Wot i did on mi holida

Well, I wasn’t actually on holiday, of course, but I was in Turkey, in the sun, at a very nice resort. Sometimes my line of work does have its compensations.

After a frantic few days of planning for different disaster scenarios because of the disruption to air travel, everybody got away from Moscow on the Monday with little fuss. The boys and girls from St Petersburg couldn’t travel and the only downside of the week was that they didn’t make it to the conference – no matter what we tried, something screwed it up. Still, given all the confusion last week, only 123 people out of 1500+ were affected, so, all in all, it wasn’t too bad.

I was very favourably impressed by arrival at Antalya International airport. The airport itself was new and clean and the Turkish immigration officials were very efficient and helpful – po-faced as all such people are, but I got a nice smile from the young lady who processed me when I ventured ‘teshay kur ederem, (phonetic,) (thank you,) and an administrative error in the visa of one of my expatriate colleagues was cleared up very quickly and with no fuss or delay.

There was much mediterranean shouting and arm-waving and heated discussion as 1500 people were loaded onto buses for the 20 km journey to the resort, but the buses were new and clean and all of the escorts from the travel company spoke excellent Russian.

I was surprised by how similar the area – and the people – were to Cyprus and Cypriots. I had, of course, expected some similarities, given that Antalya is only a spit away from Cyprus and that Cyprus was part of the Ottoman Empire for 400 odd years, (there are many, many Turkish loan words in Cypriot Greek,) but I had not, until now, realised just how deep the Turkish influence on Cyprus and the Cypriots actually was. I felt quite at ‘home.’

The Rixos Sungate resort was superb. Clean, efficient – looking after 1500 partying Russians and hangers-on is no easy task – with helpful, friendly and courteous staff and absolutely first-class facilities. The beach on the Antalya coast is not particularly family-friendly, being more like fine gravel than sand, but the resort was liberally supplied with swimming pools, including plenty of shallow children’s pools. The food was adequate, though the fish was always good, and the waitresses at the huge main bar were roller-skate mounted, so service was quick.

I saw only a little of the town of Antalya itself – it was, after all, a working week for me and the team. I was impressed with what little I did see – clean, tidy, no litter and not too much traffic. From the number of run-down buildings, it is clear that there are still problems in the economy, but, on the other hand, there were a lot of new buildings and the shops seem relatively well-patronised, so the indications are that the economy is picking up. Certainly the Mall where I bought my new camera was clean, bright, airy and modern and the staff in the electronics chain store were knowledgeable and helpful.

My opposite number from the Turkish office of the company came down from Istanbul with his off-sider to help us out and trouble-shoot any little problems that may have arisen, though none did, we were all thankful to say. Over a few beers one evening the talk turned, as it inevitably does amongst security types, to crime, politics and terrorism and we shared our views on these three similar subjects. I was interested to find out that neither of my Turkish colleagues supported Turkish membership of the EUSSR, pointing out that all Turkey really needs is a trade agreement, without all of the political, and especially, bureacratic bull-poopoo. Terrorism is an issue for them, but not a major business issue as the PKK terrorists attack military and government targets rather than civilians and they both, one left of centre and one right of centre, agreed that youth unemployment was a major issue – and that a trade agreement with the EUSSR wold be a big step towards a remedy.

Our different brand groups threw major parties each night and we security guys were kept busy;  there were seven swimming pools in all scattered around the resort, plus, of course, the Med, and the combination of Russians, alcohol and large areas of water could have caused some problems.  Thankfully, it didn’t, apart from a couple of minor flare-ups.  We didn’t, however, get to bed before three or after each night, and the last night the party went on till four in the morning, so none of us slept at all.  I’m cream-crackered.

All in all, a great week.  Wonderful scenery, great people and plenty of sunshine.  As I said, sometimes this job does have it’s compensations 🙂

(Pics to follow – tech problems with editing the take from my new camera.)