Antonis Koupparis, a resident of the old center of Nicosia, is a real voice of the people in the area, he is full of solutions to problems.

Antonis shows me a video on his phone. These are mostly footage from surveillance cameras and videos that he shot himself. This is a chronicle of crimes and riots in the old city of Nicosia.

“Here I find a homeless African man on the roof of my mother-in-law’s house on Hermou Patron Street. She went to hang up the laundry and got scared, so I got up and told him, “Please…“He was a polite man, but you never know who’s there…

Here’s someone urinating in the street— right here on Apollonos Street…

Here’s an Indian guy who was drunk and completely out of his mind, shouting outside the Olympios jewelry store. I had to detain him.

People are trying to break into our store and steal tomatoes from Evrulla (Evrulla is a local snack bar). They stole the tomatoes! He put on his hood — look, he takes a box of tomatoes and runs away…

This guy is Romanian, he was drunk, stealing everything in the neighborhood… This is the same guy after the police took him to the Diachronica Gallery so that Mr. Kikas could identify him because he stole his phone. The same person, and the next day he’s gone…

He’s one of the guys selling drugs in our neighborhood… There’s a drug deal going on on Vulgarkton Street… This guy was recently stabbed in Rigainis Street.”

Finally, the highlight of the program: a video in which he and a policeman from the district “trap a drug dealer.”

It should be noted that Antonis’ intentions are by no means aimed at attacking or scaring people away from visiting old Nicosia, an area he loves and to which he has devoted most of his life, having lived there for several years and owned a business since 2006. (I should also add that, as a regular visitor to the area, I have never seen anyone harassed or threatened.) The videos actually reflect — apart from exposing official disregard for the old town — two things. First of all, his personal fearlessness. Secondly, his extensive knowledge of local realities and the central role he plays in the area.

Fearlessness is not the most obvious trait for a hospitality entrepreneur, but it certainly exists — and not only in the fight against drug dealers and the “detention” of drunks.

Ten years ago, emissaries of a well-known local gangster came to the cafe “Pieto”, which he owns on Ledra Street, demanding money for protection. Later, having been refused, the thugs went to his house, kicked out the back door, killed his cat (!) and set fire to the car. But he still refused to capitulate,” Antonis says stubbornly, “and everything could have ended very badly if a third party hadn’t intervened (on their own initiative) and convinced the gangster to leave him alone.

He is fearless in another sense: he is open and honest to the point of self-sacrifice. He calls out names and accuses people — even, or especially, government officials — of considering them corrupt and lazy.

I expect him to wink at the end and tell me not to post his harsher opinions, but that doesn’t happen. (I’m not publishing them anyway.) He really doesn’t seem to care about making enemies—or, more likely, considers honesty to be a “principle,” a phrase that is repeated repeatedly in our conversation.

He is really an extraordinary man, a force of nature — although he looks quite gentle, with cheerful, gentle eyes and thinning hair. We meet (of course) at the Pieto, and he speaks for three hours, first in Greek and then uncontrollably in English. “I studied at an English school,” he answers vaguely when I ask about his command of the language, although, of course, his speech was also influenced by Aya, his wife of Latvian origin (they are not married, but they have been together for 18 years). He and Aya make their own cakes at Pieto’s, and his life, like that of any small businessman, is intertwined with his business.

How often is he here?

— Every day. Every day of the week, every day of the month, every day of the year.

How many hours?

He shrugs his shoulders: — 15, 16… Any time I’m awake, mostly — and I’m not at home in the bathroom or anywhere else — I’m in the historical center of the city. I’m here. Either in my store or talking to people in the area.

He’s a workaholic, he always has been. Even at the age of 20 (he turned 40 last summer), he already managed four businesses.: “Pieto” since 2012, before that pancake house in the old town, before that Internet cafe, before that (although in parallel with others) a snack bar in a jacket “In a box”, which later became a successful chain with branches in Limassol, Larnaca and even Athens. “I sleep very little,” he explains. “Four hours at night, sometimes five… I don’t know, I’ve always been like this.”

What does he do to relax?

A long pause. “I’m eating!” — he answers with a laugh, then smiles wryly. — I feel like I’m stressed most of the time, so I try to keep my mind occupied… I try not to get upset about what I see and what is happening around me, so I try to occupy my mind with something else. If it’s not a job, it’s something else.

His gentleness is deceptive; even his current appearance is a bit deceptive. He undoubtedly looked much more ferocious when he wore a thick beard, as in many videos, or a few years ago, when his weight reached 135 kilograms (now he is more manageable — 93). I guess he gets stressed out, especially when his mind isn’t busy—with work or “something else,” as he puts it.

A job might have been enough for a less energetic person. “Pieto” is a charming, distinctive place — “News, treats and a coffee shop,” as it says on the sign. He hoped that this place could become a center for discussion, says Antonis, like coffee shops of the Enlightenment (“I was younger; I had a different energy”), but this never happened.

Antonis Kupparis with Aya

Nevertheless, there are people of all ages and “all stripes” among the clients, including those from the opposite camp. (Turkish Cypriot activist Oz Karahan greets Antonis, warmly welcoming him.) My espresso is excellent—they have the “best coffee machine in the world,” he says, naming a brand I don’t recognize—and is served in a miniature glass cup. Three relaxed cats are placed around. The menu includes “specialty drinks” with combinations such as orange tea, jasmine and cinnamon.

However, their situation is precarious, especially considering that old Nicosia is so poorly managed and in such chaos. “The margin is so small that one small mistake…” he says, letting the offer hang in the air. “I mean, I think every business—every small business—can close down at any moment.”

Hence, perhaps, the “something else” — the multitude of themes with which Antonis Kupparis immerses himself, as if he is fighting to take his fate into his own hands.

Politics is (or was) one of those topics. He ran for the post of deputy mayor of Nicosia and was also a member of the Cyprus Greens political commission for ten years, leaving it just a few weeks ago — although “I still consider myself an environmentalist, I just don’t belong to the Green Party.”.. I appreciate these people and consider most of them my friends.”

Then why did he leave?

— I just didn’t agree with something. It was a matter of principle.

Only his strongest passion remains, his special theme is his obsession, one might say: old Nicosia, the “historical center of the city” and the various mistakes made (and continuing to be made) in managing it.

He is constantly on Facebook, posting angry posts and videos, but anyone can be on social media, express anger and have videos on their phone. What is striking about Antonis is his knowledge of the details, the depth of his knowledge.

For example, we’re talking about a children’s mini-train that has been a city landmark for years, chugging up and down the Ledra —and not only does it know the unsightly story of its creation, explaining how it was “operated opaquely,” but it also knows what should have been done, telling me that there is such a company. which manufactures trains in the Netherlands — “they also have a factory in Canada” — specifically designed for pedestrian areas.

We’re talking about supply trucks clogging pedestrian streets in the morning, before 10 a.m. (when there are especially many pedestrians on the streets, especially in summer) — and again, he’s not just expressing dissatisfaction with the problem, but offering solutions. In other cities, such as Gothenburg, a consolidation system is used where companies deliver goods to a collection point outside the old town, where a subcontractor (a “logistics expert”) accepts them, ensuring more efficient delivery of goods to stores in small vehicles. Why can’t they do that here?

You can go on and on — mountains of garbage, the road surface is falling apart, money laundering, low-income housing, migrants in terrible conditions — but you get the idea. “You know,” Antonis says at one point, more or less summing up his view of the subject, “there’s a constant war going on between the residents of this city and the authorities, who don’t understand people.”

Ongoing construction work that he is fighting against

In Limassol, however, it can be even worse, in the sense that the historical center is being actively demolished in order to build skyscrapers in its place. But Nicosia is also bad, in fact, sadder, because everything is destroyed, left to rot, decaying and becoming criminogenic.

“I think they are not incompetent,” he says of the authorities. — They have a plan to improve urban areas, [which includes] giving up ownership. They want to destroy the city, and then they can rebuild it however they want.

Antonis Koupparis is aware of this opportunity; he might even welcome it. He turned 40, and he and Aya would like to start a family—”but we postponed everything,” he says, absorbed in the fierce struggle to preserve the old city. Being a father would be a much more worthwhile “something else” than constantly fighting against self-serving bureaucrats.

Maybe. But as long as the fight continues, he will continue to fight, still as stubborn as he was with those (other) gangsters ten years ago — using the law (he sued the authorities three times), social media, as well as his character and ability to convince. He will even set traps for drug dealers if necessary. Meanwhile, videos continue to pile up on his phone, vague evidence of a grim situation.

https://russiancyprus.news/news/society/fearlessness-and-disorder-in-old-nicosia