It’s very quiet now in the ghost city of Varosha

The ghost city of Varosha lies in the Famagusta District on the eastern part of the island of Cyprus. It has been unoccupied since it was abandoned in 1974 after the Turkish invasion of Cyprus. In the sixties, the popular holiday resort of Vorosha was in high demand because of the wonderful climate and beautiful beaches.

It was a playground for the rich and famous, frequented by the likes Richard Burton, Liz Taylor and Brigette Bardot. Those names probably won’t mean much to anyone who hasn’t reached grandfather status but take my word for it, they were the movers and shakers in the movie business at that time.

Those once famous hotels have been idle for over forty-eight years and most of the properties have fallen into disrepair. The damaged landscape is a constant reminder of a troubled time. Many of the family homes abandoned hurriedly in the middle of the night are visible to the naked eye from viewing points along the border in neighbouring Dherynia on the southern side of the border.

It makes painful viewing for the families who fled the fighting in the belief that the absence would be temporary. They thought they would be back home soon, but that didn’t happen. The city was fenced off and the only inhabitants over the decades, apart from the local wildlife, were the Peacekeepers attached to the United Nations and the military from the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus who controlled part of it.

That changed in 2020 when, controversially, the Turkish Cypriot administration took a decision to open a section of the Varosha beachfront to attract visitors. The city is open to tourists now too, so I hopped over the border for a look and what I saw was amazing.

It was like the set from a movie about a post-apocalyptic world. Untouched for almost fifty years, the first thing that struck me was the peace and quiet. You don’t expect that in a city but then there is nothing to disturb the peace. The shops, offices, schools, hotels and garages are empty and there is no traffic.

Access to the buildings is denied as most are dilapidated and unstable. Few of the windows remain intact and there are signs everywhere advising visitors to be aware of crumbling masonry.

It’s easy to imagine what it would have been like as a bustling commercial centre in the sixties and early seventies before it all came to an abrupt halt in July 1974. That’s when Cyprus became a divided nation with two separate communities claiming loyalty to two different countries on one little island.

Cyprus is only about the size of Munster, with a population of around 1.2 million. Two thirds of the island is occupied by Greek Cypriots in the south and a third is occupied by Turkish Cypriots in the north which they refer to as the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, (TRNC).

They have two separate governments, different currencies, two independent police forces and two opposing armies, kept apart from each other by a border that runs east to west. There is also a buffer zone between the two territories that was established in the aftermath of the events of 1974 and that area is protected by the United Nations.

In July of that year, the Turkish army invaded Cyprus and to understand why, we need to look back in time. Worldabandoned.com have described the events in detail but I will give a shortened version.

In 1570, the Ottomans captured Cyprus. Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots lived side by side but after the Greek War of Independence in 1821, there were calls for a union between Greece and Cyprus after centuries of neglect and poverty under the Ottomans.

In 1878, Cyprus was “leased” to the British Empire but when the Ottoman Empire entered World War I in 1914, the British Empire formally annexed Cyprus. After the war, the Turks withdrew all claim to Cyprus, and it became a British crown colony in 1925.

On 16 August 1960, Cyprus became an independent country following an agreement between Britain, Greece and Turkey but violence soon erupted between the two sides. Turkey threatened to invade the island in 1964 to protect the Turkish minority.

On 15 July 1974, president Makarios III of Cyprus was ousted by the Greek military junta who planned to force the country into a union with Greece. In response, the Turkish army invaded the island five days later on 20 July to restore the constitutional order agreed in 1960.

The Turks captured an area from Kyrenia on the northern coast, down to the Turkish areas of the capital Nicosia. A ceasefire was quickly agreed but despite the ceasefire, a second Turkish invasion occurred on August 14 and this time, they took further territory in the northern part of the island, including Famagusta.

It was during this invasion that city of Varosha was evacuated and sealed off. The Turkish army fenced it off and refused to let anyone in. Up until then, Varosha had been an affluent, tourist area with hotels, restaurants and bars. It was popular among travellers from north and west Europe, as well as wealthy Greeks. Then it became a no-go area.

During the invasion, the majority Greek Cypriot population fled the fighting in Famagusta. Many went south to Paralimni, Dherynia and Larnaca and were helped by the British military who had kept their bases on the island from when it was a crown colony. Following the invasion, a UN Buffer Zone was created to separate the island.

180,000 Greek Cypriots had been evicted from their homes in the north and 50,000 Turkish Cypriots were displaced from the south. Now, almost 50 years later, both sides can at least go back and visit what remains of the city.