Crossing the Green Line
Today we took a trip across the green line to visit the occupied side of the island. We had to take our passports and catch a bus into the older part of town. The capital of Cyprus, Nicosia, is known as the last divided capital in the world. It is surrounded by Venetian walls and it has a UN barricade running right down the middle that separates the country of Cyprus from the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus.
Street on the Turkish side.
After we stopped for lunch at a nice little restaurant, we approached the green line. I was kind of worried about going north because Turkey is the only country in the world that recognizes North Cyprus as a country. To the rest of the world, this area is an illegally occupied territory. We had to walk through a designated entry point guarded by the UN. Before we entered the “country,” we were supposed to get our passports stamped like you do for any other country. Since this country is unrecognized by others, they had to stamp a piece of paper with our names and passport numbers written on it. Getting the stamp directly on your passport would make it invalid.
They had all kinds of things for visitors to buy on the streets.
On the other side of the line, there is a built up tourist area for about a couple of blocks. Souvenir shops and little restaurants line the streets. Some of the things they have for sell are pottery, cloth, and jewelry. Everything seems pretty normal. Then, the further away from the checkpoint you go, the shabbier things look. When the Turks came to occupy this area, they ran the Cypriots living there out. After the Cypriots abandoned their homes and businesses and fled south, the Turks realized that they did not have enough people to inhabit all of the buildings. This means many buildings were left to decay. There are remnants of unusable space all around.
We saw an old hotel that was falling down. They had it roped off because it was very unstable. You could see the doorways that were large enough for a camel caravan to go through. There was trash all over the ground surrounding the building. I think it is sad that it has to go to ruin because there are not many buildings of this type left standing. There are whole towns in Northern Cyprus that are now abandoned and left to rot, since no people are living in them.
This ancient inn is in ruins.
One building that has changed because of the occupation is the St. Sophia Cathedral. This huge building was built over 800 years ago, and has survived several earthquakes and remodeling. The cathedral is now known as the Selimiye Mosque. Turkish Muslims erased all signs of the Christian history of the building and use it for their own worship. It was very interesting to see them using a building that was meant to be a place of worship as just that, only for a different religion.
Cathedral, Mosque, or both?
Overall, my trip to the North side of the island was not as scary as I had intended it to be. This may be because we stayed pretty close to the green line and did not venture out into the country. I guess I was thinking I was going to get mugged or something. I didn’t.
From what I saw, I am disappointed that some nice architectural pieces of history are being let go. Many Cypriots are pretty bitter about the Turkish occupation, and I don’t blame them. They were forced to leave behind some very beautiful parts of their city, and their country.