During our tours today we stopped at towns of Varosi and Famagusta. The first stop was a walking tour around the ghost town of Varosi. It is an area that developed outside of the walls of Fumagusta. Before the Turkish invasion, Varosi was the second biggest city in Cyprus. The people that lived there had to relocate because of the Turks and now most of the buildings are in ruins. The Turkish did not do anything to keep the location from ruin, so it is uninhabitable now. It was a sad sight for me to witness because I can imagine how beautiful the town was before this happened. It always is sad to see the consequences of conflict on innocent people.
After our tour of Varosi, we went into the walled city of Famagusta. The walls were built by the crusaders and they were reinforced by the Venetians. The city started to develop after the Arab raids in the 600s AD. The port in Famagusta allowed for a lot of business to come through, but after the Turkish invasion, most of the business went to the Limassol Port. Inside the walls was the beautiful monastery called St. Nicholas’ cathedral which was converted into a mosque. I thought the city was amazingly beautiful with a cool history, but I was also sad about how the city declined after the invasion.
Throughout our tours we learned a lot about the modern history of Cyprus. One thing I took away was the displacement of both the Turkish and Greek Cypriots after the buffer zone was put into place. If one was Turkish Cypriot they had to move to the North, and if someone was Greek Cypriot they hade to move into the non Turkish territory. That is how Varosi ended up a ghost town. Another piece of information that I found interesting is how many Greek Cypriots do not travel up to the North because they are required to show their ID to cross the Green Line. They see this as legitimizing to Turkish occupation in the North of their territory. In the future, I hope a better revolution to this conflict can come about.