Cyprus

First time since covid I'm going to collect samples in the field.
And in the same time finally take some rest from the war and family matters. I really need to return to my inner self now and renew my contact with the Universe, I was feeling like I'm losing it and falling into the depth of a dull grey depression.

And it's my first time and second day on Cyprus.

With a lot of sun, a lot of sea and frantically singing spring birds everywhere.

Cyprus, an ancient Greek island, is nowadays divided into two parts politically. The difference from the continental Greece here is the palbable presence of Turkish culture - in street names, people's faces and clothes, partially in the mental atmosphere.
In the same time, it's still Greek civilization. Same as during my trip to Greece, I'm feeling like living in some crazy sort of a scientific book where everything is written in the language of formulas, and even on the bus tickets you can see scientifically familiar words - like μεταφορά. Which has nothing to do with literature but simply means "transport".

Still for these people it's just a bunch of everyday words. Τέσσερα, πέντε, έξι, επτά, οκτώ, εννέα, δέκα (four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten). A monumental word ΑΣΤΥΝΟΜΙΑ is written on the police cars, and I guess the policemen are what, "astynomes"? Greece itself is not Greece, but noble Ελλάδα (Elladha), just like in ancient times. Mediterranean sea is Μεσόγειος Θάλασσα (Mesogeios Thalassa).

An old lady is going out into a little garden down the yard, there are some twenty or thirty flower pots of all sizes and colours there.

- Καλημέρα! (Kalimera, "Good morning". My humble effort in learning Greek)
- Καλημέρα! ...(long phrase in Greek that I do not understand)

I'm making a vague wide gesture, because simply saying δεν καταλαβαίνω (I do not understand) to such a nice lady feels awfully impolite. In Czechia and France you must say "dobrý den/bonjour" to everyone, even to strangers, but noone expects any talk after that.

- OK? The lady says.
- OK, OK! (in Greek it would be πολύ καλό, poli kalo, again two words from scientific books to me)
- Me too!
- Do you speak English?
The lady makes a gesture unequivocally meaning "very, very little"
- I'm learning Greek too, ευχαριστώ! (Evkaristo, "thank you" is another monumental word which Greeks use every day, but which I know from the Orthodox church. "Eucharistia" is a ritual of consuming body and blood of Christ during the Sunday mass)
- Παρακαλώ! (Parakalo, "you're welcome")

By the way, reading Greek is so easy to someone who can read Cyrillic. That's the origin of our alphabet, after all.

Cyprus and Brits

The British legacy on Cyprus nowadays is still visible even to a tourist by two things: UK-type electric sockets and left-side traffic.

This knowledge did not come to me without a price: yesterday I was nearly hit by a car in an attempt to cross the street - my Central European habit of looking first to the left, then to the right betrayed me.

Church of Lazarus

I took a short excursion in the surrounding area and a bus brought me to a local church, - one of very many on this island which is said to carry its Chrisianity from Saint Lazarus himself, the famous Jewish man who was supposedly dead and resurrected by Christ.

It is much easier to get peace during the church servise if it's held in a beautiful ancient language you do not exactly understand :) Actually, I do understand the parts which I have heard in Old Slavic Church language (which is closest to Bulgarian), but taken that not everything can be literally translated from Greek - the real meaning seems to be still hidden from non-Greek adepts.

For example, Κύριε ελέησον, ἐλέησόν με κύριε which is traditionally translated as "Lord, have mercy" is actually referred to the ritual where the person is anointed with sacred oil (έλαιο) to both forgive his/her sins and be cured from illnesses. This has probably nothing to do with "mercy" of a warlord to his prisoners, but rather an act of kindness to the fellow kin. Modern adepts are probably generally unaware of such multi-layer meaning of their prayers.

Although I'm quite critical to Abrahamic religions in general (due to their frequent misogyny and obscurantism), when I think about Christianity, I cannot stop wondering how in Continental Europe they managed to make such a depressive, cruel and rigid religion out of rather humanistic faith of Jews and Greeks.

Here, on Cyprus, the quiet and friendly demeanor of religious people indeed says for itself that Ο Θεός είναι αγάπη, God is Love. Not an angry old man with a stick who cleans the most horrible deeds of his fanatics but cruely punishes "unbelievers" for the very fact of being not of the flock, even if they are kind and decent people. But gentle palms of the Universe that hold a lonely person in the middle of a dark night of horror and despair. A friendly hand of a prisoner of hell to another such prisoner.

And this gives me a lot of hope in a hopeless world.