The island’s latest social media star is a force for positivity, embracing the pace of change and the rapid rise of Limassol

Eddy Nassar can talk, all right. “If we don’t stop, I’ll keep you here for another five hours!” he jokes as the interview winds to a close – though in fact that’s not possible, he can’t stay here for another five hours. He’s got a meeting right after me, and was in meetings before as well. He gets around.

‘Here’ is Nook Food and More, a large café “located between Trilogy’s two iconic towers,” as it says on their website. The clientele includes digital-nomad types on their laptops, the products range from Cypriot olive pies to Asian editions of Red Bull (pomelo flavour sounds nice). The café was apparently designed to cater for the well-heeled residents of Trilogy, the trio (currently duo) of seafront towers – part of the new ‘luxury’ Limassol, on which more later.

Eddy himself appreciates the project, though he knows it’s controversial. “I see Trilogy, I see beautiful skyscrapers that are bringing value to Limassol,” he tells me earnestly. “I think it brings value [to show] to the world that ‘Look, Cyprus is not just a village that only makes halloumi’.”

Then again, he appreciates halloumi too. Just last month, while on vacation in Bali – after being served halloumi in an egg-and-salmon combo at a brunch place – he went around asking waiters and chef if they knew where halloumi is from (answers ranged from Italy to Australia), then informed them of the cheese’s true provenance, explained where Cyprus actually is, and posted the whole thing in a popular TikTok video. “Now let’s go educate the rest of Bali!” it concludes enthusiastically.

Eddy is a “Cyprus enthusiast,” it says so on his social media (he has around 50,000 followers: 26k on Instagram, 15k on TikTok, 10k on Facebook), posting about everything from our stray-cat situation to Cyprus’ position as a “crypto hub”. He’s half-Lebanese but moved to Limassol in 1978, at the tender age of six months, and never really left – though he goes back and forth to Lebanon, went to university there, and has also sampled various other countries with a view to possibly staying; yet “I always end up coming back here”.

Who exactly is Eddy Nassar? A man on a mission – and a man in transition. He spent 24 years in the corporate world, ending up as managing director of Columbia Restaurants (a sister company of Columbia Shipmanagement) – but is now, since about eight months ago, something more elusive, a content creator and influencer as well as a performer, harking back to his teenage days working as a DJ (oldies may recall him spinning records at Triangle Disco) and hosting karaoke shows.

“That’s how I started making money to pay for my university… I discovered my side of being comfortable onstage, and speaking on the mic, by doing karaoke.” Even in his pre-TikTok days he was in demand as an emcee and presenter, hosting events ranging from the annual Reflect festival to the Cyprus Salsa Congress and the International Pole Dance Championship. He can work an audience, radiates bouncy energy, and gives the impression he could talk for (yes) five hours.

“Being back onstage…” he muses, thinking of his recent life-change. “I feel my personality shines there. It doesn’t shine so much when I’m looking at numbers, and seeing if I’m meeting KPI’s [key performance indicators], and seeing if we need to fire people.” Even in his old corporate guise, his happy place was “talking to my people, as a leader – as a person who is motivational”.

Eddy is indeed a motivator, a mover and a shaker, quite at home in today’s dynamic Limassol. No surprise that he’s got about five projects on the go, since leaving Columbia. No surprise, either, that his favourite mode of travel is by cruise ship (he worked on one briefly, as an IT officer, years ago) – a way of seeing lots of different places without getting bored.

He’s a Gemini, he says with a chuckle, “who is a social butterfly, and who is very social with people… I’m very open – and people know me as the person who knows everyone, who connects everyone.”

He is very open, happy to talk about anything – even the bad stuff. He didn’t hate all 24 years of his corporate job (and isn’t targeting his former employer, just corporate jobs in general), but the last few were tough. “As I kept going up the ladder – and I used to say this to my team: the higher I climbed, the lonelier I became.”

He’ll happily talk about his marriage too, to a Latvian woman: they divorced three years ago, amicably, no kids (she’s “a great person, a great woman. It’s just the cycle of that relationship had ended”). Eddy is now in a relationship with “my beautiful girlfriend Julia” – who’s a content creator herself (@medovorusayaa on TikTok) and also films most of his videos, in his new incarnation as a social-media star.

It seems fitting that I happen to talk with Eddy Nassar at this precise moment, with his life, both professional and personal, in the throes of such radical change – because the country he’s so enthusiastic about, especially his adopted hometown, is also in the throes of radical change.

“Personally, I love what’s happening in Limassol,” he says, sitting forward in his chair as if gearing up for a lengthy debate. “I know many Limassolians hate it…

“I dislike some things, for instance the uncontrolled growth. It could be a little more controlled, yes. There could be a little bit more strategic thinking behind the growth of Limassol, and not just allow anyone to build anything anywhere.”

On the other hand, “Limassol is moving forward. It’s now a very hot destination for industries such as tech, finance, fintech, iGaming”.  

I push back a little, mentioning obvious downsides like the spiralling rents that have priced many locals out of the housing market – and immediately trigger a reaction, setting off a long disquisition about the world today.

“Do I hate it? I think it’s unfair, yes,” he replies, meaning the very high rents. “Do I think that we can do anything about it? No. The reason is, the world is moving forward…

“Whether we like it or not, change is coming. Change to our way of life, change to the way our cities have been run, change to everything. I mean, let’s look at what’s happened in the last 10 years [actually more like 30] – let’s start with the introduction of mobile phones, introduction of the internet, introduction of digital currencies, introduction of AI right now.

“Things are happening, whether we like it or not. The world is moving forward. If you’re stuck in the mentality of the 80s, where you’re sitting at home expecting none of that to change, you’re gonna be run over.”

You can’t stop what’s coming, insists Eddy. All you can do is maybe pack up and move to some village, where things move more slowly. “These are the options. Now you tell me, ‘Is that fair?’. Of course it’s unfair. But is it fair that Lebanon is being bombed, is it fair that Gaza has been completely wiped off the map of the Earth?…

“Nothing is fair. But the change is happening. Are we accepting it, or are we trying to fight it? And if we’re trying to fight it, who are we trying to fight? Who is the person bringing the change? There is no one person. Change is happening because the world is changing.”

Is that it, though? Can’t people be proactive about their own cities? Didn’t New York, for instance, just elect a mayor who’s vowing to make it affordable again? Maybe Limassol too, in a few years’ time, will elect a mayor on the promise of rolling back Trilogy, and all the other Trilogys.

“Agreed. But right now, do you want to fight that – or do you want to ride the wave?

“That’s the decision that people need to make. You want to fight it, or you want to ride the wave? Because there’s opportunities in riding the wave.

“You want to fight it, fight it – but to what end? To where? How many years do you have alive on this earth, to fight – for who?”

Eddy Nassar is riding the wave, positioning himself to take advantage of the new world of opportunities. Some may imagine he’s taking a break, and it’s true he deliberately sought to disconnect and “zoom out” from the corporate grind – but his segue into content creation is by no means casual.

He’s not just putting out amusing videos, and arguing with Balinese chefs about halloumi. There’s a strategist (a German, no less) who decides “what I’m going to be talking about today – but also what I’m going to be talking about in three months’ time, or six months’ time… It’s not just random”. Above all – though he does enjoy being on camera – he’s using social media as a tool, a springboard.

I ask about monetisation, but he shakes his head. With his 50,000 followers, “the money is insignificant… But that’s not where the money is.” The money comes through “collabs” with sponsors (that’s where it comes in handy to know so many people) – “but also the best money is in the product you make, that you use your own platforms to push… And I have a product coming out.”

What’s the product? Eddy smiles coyly – but let’s just say it’s a digital product, under €20, that “everyone coming to Cyprus will want to buy”.

Meanwhile he’s involved in other projects. He’s president of Mica, the Mediterranean Influencers & Creators Association – there’s about 100 members; they do monthly meet-ups, where they talk algorithms and “do a lot of networking” – as well as Wiba Mediterranean, an awards ceremony connecting the worlds of business and social media. He’s a partner in Catrinas, a Mexican restaurant. There are also two more projects that he can’t talk about, still in the pipeline. He gets around.

Life itself is also a kind of project – and it’s going pretty well, his work-life balance better than ever. He goes to the gym. He plays poker with friends once a week. He’s trying, so he says, to become more spiritual, and healthier in general. He plays padel. He flies his drones (he has two). He also enjoys staying home, watching Stranger Things. And of course there’s the videos, the ‘Cyprus enthusiast’.

So much positivity – and in fact that’s the point, positivity. “I’m a person who’s very positive,” he affirms with feeling. If disaster strikes, “I always try to find the positives in the disaster”. Maybe it’s the Lebanese in him, I suggest half-jokingly – much like his ruefully realistic ‘Life is unfair so just roll with it’ philosophy, which sounds like the bitter lesson of a country that’s long been at the mercy of larger forces.

Can he really boost Cyprus so unstintingly, though? Does he not see the problems we have? Corruption, greed, cultural inertia? Destruction of the environment? Even the status of halloumi has become a right old mess. But he shakes his head.

“I can sit here and talk to you for an hour, and tell you all the wrong things that are happening in our system – but I don’t want to do that. I want to look at all the good things that are happening. Because, I believe, focus on what you want to grow. If you focus on negativity, that’s what will grow”. Disasters are surely in the offing, “but do I want to sit and think about that? No. I want to think of what good I can do… I choose to focus on the positives.

“You’ve thrown me a few questions where you want me to tell you negative things about Limassol. And it’s good that you’ve done that.

“But you’ll never get a negative out of me, because I don’t focus on the negatives. And that’s the way I live. Not just about Cyprus, but literally how I live.” We do indeed, reluctantly, stop chatting – then he’s off, going around Nook shaking hands and greeting people he knows. On his way to other projects, other meetings.