Famagusta, Cyprus, May Finally Be on Its Way Back to Being a World-Class Tourist Destination
You may have heard about its once-regal status as the Middle East's Mayan Riviera, of its crescent white sand beach that lured 10,000 tourists at a time, from all over the world. Movie stars like Elizabeth Taylor and pop groups like ABBA. You may have heard that the region's waterfront hotels are now empty and rotting, crawling with snakes, fenced off at each end of the beach and guarded by young conscripts of the Turkish army who whistle sharply at tourists daring to flaunt the signs that ban anyone from aiming even a camera into the ghost city, much less stepping on the wrong side of the fence. You may have seen haunting photographs on the Internet, and maybe you thought, Wow, I wonder what it's like in there.
One day soon, you may get to find out. After 40 years of maddening twists and turns for the Greek Cypriots driven from their homes in the chaos of a swift invasion by the Turkish military in 1974 and the Turkish Cypriots who have since found themselves marooned in a rogue nation unrecognized by anyone but the motherland, there is new hope that this ghost city will once again come back to life.The leaders of the Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot communities met at an abandoned airport in the capital city of Nicosia on February 11 to announce that they've agreed to restart talks.
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There remain only minor details to sort out, and there is new pressure from the United States, among others, to sort those details out quickly. And if that happens - when it happens? - a broken nation can reunite and heal, stabilizing a region critical to U.S. and European interests and rebuilding an international tourism mecca with an enticing new draw: Come to the Lost City of Varosha.
There are 100 reasons to scoff at such an idea, and history is chief among them. A condensed (and slightly oversimplified) version: this is a 3,500-square-mile island settled by Mycenaean Greeks in the Bronze Age but conquered nine times in the past 4,000 years - by the Assyrian, Egyptians, Persians, Romans, Byzantines, Arab caliphates, the French Lusignan dynasty and the Venetians, before 300 years of Ottoman rule from the 16th to the 19th centuries. It fell under British administration in 1878, and when Cyprus was finally granted independence in 1960, the two prevailing ethnic groups - of Greek and Turkish origin - couldn't seem to get along. They elected a government, but Greek nationalists staged a coup in 1974, stoking a swift invasion by Turkey, which took over the northern third of the island in three days.
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| Nicosia International Airport in the Buffer Zone A newly discovered natural gas field may finally get the Turkish army out of Cyprus and open up one of the world’s most beautiful resorts Steve Howse |
THE "buffer zone," a U.N.-controlled strip of land that keeps the two "countries" from sniping at each other, is a weird mishmash of no-man's-land. The U.N. police patrol it to keep farmers from illegally grazing their sheep or planting artichokes. The U.N. military forces patrol it to keep Turkish and Greek soldiers from taking pot shots, which in recent years mostly meant rifle-toting adolescents mooning each other or smashing the windows of the other side's guard tower.
On a prominent hillside in the foothills of the mountain range just north of the Ercan airport is a massive TRNC flag, pointed directly at the south and illuminated at night with electricity supplied by the south. To Greek Cypriots, it's hard to say what's more insulting: that flag, or the ongoing occupation of their beloved land and homes north of the border. Especially Varosha, which is neither in the U.N. buffer zone nor accessible by Turkish Cypriots. The Turkish military keeps the district enclosed in barbed wire, keeping out all but a few contractors who come in and occasionally do maintenance work on some of the buildings that are in use - as dormitories for students, in one case. Mostly, though, it's a ghost town, and the island's most sublime beach is off limits.
No one (publicly) describes this as a good situation. Turkish Cypriots living in the north would like to be part of a legitimate country. Displaced Greek Cypriots in the south would like to go home again, and live in a unified nation. Turkey would like to join the European Union, a goal hindered by its illegal occupation of one of the EU's member nations. People all over Cyprus find the split country ridiculous and unnecessary.
Year after year, proposal after proposal has emerged to reunite Cyprus, only to meet some frustrating death. But now, after 18 months of jockeying for position, talks have begun again, and with a key new player: the United States, which wields substantial influence in both countries, more importantly with NATO-member Turkey.
Just four days before the talks began, Vice President Joe Biden called Cypriot President Nicos Anastasiades, in which he "committed to exploring new opportunities to promote Cyprus's economic recovery and growth," among other things.
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| Writing on the wall of a derelict house in the abandoned village of Agios Nikolaos Lefkas. |
The U.S. (and the EU, and Israel) want a stable Cyprus because it means a more stable Middle East. The discovery of natural gas on the island adds an enticing new reason for the U.S. to get involved. Cypriots have taken to calling the current working framework "The Obama Plan."
There are at least two other key reasons a Cyprus deal could be close at hand:
Everyone wants it. A poll, conducted in August 2013, found that 73% of the Turkish Cypriot residents of Famagusta believed that the ghost city of Varosha should be returned to its Greek Cypriot owners.
The other reason: Harmony with the EU. If Turkey got in, it would be the coalition's second-largest member. It's not that Cyprus is all that stands in its way, but most observers believe Turkey's ongoing occupation of the northern half of the island is a roadblock. "Cyprus is a European country under occupation," Alexis Galanos, mayor-in-exile of Famagusta, told Newsweek. "Turkey is a country that knocks at the door of Europe to join Europe, and at the same time it's occupying part of Europe.... "
As if a resolution to the Cyprus problem were a foregone conclusion, a dedicated coalition of Turkish and Greek Cypriots are pushing ahead with a plan to rebuild Varosha. The logic is that no matter what happens with the talks, reopening Varosha will be a complicated task, and it's best to be ready to do it right. Leading this effort are people like George Lordos, who was 6 when the Turkish military stormed into the district. His mother hastily packed him and his three brothers into the family sedan with just a few items of clothing, thinking they'd be back in a few days. They never set foot in their home again.
Lordos's father, Constantinos, was a successful hotelier on the island - he owned three bustling properties in Varosha and had just finished building a fourth, the Golden Mariana, a few blocks from that crescent beach. That hotel would never check in a single guest. When the army invaded, Constantinos Lordos had to sneak into his office, clean out some documents and the $10,000 in his safe and flee. His bank accounts and his business were gone, in an instant.
The family did have a travel agency in London, but its sole purpose was to direct tourists to the Lordos hotels. With no other means of making a living, the elder Lordos moved his wife and children to Britain and expanded the operation. Years later, he returned home to Cyprus and met with the manager of a local bank, who said, "There's a loan waiting for you. Take it, and build something."
"But I have no assets," Lordos replied. The manager shook his head: "Your signature is all we need."
Over the next 20 years, Lordos built three hotels on another beach in Cyprus, close to one of two main airports in unoccupied territory. Should Varosha reopen, Lordos and his children would reclaim those three hotels in the ghost city, along with their family home. That house, a two-story building only a few feet on the wrong side of the barbed wire, still haunts George Lordos. For decades, he couldn't bring himself to look at it, and when he talks about the first time he did, tears well up.
"It's not anger," he says. "It's emotion."
All he wants now is for this abandoned city to regain its former glory, and he's cautiously optimistic that this time, a lasting compromise can be struck.
Turkish Cypriot Serdar Atai was 7 when the Turkish military invaded. He remembers visiting that beach in Varosha with his family and being admonished by his mother not to speak so loudly in Turkish when he was surrounded by Greeks. Atai ignored the warning and romped in the sand loudly. Before long, he found himself plunged into the sea by an older and bigger Greek boy. When Atai's father, who spoke fluent Greek, demanded the young assailant explain himself, the boy said simply, "He's a Turk."
Today, Atai is part of the group of business leaders who, like Lordos, are focused on the future, not the past. "Our vision is one where all communities can live together, without limitations and restrictions," he says.
Both Atai and Lordos would love to see Varosha opened with or without a broader Cyprus deal, as a gesture of good faith, but few believe that will happen. It's too big a bargaining chip. "Turkey won't return that land unless they get what they want," Lordos says. "It's land for status."
So it remains a ghost town, a "corpse," says Atai. "Neighbors of the fenced-off area, these people wake up in the morning and see a dead city across from them. They sit on their balcony at night in the summertime and see dark horizons." Someday soon, Atai hopes, the lights will come back on again.
mag.newsweek.com
By Winston Ross
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