Time seems to have frozen on 14 August 1974, the day when the second phase of the Turkish invasion took place and resulted in the occupation of Famagusta, which remains under occupation to this day. Stagnation, abandonment, and decay characterize today the image of the once cosmopolitan city of Cyprus, as we had the opportunity to see for ourselves.
First, second and third-generation-refugees, locals, and foreign residents of Cyprus, we set out on a Saturday morning in May, with our guide Argyris Bakkas from Varosha, and enormous anticipation to visit the city, which has been idealized like no other – not unjustly – after the tragic events of 1974.
“The ghost town,” as the Swedish journalist Jan-Olof Bengston described it, since after the Turkish invasion, most of it has remained closed and deserted, with the Turkish army forbidding the return of its legal residents, in violation of UN Resolutions 550 and 789.
The first stop on our route was the point of the enclosed city, where the occupation regime allowed access after 2020, opening a new road, which they paved and which leads to the beach of Golden Beach. A place, where the beachfront hotels, crowded apartment buildings, and other buildings of the once glamorous city look like concrete skeletons, standing proudly against the passage of time, bearing witness to its once glorious past.
It is, after all, common knowledge that between 1960 and 1974, the town was a world-famous tourist resort because of its golden sandy beach, while it was the most developed part of the island and the central cultural pole, with many festivals and events.
It should be mentioned that for the conservation of all these monuments, the work carried out by the Bicommunal Technical Committee for Cultural Heritage, which has conserved over 120 monuments throughout Cyprus, is important, with projects underway and others under study to begin.
As Mr. Bakkas said, the first time he visited his beloved city, the feelings were very strong. “Every time I remember my childhood I feel, among other things, anger, why this should happen in a European country, but also sadness, knowing that your home is a few meters away and you are not even entitled to visit it, being in the enclosed area of the city,” he confided.
