From a luxurious tourist destination to a city with an uncertain future after five decades of abandonment.
Varosha, a suburb of the town of Famagusta in northeastern Cyprus, had its heyday in the 1960s and the first half of the 1970s.
With its five-star hotels, first-class nightclubs and more than two kilometers of beach bathed by the Mediterranean, it attracted tourists and celebrities from all over the world, from Elizabeth Taylor to Brigitte Bardot or Richard Burton.
But his destiny changed drastically in 1974when the Turkish invasion of Cyprus forced its Greek-Cypriot inhabitants to flee, leaving this territory deserted and caged in military fences.
Varosha came under the control of the Turkish army as part of a wider conflict that divided the island in two: to the south, the Republic of Cyprusinternationally recognized and inhabited mostly by Greek-Cypriots; north, the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprusa self-proclaimed state that only Türkiye recognizes.
Since then, this enclave has been used by both parties as a bargaining chip in the complex negotiations that have tried, without success, to reunify the country.
A paradise closed for half a century
The invasion of Cyprus by Turkish troops in July 1974 forced his 39,000 residentsthe vast majority mostly Greek-Cypriots, to flee in a matter of hours.
When this happened, Avghi Frangopoulou was 15 years old and his parents had just bought two apartments on Varosha beach, but the war changed everything overnight.
“I remember running because I saw the planes right above me,” he comments about the Turkish bombings in an interview for the radio program Assignment, from the BBC.
His family, like thousands of others, had to leave all their belongings behind and flee for their lives.
After taking control, the Turkish army surrounded Varosha with a fence and turned it into a restricted military zone, empty and inaccessible to civilians, i.e. a “ghost town”.
For decades, Varosha’s fate was a key negotiating issue in failed attempts to reunify Cyprus.
In 1984, the UN adopted the resolution 550, which declared that it should be returned to its rightful ownersbut the de facto Turkish-Cypriot government did not accept and the city remained intact, with its houses, hotels and shops empty.
“We are not ghosts, and our city is not a ghost city,” protests Frangopoulou, who, like many other former residents, has visited Varosha in recent years after its partial reopening in 2020.
The state of abandonment of the place makes its memories even more painful. “I don’t like to see this,” he says about the deterioration of his native neighborhood and “dark tourism” that has arisen around him.
“Dark tourism” and partial reopening
In 2020, Türkiye decided to partially reopen this space to the public.
The announcement by its president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, immediately attracted curious visitors, turning the once luxury destination into one of the so-called “dark tourism” that invites places marked by tragedyabandonment or conflict.
Tourists arriving in Varosha are faced with a strange combination of beauty and decay.
The beach is once again open to the public and bathers can be seen enjoying the sea and the sun surrounded by Ruined apartments and destroyed hotelswith broken windows and facades corroded by the passage of time.
Many of the former residents do not welcome this transformation of their neighborhood into a kind of tourist attraction.
“I know the people who lived here. They cannot sell this as a product, as a ghost town,” comments Avghi Frangopoulou, who considers the reopening as a way of trivializing the tragedy of the invasion.
Part of the international community has also condemned Turkey’s decision to open Varosha without a prior agreement with the Greek Cypriots, which represents another step in violating UN resolution 550.
But the neighborhood continues to receive tourists and the Turkish Cypriot authorities do not seem willing to change their position.
The nostalgia of the former inhabitants
For the former residents of Varosha, returning to the city after almost 50 years of exile is an intense emotional blow, as its now-ruined buildings evoke memories of a life abruptly cut short in 1974.
Avghi Frangopoulou has returned several times since it partially opened in 2020.
“My home is here”he says, pointing to the street where he lived, now covered in rubble.
Despite the authorization of tourist visits, the neighborhood remains under strict military control and many areas remain inaccessible to former residents.
“You just want to go through that door and go up the stairs, but there are police officers who arrest youso you don’t take any risks,” says Frangopoulou.
The case of Andreas Lordos is similar. His family built one of the first hotels in Varosha, the Golden Marianna, still standing although abandoned and overgrown with vines.
“My father built this hotel in 1967 when he was 27 years old. It was a hotel with a swimming pool, something new at that time. I was in front of my school, so during recess We were going to see what the tourists were doing.”, he says, while observing what remains of the building.
He confesses that his dream is to restore it and open it again one day.
However, it is difficult for the former owners who fled 50 years ago to recover their properties.
The Turkish Cypriot authorities have urged the former owners to reclaim their land, but they say that In practice it is almost impossible because the legal process is riddled with obstacles.
The Cypriot government also views this offer with distrust, fearing that it will help legitimize the Turkish occupation.
A shared future?
Varosha’s future is up in the air.
Many locals are hopeful that the neighborhood can be restored and become a symbol of the future reunification of Cypruswhere Greeks and Turkish Cypriots coexist in peace.
“We became like families with some of the Greek Cypriots, because we thought and acted in the same way: that we are all the losers in this conflict,” says Serdar Atai, a Turkish Cypriot activist committed to preserving the area’s cultural heritage.
However, political tensions remain a major obstacle.
Atai regrets that both the Turkish Cypriot and Greek Cypriot authorities have continually torpedoed attempts at a peace agreement.
“Always agree to disagree from the beginning,” he ironically, referring to the last five decades full of failed attempts.
On the other hand, political figures such as Oguzhan Hasipoglu, a member of the Turkish Cypriot parliament, see in Varosha a way to claim sovereignty over northern Cyprus that the international community rejects.
“We lost trust in the Greek Cypriots (…) Their words are kind but, when push comes to shove, they are not willing to share the government or the wealth of this island with us. “They see us as a minority,” he says.
Hasipoglu, who believes the division of the island is inevitable in two States, longs to see Varosha reborn as a luxury tourist destination under Turkish control.
Thus, uncertainty about the future of Varosha persists: will it remain a dilapidated “dark tourism” destination, will it become a new luxury resort for the unrecognized state of Northern Cyprus, or will it be a bridge to the reconciliation of a divided island?
What is certain is that time is slowly running out for former residents who dream of returning to the neighborhood where they grew up.
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- How Cyprus, the Mediterranean island that Greece and Türkiye have been fighting for 50 years, was divided