My name is Inna and I want to tell you my story of moving to Northern Cyprus.
We (my husband Dmitry and I) came to Northern Cyprus from the Southern Urals, from the Chelyabinsk region, from the city of Zlatoust. We will be 55 this year, and we are not yet pensioners.
We lived our lives, did not grieve in the Southern Urals. We worked at good jobs, had everything, but something was missing in our lives. Like most people, our life was like Groundhog Day. Work-Home-Work. We tried to go on vacation twice a year. We especially liked to go to Asia to warm up in winter: Thailand, Vietnam, for example. And closer to summer we wanted to get closer to Europe. We especially liked the Greek islands, such as Rhodes, Crete, Cyprus.
When we were on holiday in Southern Cyprus, we noted such advantages as a relatively simple visa regime, a short flight, and we really liked Cyprus itself with its climate, charmed us with its picturesque mountains and incredibly beautiful Mediterranean Sea.
At that time, we didn’t even think about moving. We just lived from vacation to vacation and dreamed of another vacation again. So we tried to somehow while away the winter. We even joke like this: in the Urals there are 12 months of winter, the rest is summer. Because the summer is rarely hot. If it is very hot, then it is very hard to bear the heat. But most often the summer is short. We wait for it for so long, and then we don’t even have time to enjoy it.
It so happened that I started receiving emails with information about Northern Cyprus. I was interested in this information and since I had just returned from a vacation in Southern Cyprus, I decided to read these letters at my leisure. I created a folder CYPRUS, set up a mailing list for it and these letters did not bother me, and the folder was constantly being filled up and it was time for my leisure. I will note that this happened after 6 months!
These letters were from the Program for Assistance to the Resettlement of Compatriots (authors Ilya Shestakov and his wife Olga), who moved to Northern Cyprus many years ago, settled there thoroughly, got on their feet firmly and are now helping our compatriots, like them, to move to Northern Cyprus.
Their stories were so simple and logical that I wanted to communicate with these people and learn more and more about all aspects of life in Northern Cyprus.
We contacted via Skype, got acquainted, asked all the questions that interested us and agreed on a meeting.
In May 2019, we planned a visit to Northern Cyprus to meet with Ilya and Olga.
We are very grateful for understanding and for the fact that Ilya and Olga have a whole, thought-out system of working with people like us.
It was possible to come on a tour with a specific purpose and immediately to Northern Cyprus (which, as we later found out, would have been better and more useful), but we decided to do everything our own way and they met us halfway.
We had a rented car, in which we came from Ayia Napa (South Cyprus) to Nicosia (South Cyprus) to the Ledra border crossing, crossed to Northern Cyprus (Levkosha) and Olga was waiting for us there in her car.
We went to the microdistrict recommended to us. We held negotiations with the head of the department of the construction company with the help and invaluable support of Ilya, after which they arranged a tour of the complex for us.
The thing is that during our Skype consultations with Ilya, we had decided on the house we wanted to live in long before this trip and even pre-selected the apartments. Therefore, all that was left was to see everything with our own eyes. We had good impressions from the communication and about the complex, and we made the final decision to move, made a deposit and signed the necessary papers, as well as paid for the transaction support and issued a power of attorney to Olga to represent our interests in various regulatory bodies.
It was May 2019. We had a lot of things to do at home to make our idea and our plans come true.
On January 13, 2020, we arrived at Ercan Airport with our things. Olga and the January Cypriot sun met us at the airport. Olya took us to our neighborhood, we immediately moved into our own apartment, and our settling in at our new place began.
I would like to say a lot of warm words about the “Assistance Program” and specifically the Shestakovs. They are competent, responsible and pleasant people. All the agreements that were between us were observed. We completely relied on them, trusted them to conduct all our affairs on our behalf with the builders, tax authorities, land committee, mukhtar, insurance company, bank employees, clinic and police. After all, we do not know any local laws or languages. And they have a lot of experience, so we didn’t have any hitches and we even got a residence permit quickly and without fuss, and a lot was done without our direct presence and participation, which, of course, saved us a lot of money, nerves and time.
Now, of course, it’s up to us. There’s still a lot to do in the new place. After all, we’re starting to live our new life practically from scratch. Who said it would be easy? Most likely, it’s not! But we’re full of ideas, plans and hopes.
We thank Olga and Ilya Shestakov for the good deeds they do, for their help and communication. We’ll continue to communicate and hope that they’ll come to our aid more than once until we finally settle in Northern Cyprus.
