NICOSIA
Other than one scene, which I may need imagined or seen in a nightmare, I do not keep in mind something from the Turkish invasion. I used to be born in July of 1971, and my technology basically grew up in a warfare that they did not know however that, for us, by no means ended. The shadow of that storm coated each minute of our childhood. He additionally chased us in our desires. Particularly these of us who grew up in Nicosia inside the partitions, though we skilled the division extra intensely than anybody, because it was and stays the one settlement on the island that has been divided, we lived in a metropolis, half higher, which in 1974 discovered its rhythm once more in some day and evening. The outdated metropolis had already been divided by the “fussaries”, the bloody inter-communal riots of ’63.
The outdated Nicosia
The outdated Nicosia, due to this fact, the half we might see, since till 2003 nobody, no matter nationality, might enter the Occupied Territories if they’d a Greek or Armenian surname, it was not solely a mosaic of Historical past and worldviews, with the excavations, the Orthodox, Armenian and Catholic church buildings, the mosques, and even the Masonic Corridor, the biggest of its Lodges. It was, above all, a really cramped, post-’63, miniature of society.
Within the historic constructing of the previous Faneromeni Ladies’ College, the primary women’ faculty on the island – inbuilt 1859 through the Turkish occupation – my main faculty was working. I went to highschool there. Leaving the primary entrance, the mausoleum of the Nationwide Martyrs, Archbishop Kyprianos and three Metropolitans, who had been massacred on July 9, 1821 as a result of their involvement within the Revolution. Behind him is the church of Faneromeni with the catechisms of OHEN and subsequent to it’s Muson, my father’s store and the Armenian textile outlets.
Should you went out the again door once more, you’d discover the shoe outlets of Lefkonos, a breath away from the Agora. On the proper, the bookstore “To Fos” on Trikoupi Avenue, the place mustachioed goddesses and clergymen used to come back and go, additional down a gown tailor and some steps additional, Soutsou Avenue. One of many alleys with the various brothels, into which males entered “to chop a highway”. His purpose, three minutes from the Archdiocese. All collectively. At each nook a vagrant with a cart blared the identical factor each day: one other fruit, recent airani, mahalepi with rose solely in summer season…
The surreal crowding and useless ends
This surreal crowding was dominated by one thing much more fascinating: useless ends. Should you got here out of the aspect exit of the varsity and handed the hawker who, unthinkable in the present day, offered toys hanging on wires with pegs on the fence, you noticed them instantly. Aeschylus, Asclepius, Alcibiades and so many others crammed into some neoclassical with nailed home windows or in barrels with the inscription “ALT! Turkish Occupied Space’ streets. What did my roads seem like beneath? What life was like there, I questioned, believing that the “opposites” had been evil and barbaric, though my father, who had spent three months as a prisoner in Adana, informed us that persons are the identical in all places. In adolescence, in some unspecified time in the future the unhooking eliminated the troopers right here and there. Like others, I used to climb rooftops to see the desert with none specific threat – lastly!.. – Line. World and life by no means.
The barricades
The roadblocks opened in 2003. I went by with a map to lastly be part of my paths at 32. The names had modified, it was infinitely harder than I imagined, and on the opposite aspect camps had blocked many passes. The primary makes an attempt led me to streets that I didn’t know and that didn’t wish to know me, in a international metropolis that I struggled to maintain acquainted.
At 53, all the things and nothing has modified. I went again – shut – to the outdated metropolis, the muezzin performs from MP3s, however nonetheless listens to them when he wakes me up. Useless ends? There. I hardly ever go to them. I’ve come to phrases with their existence and that, sure, bothers me. Most of them I nonetheless do not know what they disguise, and the one beneath, though I acquired to realize it effectively, stays inaccessible.
“My metropolis is split”
My metropolis was left divided. It has misplaced that vibrancy and crawls nonchalantly by time with repaired however often lifeless buildings housing organizations or in disrepair harboring miscreants from 1000’s of miles away.
Generally, after I get upset, I run again to cover. I breathe within the reminiscence of the scent from Matthew’s kitchen, the freshly roasted espresso of Laikos Kafekoptei and the shavings of the carpenters who had been housed within the floor flooring of those that had been afraid and left in 1974 or belonged to Turkish Cypriots.
A tough life, however nonetheless a terrific dowry. Double. Triple. Even in half a metropolis.
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