Theo Panayides

On the wall of a house near the Faneromeni underground car park in old Nicosia there’s a very polite printed note, in Greek and English: “Dear friend,” says the ...

Mention migrants, and you’re likely to be met with hostility. Everyone’s tired of the subject. Still, the asylum seekers who’ve been stuck in the UN buffer zone ...

Furen is the name of the place – situated right on Eleftheria Square, the most prominent location in all Nicosia – offering “a real taste of Lebanon”. But which Lebanon? The war-torn ...

We asked a random selection of people on the streets of Nicosia if they’d vote for Odysseas Michaelides – the former auditor-general who, following his dismissal, has said he’s ...

Looking at the chart of ‘coffee consumption by country’ at the World Population Review website – a slightly random chart, topped by Luxembourg and featuring such unexpected names as Belize and ...

We’re outside the church of Panayia Kousouliotissa near the village of Flasou, surrounded by pine, eucalyptus and prickly pear. The field next door looks cultivated, and I wonder what ...

Kids do it constantly, at least till they become jaded teenagers. ‘Look!’ they’ll exclaim, ‘A dog!’, pointing at a rocky protuberance (that does look a bit like a dog’...

Demetrios Bestitzanos is a doctor, specifically an internist. A few years ago, around the time he turned 50, he decided to relocate from Athens – where he’d been studying and working ...

Sakis Lazarides doesn’t live in Nicosia (or even Cyprus). That’s just where we happen to meet, at the Arabica Coffee House in a nondescript corner of the capital – ...

“That’s my favourite comment,” says Darin J. Sallam over Zoom – speaking of her film Farha (2021), which is showing at the Larnaca Municipal Theatre tomorrow at 8pm. The film will ...

Footage from a protest that took place in Nicosia calling for the Cyprus government to condemn Israel’s war in Gaza. The event featured testimony from Palestinians in Gaza, and ...

“I think that the mismatch between me and Cyprus,” says Jared Willis, “was that Cyprus doesn’t want boot-strappers. Cyprus doesn’t want people coming here with an idea, and ...

Figures from the Health Insurance Organisation (HIO) show that the number of patients taking antidepressant drugs almost doubled in Cyprus in the past five years: from 33,470 in 2019 to 64,611 in 2023. On ...

Looking back, I had no clue what I was getting into. I’d heard of Fengaros (who hasn’t?), the annual music festival showcasing 50 bands over three days, but the ...

Two very different men with vaguely similar surnames haunt the living room of Sarah Dawoodi’s house in Avgorou. “Know only that which makes the unknown known,” wrote Rumi, the 13...

“Any person having in his possession, custody, control or disposition any sponge, knowing that it has been taken in contravention of this Law, shall be liable to a fine not ...

Traffic from one of the busiest roads in the Larnaca area is being diverted through a small, formerly quiet residential street, causing uproar and a potentially dangerous situation. The problem ...

All the Same are having orange-and-pomegranate juice at Hoi Polloi in north Nicosia when a 200-lira note (about €6) appears on the cobbled street beside them. Obviously it doesn’t just ‘...

The battle for Nicosia airport wasn’t – objectively speaking – the bloodiest of the many dark events that took place exactly 50 years ago, but it may have been the most consequential. ...

We asked a random selection of Greek Cypriots on the streets of Nicosia to share their feelings on the 50-year anniversary of the Turkish invasion. DIVIDED ISLAND

We spoke to some of the asylum seekers who’ve been stranded in the buffer zone in Cyprus, some of them since mid-May.

Aliki Hadjigeorgiou met Loukia (in a church, quite randomly) about 12 years ago, shortly after the publication of her first book. Aliki and Loukia – even their names are near-mirror-images of each ...

A young boy sits on the ground at the back of the tent, immobile, unresponsive, with his back to us. “He’s my son, but he has depression,” explains his ...

It was, as they say, a ‘crossing the Rubicon’ moment. I was trying to organise a short trip to Rome (speaking of Caesars, and Rubicons), and having trouble finding a ...