January 1, 2026
An excerpt from City of Saints, a short novel by Elvan Levent,
originally published in Turkish in 2023.
✦ ✦ ✦
He didn't call me. Because he felt bad, because he confessed to me, because he fell in love with me and then hated me, or for some reason I could never guess, we will never see each other again.
Does it matter to me? As much as anything else I fear losing. On this hot and stifling August day, my inability to find a single corner where I could rest my mind could not have been due to mere bad luck. I was walking down Happiness Boulevard. The dry yellow leaves I stepped on seemed like harbingers of autumn, which seemed so far away it might never come.
A crowd, content with the heat and eager for fun, was moving towards the city centre. They seemed so sure of where they wanted to go that I envied them. I, on the other hand, was just walking; I had no particular place I wanted to go. In fact, I doubted there was even a definite place I wanted to be.
Right here, in the middle of the sunlight's descent that made me think of God, at the intersection of these two streets I had arrived at randomly and whose names I did not know, I wanted to think about the things I could never quite dare to think about. I stopped. Scenes that had never passed through my life flashed through my eyes.
In this strange moment where fantasy and reality merged, I felt a strong desire to cling to life. Later, when I remembered it, I would feel the same warmth I felt at that very moment and the same closeness to life I felt while looking at the shadows of the buildings falling onto the road.
I returned home. It was dark. The garden gates were locked. The first floor of the building, reserved for the blessed, was silent. The saints were sleeping. I went up to the floor of the sinners. I stood in front of the open kitchen door. Frank was leaning against the long wooden table, drinking alone. When he saw me, he raised his whisky glass and smiled slightly. He downed the drink in one gulp, as if toasting a secret we both knew and would never speak of. Then he smiled:
‘Life can be good, even if only for a brief moment’ …
If I had stayed there a minute longer, he would have offered me a drink.
I walked down the long corridor and entered my room. There was a note thrown under the door:
‘I'm Abad. If you want to see me, I'm in room 310.’
I could hear my heart beating faster. What would I say to him? Was he in his room now? He was standing in front of his window, wearing blue jeans and a white linen shirt, looking outside just like me, breathing in the sweet, cool night air through the closed windows.
I stepped out onto the balcony. I closed my eyes. With the sound of cars gone, I could hear the pine trees rustling in the garden of the huge building. A moment worth living. There was no other place, no other time. I knew that. I looked at the balconies stretching out one after another on my left. 313, 312, 311, 310. The light wasn't on. He wasn't in his room.
Now there was plenty of time to rack my brains. Everything was very different from what I knew. Maybe I didn't know the things I thought I knew.
So what should I do? Nothing. I just wanted to stand on the balcony and measure the distance between my life and my death. Roosters were wandering in the darkness below. They made a mysterious sound as they moved slowly over the small pebbles. It was the sound of life. The strange feeling that kept turning inside me was now ringing like a bell.
The phone on the table vibrated. A message.
‘Let's go dancing.’
I wanted to let myself go from the balcony and fly. I let go.
When my feet touched the ground, my eyes closed, I was dancing in the middle of the dance floor. There were lots of people around me, but none of them were close to me. It was as if they couldn't get close to me even if they wanted to; as if the distance between us was a necessary distance. That's why I was alone on this packed dance floor. Lola was here too, and she was alone just like me. She was probably in the bathroom cleaning her makeup. Even if I wanted to leave, she wouldn't let me. Whenever we went out, Lola wanted to party until dawn. It was as if every night we went out dancing was the last night of our lives. Maybe it really was.
I felt the rhythm of the music slowly turning into my heartbeat. Then into the sound of a bell inside my head. Like floating in the void of space, lost in myself for a moment. Someone took my hand.
A large but delicate hand. It was warm. I felt him dancing, looking at me. He was waiting for me to open my eyes and look at him. I didn't want to open my eyes. No, I was afraid to open my eyes. It was my fear of life. He pulled me towards himself. I felt the moisture of his face.
The scent of powdered perfume. I opened my eyes. He smiled. The most beautiful man I had ever seen in my life. If I left now and never saw him again, I would remember that face for the rest of my life. I closed my eyes. He ran his lips over my eyes. Then over my lips. A whisper in my ear.
‘We can go anywhere you want.’
Outside, there was a fresh coolness and thousands of people. I just wanted to walk. It was as if if I stopped, I would disappear. No, I knew these streets. It was as if I rediscovered myself at every corner.
Lola's face was grim. She kept saying she hadn't danced enough. One more dance. What if they played some really good songs afterwards? She looked like a little child who had had her candy taken away. A little bit girl, a little bit boy.
“Has my lipstick come off?”
Her lipstick was smeared around her lips. She was terrible at putting on lipstick. She fumbled with her little backpack, took out her mirror, and started to fix her lipstick. As I watched her, I realised I couldn't remember what she was like when she was a boy.
‘Why are you looking at me like that, are you angry with me?’
No, I wasn't angry with her. After all, I was the one who insisted on leaving. Running away was the only way to prevent what was going to happen. But my inability to find any other solution than running away couldn't have been caused by a simple stroke of bad luck, just like my inability to find a place to rest my mind.
‘Why did we run away so quickly? Didn't you like that man?’
It was Lola who was angry. But even if we danced until morning, it wouldn't have mattered. Because it was an irreparable anger. Sometimes sad, sometimes spoilt, sometimes indifferent anger. Still, strangely, thinking I needed to cheer her up, I suggested going somewhere else. Yet, I wanted to go home.
We stopped in front of a place where music was coming from a little further ahead. Both inside and outside were very crowded. Two security guards stood at the entrance. Lola stuck out her chest and walked towards the entrance. The two security guards at the door looked her up and down and then let her through. She turned around and pulled my arm.
It was very stuffy inside. There was nowhere to step. We were involuntarily being pushed in the direction the crowd was pushing us. So we found ourselves in front of the bar. Lola turned to me and shouted, ‘They're giving out shots with the cocktails.’ According to Lola, if they were giving something extra with something else, you absolutely had to take it. Just then, I spotted a man sitting at the bar in the crowd. He must have been in his forties. He was staring intently at Lola. As Lola handed me the cocktail and shot, I pointed out the man at the bar to her. The man smiled slightly and raised his drink in the air. Lola responded in kind. Then she turned to me and asked, ‘Is he looking at you or me?’ She always doubted that a man could genuinely like her. A few minutes later, the man appeared next to us.
‘Hello... May I join you?’
Lola looked at the man with a shy expression and smiled, nodding slightly. She was clearly very pleased that he had come over.
‘We came here to dance, but it's too crowded’, she said after a moment...
The man leaned slightly towards Lola, as if he hadn't heard what she said, and put his ear to her. Lola leaned over and whispered something in the man's ear. The man pulled back and looked carefully at Lola's face. Lola was looking at him too. Now there was a much braver expression on her face. This quiet moment amid the crowd and noise felt like an eternity. Like someone who had accidentally wandered into the frame during a film shoot, I said I wanted a cigarette and went outside.
A few young people were talking loudly and laughing in front of the door. They were cheerful. I turned my back so they wouldn't notice me. It was as if, had they noticed me, the joy in the air would have turned into a cloud. I looked at the road stretching out in front of me. If I walked away now without looking back, maybe I could feel a little more free. But I didn't have the courage. I took a few steps. Then I put out my cigarette and went back inside.
When I made my way through the crowd and reached the bar, neither Lola nor the man next to her were there. I looked around, but they weren't on the dance floor either. The last option was to check the toilet. Three young girls were queuing outside the ladies' toilet. My phone rang.
‘We're outside, the man isn't well, I'm going to call a taxi and take him back to his hotel.’
There was a brief silence.
‘Will you come with me?’
I had no choice. Or so it seemed to me.
I went outside. The man was leaning against the wall, his head bowed, while Lola held his shoulder and said something to him.
‘He suddenly felt ill while dancing at the bar’, she said, ‘If I hadn't held him, he would have collapsed right there... He's staying at the Sweet Moon Hotel on Happiness Boulevard’...
I took a few steps and looked around. There was no taxi. I called one by phone. While I waited by the side of the road for the taxi to arrive, Lola was next to the man, keeping him steady and saying something to him. Soon after, a taxi appeared around the corner ahead. I took the man's other arm, and the three of us walked to the taxi together. Lola sat in the back with the man, and I sat in the front seat. The car started moving. I looked out the window, but I couldn't recognize anything. Everything was different, the buildings, the streets. The images flowed by like a film reel. I didn't know any of it. It was as if everything had suddenly become unfamiliar.
After a while, the car slowed down and stopped in front of a huge old building. I was very surprised that I had never noticed this hotel before. The entrance hall was quite spacious and grand. We got into the lift. The man muttered, ‘Fifth floor.’ He was still holding onto Lola. We walked down a long corridor and stopped in front of room 513. The man struggled to pull a card out of his pocket, inserted it into the slot on the side, and opened the door. As soon as we entered the room, he staggered, clutching Lola's arm, and collapsed onto the bed. His face was flushed, beads of sweat were on his forehead, and he was trembling. Lola tried to cover the man. She looked as tender as a mother. I opened the curtain and stepped out onto the balcony. The City of Saints was bright and sleepless with nostalgic night lamps. I breathed in the warm, fresh air. I could hear the sound of cars passing below and people joking. I closed my eyes. On that balcony, above the night noise of the city, I swayed as if I were on a ship in the open sea. Suddenly, I opened my eyes to a few sounds like short moans. The balcony had gone dark. The light inside had gone out. I peeked through the curtains but couldn't see anything in the darkness.
‘Lola’, I called quietly. ‘Lola?’
There was a silence that felt like it lasted forever. I stood still where I was. It was as if, were I to move, the balcony would detach from the building and disappear into infinity with me.
‘You can leave if you want’, Lola said suddenly, in a low, subdued voice.
Her voice startled me. I stood there for a few minutes, unsure of what to do. Then, for some reason, I quickly made my way to the door, despite the darkness in the room. Without pausing for a moment, I hurried towards the lift. Before getting into the lift, I turned and looked down the long corridor behind me. It was silent and confident, like a secret waiting to follow me. I got into the lift. 4, 3, 2, 1... I was going back. Impatient to embrace life, death, happiness, and sorrow, I threw myself into the street like a prisoner who had just been freed from her chains..
The scent of fresh air filled the street. Happiness Boulevard stretched out ahead of me in all its glory. I walked. Morning would come soon. Or I would have a dream. Or so I thought. I closed my eyes.
December 4, 2025
The Sad Truth of a Comedy Night
by Elvan Levent
It is not very common to write negative reviews in Cyprus—especially when it comes to books, films, theatre productions or exhibitions. No matter how bad something is, the reviews are either positive, or there are no reviews at all. In a way, it is shocking. There is even something quite pathetic about it.
On the other hand, Russians always had the opposite attitude: why would anyone open their mouth if it wasn’t for the sake of criticism?
And the truth is, in the absence of 'honest' criticism, expectations are quite low—and vice versa.
I couldn’t stop myself from thinking about all this while sitting at a stand-up comedy show last weekend at Shamrock Live Bar in Famagusta. Some women were laughing so often and so loudly that I had to turn around to make sure it wasn’t canned laughter. No—it was real.
To be honest, I was quite surprised when I first heard about the show:
Yan Zubkov—a Russian stand-up comedian in North Cyprus?
Although there is a considerable amount of Russian-speaking community on both sides of the island, Russian entertainment is mostly concentrated in the South. I had never heard of Yan Zubkov (to my shame—as Stanislav Belkovsky always points out), but that hardly mattered. I was curious to soak up the atmosphere and to write something nice about it—something nice. Like a true Cypriot.
The organisers were Russian-speaking people from something called Legend Event Agency—another name I had never heard before, which only made me more curious. A young woman told me on the phone that tickets for the first floor were €20, and for the second floor, €35. She added that if I wanted to watch the show without interruptions, I should sit on the second floor. Of course.
When I arrived with a friend, the same young woman was at the door selling tickets. She immediately told us the price would be €70 for both of us and added that she hoped we would pay the exact amount so that she wouldn’t have to give change.
It wasn’t so much what she said as the way she said it.
It had been so long since I was last reminded of the salesgirls in Moscow shops in the early 2000s. They would hate you the moment you walked in, and for the entire time you spent inside, they would make sure you bought nothing—answering every question with an immediate “No,” in a tone that suggested you somehow owed them your very existence.
If you think that after paying €35 each we ended up seated on the second floor, you are clearly lost in that big Russian world, I must say.
We were placed on the first floor, at a table already occupied by a Russian man without any explanation. And although three large skinheads in tracksuits were sitting in front of us (the kind you might once have associated with the Saint Petersburg underworld), the view was surprisingly clear.
First, a very young girl walked onto the stage, with the air of someone freshly woken from sleep, and announced that she was there to “warm up” the audience. Trying to do so, she asked the three skinheads, “What do you do?” And she quickly added, “Or is it a secret?”
The main skinhead replied: “The answer to your question is in the question itself.”
I do not remember the sleepy girl’s name. And it is a shame, because although she wasn’t funny, she was at least bearable. At some point she announced that her jokes were finished and asked whether the “guest” was ready.
So when Yan Zubkov finally appeared on stage, most of the audience was warmed up and ready to laugh at almost any idiocy.
What do you think he told us?
Exactly. He told us his life story, constructed from various criminal episodes from his youth in the United States, delivered in a torrent of slang and profanity and absolutely in an unskilled manner of speaking that could only produce a massive headache. Yes, that ‘beautiful’ russkiy mat (Russian street slang) Russians are so proud of was completely trashed in the mouth of this young man who behaved as if merely opening his mouth and saying something—automatically made it funny.
I mean, being a comedian is difficult enough as it is. But performing on stage while carrying the weight of a war in which your country attacking and killing innocent people—and the knowledge of repression of those who disagree—makes the task even heavier. So either don't talk about the “good life” in your country, or tell better jokes. That is after he had finally finished talking about his criminal past in the US.
Earlier, he asked whether anyone had seen him on YouTube. Oh no—I hadn’t watched him on YouTube, so as not to spoil the show. Perhaps I should have. Because I have never seen anything worse on stage than Yan Zubkov show. And trust me, I have seen a lot.
Later, of course, I tracked down one of his shows online—and went straight to the comments.
And yes, there is a considerable amount of Russian-speaking audience that is crazy about Yan Zubkov.
And so, here was the reality I had to face:
I was born in the USSR—which I never knew. And I loved Russia that no longer exists.
Essay
FEELING FEAR AND LOATHING IN MOSCOW
November 11, 2025
One Friday evening I got a message from a friend. It has contained five names of people who were declared «foreign agents» by the Ministry of Justice. The term is obscure and vague and if the state wants to create problems for you or to force you to emigrate, it can name you the one.
Some of the names sound familiar, one of them is mine. I understand that it is a bad joke, but I still check the ministry's official site. My name is not there and I take a deep brief. I am not angry. I understand that it is just kind of black humour, but it is not good day for me in any case.
I know that deep inside me, I have a feeling of fear. I joke, I even do stand-up comedy occasionally, I talk to my friends and loved ones, but I still feel fear.
“The shells are landing nearby,” said another friend as we talked about “foreign agents.” By “bullets,” he didn’t mean the real ones flying in the war between Russia and Ukraine, but rather the fact that some people we both knew had been labeled as “foreign agents.” While the authorities claim that the Russian law is modelled on a U.S. World War II–era law, that is not the case. With that label, you cannot work or live normally — and if you are a known figure, the media will be reluctant to speak to you at all.
In the past, we used to crack jokes about the Comrade Major who was listening in on our phone calls. However, reality bites. Yes, it is possible to access Youtube videos through the VPN devices, but the authorities are deliberately jamming popular messages like WhatsApp or Telegram. You can text, but it is almost impossible to make calls. They say that they do it to protect people from unwanted calls by scammers, but we all know the truth. They want us to communicate less.
A Western friend who still resides in Moscow has recently sent me a Zoom link to talk about harmless subject. «I don’t trust anyone and I feel fear», he confessed to me.
All of this is done to give way to the new state messenger called Max, advertised by government officials and even patriotic celebrities. A school girl told her mother that in her class Max messenger was advertised even during the class. However, after her fellow classmate said jokingly that he would never give up his Telegram the teacher looked angrily and promised to bring him to a school principle.
Of course, in Moscow you can still live the way you want. Or pretend to do so, even the drones sometimes reach the city.
On a nice sunny day, everything looks bright. Workers in orange uniforms fix the road; a police officer directs traffic; a couple kisses on a park bench. The headline of the local paper shows a giant watermelon — the landmark of the local festival.
“The Russian economy is showing resilience,” a visiting professor from one of the BRICS countries tells me as we stroll around the city. Yes, «resilience» is a good word and while inflation is increasing, construction is slowing and people have stopped buying new cars and fridges, trying to make ends meet while the rich Russians become even richer.
A recent visit to one of Moscow’s cemeteries revealed a sea of national flags and military insignias. Many of the tombstones bear the faces of young men. I notice a crying woman in her mid-forties standing by her son’s grave. She begins to talk to me about him — “eager to defend his motherland,” yet “thrown into battle without ammunition.” I could have told her that this war is criminal and unjustified but what can I tell to crying young woman?
Travelling to the Eastern Siberia this summer for a research I see the same posters advertising military service like in Moscow, although the payment is lower. A female taxi driver who gives me a ride talks about local news: bad roads, corruption in the local government and how hard it is to make money now. She mentions the war in passing. A 28-year-old son of her friend wakes up at night with panic attacks. Although in a way he is lucky — he was wounded and cannot return to the front.
Many will never return, and if the war continues for another year, its spirit will be comparable to that of the Great Patriotic War — a different battle in which both Ukrainians and Russians fought against Nazi Germany. But the old war is now being used to justify the new one. I feel this especially as I attend a concert organized by the Belarusian and Russian authorities in Moscow.
The concert begins with the Russian state official talking about «Kiev junta» and all the propaganda garbage, but I do not pay attention. I listen to the World War II songs, while watching the images of children in the Minsk ghetto. Those images are unbearable to watch. «Children shouldn’t die in someone else's war, » sings the chorus.
I leave the hall in the middle of the concert, feeling devastated. “History repeats itself,” someone once said. But maybe it is our fault — that we repeat history just to prove to someone that we are still a great power. A power that cares little about its own people. “People are the new oil,” a political commentator said cynically.
«We have changed during those three years. People began to treat each other more indifferently», said a priest of my local church. I agree, because indifference is worse than evil.
In the meantime, I watch an interview with the legendary Soviet and Russian pop diva Alla Pugacheva, who was forced to leave the country after her husband, the popular comedian Maxim Galkin, was declared a “foreign agent.”
A woman who once performed for the rescue workers and firefighters in Chernobyl after the nuclear disaster now “sees no evil”. She speaks calmly about both friends and enemies — and about the country she loves. “Patriotism is telling your country when it’s wrong”, she says..
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Editorial note: AVFRI has chosen to protect the author’s identity due to safety concerns.