I am sometimes asked which books I would recommend reading. For the blog, this is generally not difficult — it’s enough to open all posts with the tag “I-recommend.” But since it’s been almost five years now since I revived my blog and began writing about the books I’ve read, I decided to put together a selection of non-fiction books I’ve read during this time that fall into the category of “you must read them.”
I have already written detailed reviews of all these books, so this time I’ve selected only the very best, grouped them by topic. For each book I give only brief recommendations on why they are worth reading, but you can always open the link to the full review. I hope this will be useful to someone. So, let’s begin.
I often see the same question: is it hard to learn how to drive in Cyprus, since the steering wheel is on the other side? I actually wrote about driving in Cyprus a few years ago — Cyprus: Driving. But in that post, I went straight into the details.
If you already have driving experience anywhere else, you can just start driving without any help. There are limits on how long you can drive with a national license (varies by country). And if you’re just exchanging your license — it’s just a matter of going and replacing it. But to get a license “from scratch,” you need to take lessons with an instructor. Or if you want to improve your practical driving skills — that can also be helpful.
I took a few lessons with an instructor, since Belarusians can’t simply exchange their licenses. For us, the process is as if we have no license at all (even if you’ve been driving for 20 years). The most useful thing I got out of those lessons was: just relax, and everything will be fine. Also, the experience of driving with a Cypriot instructor explains a lot about the island — the local driving style and even the mentality.
In recent years, Cyprus has increasingly been promoting the idea of transforming the country into a haven for IT. I recently wrote about why it’s still far from being an IT Mecca, and today I’ll go into more detail about why this seemingly sound initiative continues to stall.
Many expat IT professionals dream of moving the country forward into the future and breaking its dependency on tourism. They understand that relying solely on tourism isn’t sustainable. The “Mediterranean laziness” mindset often leads to maximizing profits from tourists with minimal investment, but this approach can’t last forever. Most Cypriot hotels lag 20–30 years behind their continental counterparts in terms of room quality for the same star rating. While 5-star hotels are generally decent, their prices are comparable to the cost of a flight to the moon.
However, while Cypriots have at least some understanding of tourism (having relied on it for so long), their grasp of IT is far worse. Add to this the “laziness factor,” where government offices operate for just a few hours a day (and not all of them even then). Requests for refunds of overpaid taxes can take 7–8 years to process (I’m not exaggerating), and unemployment benefits will likely be issued only after you’ve starved to death—applications take a minimum of four months to process from the time you lose your job.
Living in regions where winemaking traditions span not just centuries but millennia significantly changes one’s perspective on this product. I’ve never been a fan of alcohol in general, or wine in particular, so all the talk about blends, notes of bog moss with hints of caramel was just noise to me. I occasionally have a glass of wine, but very rarely—and I don’t always finish the glass. However, my wife loves wine and is always trying new varieties.
Since people in Cyprus have been drinking wine at least since the days of Ancient Greece, it’s hardly a novelty here. There are plenty of local wineries, and prices start at as little as €1.50–2 per bottle. Of course, experts might debate how good a €3–4 wine can be, but to me, it’s simple: you either like it, or you don’t.
For example, in the photo, there are two wines produced in Cyprus by the company KEO (owned by the local church, by the way). They cost around €3 per bottle. Their average ratings on the Vivino app are 3.5 (depending on the year). Both wines are considered “popular among users” of the app.
So, it’s perfectly reasonable to pour yourself a glass in the evening.
However, what has specifically changed in our family is our attitude toward wine as some kind of lofty, refined beverage. The two bottles in the photo, for instance, weren’t bought or opened to drink at all—they were simply used as part of a meat marinade. When wine is this inexpensive, why not use it for marinating meat? With a large family like ours, a single meal easily uses up an entire bottle.
In the past, I might have considered this sacrilegious (How could you waste such a product?!), but now it’s just normal.
As for Cyprus’s main wine attraction—that would be Commandaria. But I’ll write about it some other time.
