By Margaret Sheard ….
Both Chris and I were devastated to see news posted by Alexander Eletskikh of the death of his only brother, Sergey Eletskikh, on Saturday 25th April. It is always very hard to come to terms with unexpected sad news such as this.
I immediately contacted Alexander (Sasha), to offer our condolences to himself and Sergey’s wife Inna, and he replied 
saying he was so sad that he would not be able to say farewell to his brother. Sasha lives in Moscow and with the current travel restrictions it is not possible for him to come to North Cyprus at the present time.
The loss of Sergey, who I always thought of as a “gentle giant”, brought back many memories and I would like to share them with our readers.
We first met Sergey in 2012 at the opening of a Russian food shop in Alsancak, following which he invited us to some musical evenings which were held for the Russian community. The first one was at Green Valley Restaurant in Alsancak where we first met his brother Sasha and were delighted to be part of the musical soiree of Russian folk songs performed by Sergey and his brother and also other Russian musicians.
In November 2012 we attended another Russian evening at Made in the USSR Restaurant in Alsancak. Another wonderful evening of Russian folklore music.
Since that time we have met up with Sergey at other events arranged for the Russian community at Baris Park, and the Pia Bella Hotel in Girne and enjoyed the culture of a different community.
He was a man of many interests, and as well as his fitness routine Sergey also loved the history of Cyprus and had discovered many historical sites over the past few years. He had been in touch for some time with our German friends, Chris and Fred, who also have a love of discovering the historical sites of Cyprus, and they met up for the first time fairly recently and had enjoyed visiting some of the sites together.
Sergey was a big man with a big heart and in 2018 he was awarded 2 gold medals at the GPA/IPO 2018 World Championships in Kiev, Ukraine. He was 62 years old and said anyone can be a world champion at any age.
On January 19th 2020, the TRCK Weightlifting and Bodybuilding Federation held competitions at the Ataturk Concert Hall at the Near East University. The program included squats, bench press and deadlift. Sergey was invited as the island’s oldest athlete in this sport and was lifting 160 kg in a lying position and received a lot of applause and kind words. This result, by the way, is higher than the norm of a master of sports for his age and weight category and only 5 kg less than the record of Ukraine. It was very important event which took place in the promotion of weightlifting in Northern Cyprus. Sergey commented that “It’s nice that many 
young athletes said that for the first time they saw a man who turns 64 in May this year, he raises so much”. Sadly Sergey did not reach his 64th birthday.
There will be many people who will be saddened at the loss of such a lovely man and our condolences are extended to Sergey’s wife Inna, his daughter and son and his brother Sasha.
Rest in Peace Sergey
