The truth about cats and dogs (in North Cyprus)

ONE thing you can pretty much guarantee living in North Cyprus is that, at some stage, you’ll be followed home by a dog. Or a cat.
 
There’s a huge stray population living here, partly because many animals are simply abandoned and also because many Turkish Cypriots don‘t believe in spaying or neutering their pets.

Which means there are hundreds of semi-feral dogs roaming the streets who will quite happily trot along by your side in the hope you might feed or home them.

Or, as a number of people who I've spoken to have found, you might wake up one morning to find an abandoned litter of kittens on your doorstep.

To be fair, few of them look like they are starving and the majority don't seem too despondent to have fallen on hard times.

Given the English speaking world's need to take responsibility for, domesticate and anthropomorphise anything with fur, such a situation has not been allowed to go unchecked in the expat paradise that is the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus.

In 1997 Kyrenia Animal Rescue was set up by a group of women appalled at the amount of stray animals roaming the streets.

Thirteen years on and the organisation - now a charity - has grown in size to the extend that members have opened a rescue sanctuary high in the Besparmak Mountains which is currently home to more than 200 cats and dogs.

Cats are taken from the streets, neutered or spayed, and put back where they were found. Stray dogs are also given the same treatment.

But the rescue centre is always filled to capacity to the extent that workers and volunteers can only take seriously injured animals in.

A few weeks ago I was followed home by what is probably best described as a child’s toy. It looked a bit like this:

He came and sat outside the entrance to my apartment block so I took him inside, fed him, and gave him a new identity.

But Mr Fluffles wasn ’t happy being kept indoors so I decided to let him outside. 

He then spotted someone walking by and decided to follow them home, no doubt to con them in a similar fashion. I‘m not going to lie, I felt cheap and used.

Am I trying to say that such animals are perhaps better equipped to cope with life on the streets than we give them credit for?

And that perhaps the situation isn’t quite as dire as it might seem?

No. For even the most intelligent dog is going to have difficulty negotiating the dual-carriageways now springing up in different parts of the country.

All I’d say is that any animal-lovers thinking about relocating to North Cyprus from the UK should bear in mind the huge difference in attitude towards stray dogs and cats here. And be prepared to turn into this person:

Hotel of ghosts

Not far from where I live in Alsancak there’s a public beach which is among the finest in North Cyprus.

It’s small but perfectly formed - and pretty much deserted at this time of year, even though it is still balmy enough to sunbathe on the sands or swim in a Mediterranean that has retained much of its temperature from the scorching summer months.

Until a few years ago it was maintained as a private beach for holidaymakers staying at the Mare Monte Hotel, which has since closed but can still be accessed from steps leading up from the beach.

Until 1974 it was owned and staffed by the Greek Cypriots who populated Kyrenia (now Girne), Karavas (now Alsancak) and Lapithos (now Lapta).



The beach in the early 70s, under Greek Cypriot ownership



Following the bloody events in July of that year it was seized by Turkish troops who landed at nearby Pentemili (now called Five Mile Beach), became a temporary command post and prison and was eventually handed over to the Turkish Cypriots and reopened.

Since it closed in 2007, however, it has fallen into a state of disrepair and to tour the grounds as they stand now is an eerie experience.



Fighting back bracken, it is possible to get a close-up look at chalets, changing rooms and an outdoor disco arena that all now lie abandoned.

In May 2008, the Istanbul-based owners of the site, Net Holding, who also run the nearby Merit Crystal Cove Hotel, announced after buying the Mare Monte they would redevelop it as a 300-room five star facility with an accompanying shopping centre, cinema and marina.

Earlier this year, the proposed development, according to its owners, had grown in size and would now feature 800 rooms, a golf course and vineyards.

At the moment though, as you can see from the photos, there’s not much sign of any of that happening in the very near future.

It’s a recurring theme in North Cyprus: developers will talk big about what they plan to do with a site, but it can take years before building work begins, if it does at all.

The Mare Monte could well yet be transformed into the magnificent complex its owners have promised.

But until that happens it stands as a ghostly reminder of this small island’s remarkable history having been

owned and run at different times by two distinct kinds of people.

First Post

Several months ago I was offered a job in North Cyprus.

It was a tough decision to make as it would have meant missing out on that wonderful period in the UK when the nights begin to draw in, trees begin to shed their leaves and the first frost of winter arrives.

Anyway, I decided to give it a go.

And, with a growing economy, relatively low cost of living and a summer which - even as I post this on the last day of November - my initial research seemed to suggest that I'd made the right choice.

What many people don't realise though is that the long term prospects are good only if you happen to be living to the south of an 112 mile-long UN buffer zone which bisects the island.

The north, on the other hand, is an entirely different prospect.

The so-called Turkish Republic of North Cyprus (TRNC) is recognised internationally only by Turkey.

If you wish to visit from the UK, you’ll either have to fly to Larnaca or Paphos, in the south, and cross at one of a number of border gates manned by police.

You can fly into North Cyprus's airport, Ercan, but you'll first have to land in Turkey as direct flights from Britain to this part of the island are not allowed.

And neither is direct trade, come to mention it.

Which is a shame because, geographically, the North is without question the most beautiful part of the island.

And, more importantly, the Turkish Cypriots living here deserve to be given the chance to prosper.

So this is a blog about my personal experiences and perceptions working and living, as the title puts it, in a country that technically doesn’t exist, which makes things difficult when the likes of J-Lo want to visit.

It is a country currently going through a period of tumultuous upheaval which may or may not yield dramatic change in the coming months.

I don’t pretend to be any kind of expert when it comes to political or social commentary, so my aim will be to keep the blog entertaining and informative, without it becoming bogged down with too much in heavy stuff.

After all, I’m a monoglot Brit who’s been living here all of five minutes. What do I know?

Very little, but I’m going to carry on anyway…