I know that not everyone likes Ilya Varlamov. Ukrainians, at the time, were very offended by his video about Ukraine (and honestly, for good reason—the video is very ambiguous). Still, sometimes he talks in a pretty interesting way about the countries he visits.
But experience shows that this “interestingness” can be very uneven—and sometimes not very accurate, if you have an analytical mind. And if you also know the country he’s talking about… For example, in his series 30 Years After the USSR—which included that infamous Ukraine episode—not every installment gives a full picture of what’s going on. His video about Belarus was also very superficial, basically about nothing. And the ones about the former “-stan” republics are more about refugees than about the countries themselves.
But I’ve been living in Cyprus for almost ten years now, so I’m always interested in reading and watching what people think when they visit this island—an island I already consider my second home. (You can only really call your homeland the country you were born in, but that doesn’t make it better than the others.) A few years ago Ilya Varlamov released a video about Cyprus as well, and even then it struck me as choppy and not very useful.
And a couple of weeks ago, Varlamov released another video about our island, and it somehow made the rounds in a lot of IT chats—because this time Ilya decided to devote a bit of attention to the topic of the IT industry that’s been relocating to the island:
Based on past experience, I wasn’t expecting any revelations from Ilya, but I was still curious what he’d say this time. Unfortunately, it turned out to be much worse than I expected.
On the one hand, Ilya tries to give some general information about the island; on the other, he tries to talk about a few current changes from recent years.
But when it comes to the island itself, his coverage is extremely thin. He spends a couple of minutes on the history of the conflict that led to the island—and the capital—being split in two. Then he goes into detail about the abandoned city of Varosha, jumps to architecture using a single square in Nicosia as an example, and touches on what life is like in the northern part of the island, which isn’t recognized by anyone in the world except Turkey. And that’s basically it—that’s all you get about Cyprus.
But that’s like trying to describe the girl you love by mentioning only how many moles she has on her shoulder. In other words, from Varlamov’s take on any of these topics it’s impossible to form anything like a coherent picture. At best you get: “the capital is split in two, and there’s also an abandoned city that tourists can now visit.” That’s it.
What other topics does he bring up?
Legalizing your status and the cost of living in the occupied territories (the TRNC—the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus). This is built around a conversation with one married couple, but there’s little data, it’s vague, and it isn’t compared to anything else. So in a vacuum it doesn’t help much. Just two examples:
- They mention the cost of schooling, but for me the story raises more questions than it answers. Because “xx dollars” in a vacuum means nothing. Knowing how much education costs in the Republic of Cyprus, I still can’t compare the numbers they name, because it’s unclear what grade their kids are in—and depending on age, the price can differ by a factor of two. Plus there are things like discounts for multiple children, and so on. So yes, a number gets said, but it’s basically useless.
- He also does a walk-through of a supermarket and calls out prices for various items. And you keep waiting for him to do the same on the southern side later, to give you an actual comparison. But no—there isn’t a single word in the video about prices in the Republic of Cyprus (the EU side). So you can’t compare the two territories on that basis either. And of course he also doesn’t mention the lack of various tax payments, excise duties, and so on in the north.
The topic of the IT industry relocating to the island in recent years is also covered very thinly. One businessman talks about how he finds it more comfortable to communicate in the local business environment—but that’s hardly the reason why so many companies have been moving employees to Cyprus in bulk.
On top of that, Ilya makes a pretty major blunder when he talks about “golden passports.” He mixes up the EU sanctions against Russians with the whole “golden passports” story. And he says that supposedly you can still get them. First, the program was shut down after a major scandal. Second, that shutdown had nothing to do with Russia’s war against Ukraine. But details like that don’t seem to bother Ilya.
Then there’s a micro-tour of Limassol Marina, with its expensive yachts and the outrageously pricey district where you can step straight from your house onto your yacht. I doubt most viewers are all that interested in a “let’s look at rich people’s yachts” segment, but fine. The main thing is that he immediately follows it up with a line like, “this is where the IT people live.” And that’s not true. People who live in that area are very wealthy; some of them might indeed be from the IT industry. But that doesn’t mean all IT workers on the island live like that.
And it really rubs me the wrong way when the material is presented in such a manipulative manner.
Especially when almost every topic he touches is done at a breakneck sprint. There are a lot of them, but each gets just a couple of minutes—nowhere near enough to actually say anything meaningful.
But my main complaint is that this isn’t really a video about the island at all—it’s a heavily promotional piece. And I personally don’t have much patience for that kind of advertorial.
The first such insert is about a company called bff that builds real estate, including for people who want to get Cypriot residence by investment. They seem like nice folks, but five minutes on the specifics of their real-estate business and why you should buy/build with them in particular—when most other topics get, at best, two minutes?
And at the end, a lot of time is spent advertising a new school in Limassol. They don’t even have all the required licenses for their programs yet (which they partly admit themselves), but the video says the school is already eight years old. That’s misleading, at best. I’m not arguing whether the school is good or bad—but if I were making a piece about education on the island, I’d cover different aspects, not just showcase one of the most expensive private schools here without saying a word about all the other options, with their pros and cons. And they spend six minutes of screen time on it.
Who is this video even for? For people who are interested in Cyprus? Or for wealthy Russians who need services on the island advertised to them—so they’ll come, buy property, and send their kids to school? It looks like it’s primarily for the latter, and I doubt they make up any significant share of Varlamov’s audience.
So as a video about Cyprus specifically, it’s really bad.
