Shipping to Varosia - Nicosia
The ghost of Varosia and the confinement of the Cyprus problem
Anna Marangou had returned from Belgium, where she lived, for a vacation in Famagusta in the fateful summer of 1974. She was 23 years old - today she is close to 70. Her father was a surgeon and worked at the General Hospital of Nicosia, but also had operations in Famagusta. when he was there. After the Turkish invasion in July 1974, the city was almost empty of men, but women, children and tourists were vacationing there - after all, the city of Varosia had experienced tremendous growth during the period 1960-1974, especially in the tourism sector. There were many who characterized it as "second Beirut".
The exit
On August 13, word of mouth began to circulate in Varosia that the city was about to be bombed by Turkish forces - it was, after all, on the eve of Attila II. It was heard that the hospital would also be bombed. The remaining inhabitants decide to leave it to be saved and head to the British base at Dhekelia. They leave without taking anything with them, neither clothes nor belongings. They hoped that the same night, perhaps the next morning, they would return. In vain. Few, few men according to the testimonies, returned at night to Deryneia, which is very close to Famagusta, to gather what they could. Some are missing today - and most likely dead. The next day, August 14, 1974, the Turkish army entered the city. And then, time froze.
The looting
The family of Anna Marangou was one of the large bourgeois families of Famagusta. As she tells us, her uncle, Dimitris N. Marangos (her father's brother), had the largest Cypriot library on the island, part of which were rare medieval manuscripts. After the evacuation of the inhabitants, the Turkish forces engaged in looting. Many years later, Anna Marangou found and bought from a British auction house a book that belonged to her uncle's library. The book was by Marcel Brion and was about Catherine Cornaro, the last queen of Cyprus (1474-1489), before the island was handed over administratively to the Venetian Republic. God knows how this book got there. Today it is located in the Leventio Library of Nicosia. According to Marangou, a painting painted by her mother was found in a hotel in Karpasia - she saw him there.
Visitors are asked not to enter buildings that have collapsed after so many years
The story
In 1974 the population of the whole city of Famagusta was about 40.000 people, although there were many who lived elsewhere and moved to the city for work. It is estimated that about 26.000 Greek Cypriots lived in the city and the majority of them lived and worked in the area of Varosia, east of Famagusta and outside the old city. The nearly 8.500 Turkish Cypriots lived inside the old, enclosed city with its impressive Venetian walls and neighboring areas. This peculiar anthropogeography has its origins in the period after the occupation of the city by the Ottomans, in 1576, when they ordered the Orthodox population to leave, within two years, the old city and go to today's Varosia - a word that has its origins in the Turkish word "heavy", which means "suburb". When Varosia fell to the Turkish army in 1974, only the western part of the city was inhabited by Turkish Cypriots and later by settlers. The eastern and coastal part, with the beautiful sandy beach and the high-rise buildings of hotels and apartments, was closed to the public and remained under the control of the Turkish army. It was the piece that the photographic lens had immortalized behind the well-known barbed wire.
The opening
Today, this barbed wire no longer exists. And from where the Turkish army outpost once stood, next to the stadium named "Fazil Kucuk" (the name of the former Turkish Cypriot leader and vice president of the Republic of Cyprus in the period 1960-1963 before Archbishop Makarios submitted as President 13 Points the revision of the Constitution that had emerged from the Zurich / London Treaties) one can enter the "ghost town" which has now become a tourist attraction.
Coaches and buses are parked outside the entrance, which one passes by pushing gates like the ones we often find in parking lots or companies - you just do not need to "hit" a magnetic card.
A little further down, on the left, there is a small kiosk that sells coffee, water and soft drinks. In front of it there are benches where one can wait until you get one of the old, rusty and dirty minibuses which, after paying a substandard ticket, can be taken to Kennedy Avenue, the seafront promenade just a stone's throw from the sandy beach. . The minibuses stop at the "picnic spot" - a spot that symbolizes tragedy and comedy at the same time. A corridor made of wooden slabs on the sand leads to a seaside bar with some cheap benches, while further in front are lined white plastic sunbeds for bathers.
This is the spot on Varosya beach where President Erdogan wanted to have his… picnic on November 15, 2020, but the rain ruined the fiesta
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan was there last November to have a "picnic", as he had previously announced, with his chosen "president" of the pseudo-state, Ersin Tatar. However, the weather on November 15, 2020, the day of the 37th anniversary of the proclamation of the self-proclaimed (and recognized only by Ankara) "Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus", did not favor the plans for the "picnic", as the torrential rain ruined the plans for a majestic fiesta.
When the soul is tightened
Walking on the majestic Avenue of Democracy, it is difficult for the visitor - especially the one who enters there for the first time, like the writer - not to be strained. It is not just the abandonment of once beautiful houses, it is the feeling that the area seems to have turned into an attraction that is indifferent to the history of this place. The government of the pseudo-state decided to even build a… bike path for those who want to ride - out of curiosity or out of curiosity, indifferent.
But the eye of the careful observer will stand - even with the help and suggestion of someone who knows better - on the white plaque that covered the inscription of the building-jewel of the Lyceum of Greek Famagusta, on the flags of Turkey and the pseudo-state in front of the Boys' High School. at the United Nations flag on top of an abandoned building (indication that the UN is probably doing nothing there), at the Boccaccio cafe on Republic Avenue, where archaeologists once gathered at the neighboring Salamis archeological site, in its former cinema-theater Hadjihampi family.
A white plaque has covered the inscription of the Lyceum of Greek Women of Famagusta
Our walk stops in front of Bilal Aga Masjid, a place of prayer and not a mosque. Erdogan prayed in this area and behind this building begins the famous 3,5% of the enclosed area that the Turkish Cypriot side wants to open - and some reports say it may increase to 5%. But the next day is unclear.
What is to be born
According to Mete Hatay, an analyst at the Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO), which has an office in Cyprus and who recently wrote a very interesting analysis on the subject, in the past various proposals had been put on the table regarding the return of Varos to the legal residents and in some of them there were thoughts of "give and take" (eg return to legal residents and opening of the airport of Tympos / Ercan for international flights). However, the Erdogan-Tatar move to open even this small part of Varosia sought to build on the Evkaf Foundation's claims that Varosia belonged to an Ottoman vakuf, but that the British administration on the island gave it illegally to Greek Cypriots. However, the foundation's attempt to prove its illegality failed.
However, another factor that accelerated the Erdogan-Tatar movement should not be underestimated. It seems that the Real Estate Commission, which was set up in the Occupied Territories in the 2000s and is a legal remedy according to the case law of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) after the Loizidou case, has probably reached a financial impasse.
It is estimated that around 400 claims for compensation are pending before the Commission and the cost of such compensation is by no means negligible. Possible return of property to Greek Cypriots - under Turkish control and not under the UN - however - may have eased these costs, although it is possible that the Turkish and Turkish Cypriot sides believe that many Greek Cypriots will not want this, so they may seek to sell it. . And there is already mobility in the North from Chinese buyers. At the same time, the government in Nicosia maintains a rather controversial stance, sending the message to those concerned that if they resort to the Real Estate Commission then the position of the Greek Cypriot side at the negotiating table will weaken.
The flags of Turkey and pseudo-state in front of the Boys' High School
Completed and dead ends
What will happen in Varosia is completely unclear. And it could not be otherwise, since in general the Cyprus issue is moving in the absolute fog. Both sides are trapped - each in its own pursuit or delusion. After the last informal five-party conference in Geneva, each side expresses its satisfaction, but for the third observer this seems like a joke. Ersin Tatar submitted a document completely outside the UN, speaking clearly for two states, to Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and he took it. And President Nikos Anastasiadis - badly hurt politically by the "golden passports" and the Pandora Papers - speaks vaguely about a solution framework, but the worst thing is, even if he does not admit it, that at international level he looks discredited.
The building that once housed the offices of the Olympic Air Force
Looking at the 2023 presidential elections, no ambitious candidate is willing to make the necessary compromises on the part of the Greek Cypriot side. Nicosia is fighting trenches on legal terms, but what is being done on land and at sea continues. At the same time, the naturalizations of Turkish settlers continue unabated, a new Turkish Cypriot diaspora is created abroad and Northern Cyprus is "Turkishized" rapidly amidst pink scandals and the smell of "failed state". How can all this change?
"We expect a proposal from the government. The government is constantly talking about UN resolutions, but the resolutions no longer exist. The Turks are here " Anna Marangou tells us, standing on the beach of Varosia, with the endless blue behind her. "Why should they return our city to us?" she wonders as she holds back the tears that seem to fill her eyes. The question sounds relentless. And the answer, for the time being, looks like a ghost, like the lifeless trunks of the buildings of Varosia.
tovima.gr