as it could have been.

THE effects of last Friday’s fracas between nationalist groups and festival goers at the antiracist Rainbow Festival were still being felt across Cyprus.With one Turkish Cypriot singer stabbed and at least 12 others – foreigners and locals alike – injured, it was commonly agreed that even this violent outcome was nowhere as bad as it could have been.

The video, perhaps, can illustrate what happened a bit better (if you just want the action, skip to 5:35).

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BlXk4ogvrY4]

While I’ve seen nationalist and xenophobic Cypriots before, this is the first time I see so many of them at the same place, so organized, and so dangerous. Actually, while I was watching this video, I had a strong feeling of deja vu. I’ve seen this somewhere before. Have you? A crowd of young, aggressive guys, well organized, with drums and loudspeakers, with sticks and other weapons, throwing chairs and what not, and having no respect for police at all – sounds familiar? There is only one other group of people that I know in Cyprus that fits the description – football hooligans.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MrPjJmiShUc]

Is there really a connection between football hooligans and nationalist groups? I don’t know. But they do look quite similar to the outsider. And what else worries me is the police. It seems that at the state the police is in right now, it can’t really stand against either football hooligans or violent fascist raids.

Welcome to Cyprus

I’ve said it a few times that one of the good things about Cyprus is that there are so many people from so many different cultures living in peace here. But I rarely actually researched how many foreigners are here and from which parts of the world they come. I just judged by my own experiences. Cyprus Mail runs the article which is interesting in this regard.

ALMOST ONE third of Cyprus’ population is made up of foreigners, including other EU citizens, nationals of third countries and illegals, according to statistics for 2009.

Odnoklassniki.ru – Russian classmates, but abroad?

My last post about Odnoklassniki.ru became the most popular post on this blog. It’s by far more popular than all the tips, links, and tutorials that I’ve written here, combined. It comes up pretty high in related Google search results and brings quite a bit of traffic. It also brings in some comments.

Most of the comments are from people who mistakenly assume that this blog is some sort of support forum for all the troubles they have with Odnoklassniki.ru, or, even, that this site IS in itself Odnoklassniki.ru. I am trying to limit those comments, since they don’t belong here. On the other hand though, there are some really insightful comments.

For example, Gennadiy Zaretskiy has recently posted a comment with the link to this article. Here is what caught my attention:

Foreign users constitute a significant share of the project “Odnoklassniki” audience. According to Mr. Popkov, about 20% of the traffic comes from abroad.

Wow! “20% of the traffic comes from abroad“. That seems like a lot. Odnoklassniki.ru web site is in Russian. Only Russian-speaking folks can make use of it. Also, the whole topic of the classmates is tied very much into specifically Russian users. So, does that mean that about 20% of computer literate (at least to some deree), educated (at least to some degree) young (mostly) people either live, study, or work outside of Russia?

That. Seems. Like. A. Lot.

Involuntary loss of Cyprus citizenship

Immigration blog reminds that there are a few ways to lose Cyprus citizenship involuntarily (for those who got it via naturalization):

Citizenship was gained under fraud or false statements.

Person commits acts of disloyalty to the government of Cyprus.

Person, within five years of being naturalized, begins to live continually abroad without registering with the Cypriot Consul.

It’s good to keep in mind, just in case…