Cyprus: signs in Greek and English, or Turkish and English

Tue Oct 18 12:46:22 UTC 2005

>>From the Philadelphia Enquirer, Posted on Sun, Oct. 16, 2005

One island, two worlds
Cyprus, split in 1974, has a Starbucks and other Western-style boutiques
and cafes on one side, Middle Eastern charm on the other. Now, visitors no
longer are forced to choose.

By Carol Pucci
KNIGHT RIDDER NEWS SERIVCE

NICOSIA, Cyprus - A five-minute walk from where a bunker manned by armed
soldiers divides the Turkish north and Greek south sides of this
Mediterranean island, Starbucks manager Faye Avraamidou serves iced lattes
to customers relaxing on a sidewalk patio. The signs above the cash
register are in Greek and English; the coffee prices are in Cypriot
pounds. When Avraamidou finds out that my husband and I are from Seattle,
Starbucks' headquarters, she offers us drinks on the house.

"Welcome to Cyprus," she says, extending her hand. A few days later, on
the other side of the bunker, a man named Dervis introduces himself as we
walk along a street lined with storefronts with names such as Dubai Bazaar
and the Istanbul Shop. The signs are in Turkish and English; the prices
are in Turkish lira. Dervis, too, shakes our hands and welcomes us to
Cyprus, not with a latte, but with a slice of halva, a Middle Eastern
sweet made with ground sesame seeds that his friends, the Yagcioglu
family, have been making for five generations.

Imagine a country of one million people about the size of Connecticut.
Then divide it, two-thirds on one side and one-third on the other, with
each section having its own culture, religion, food, flag, language and
traditions. This is the island of Cyprus. Ruled during various periods by
the Greeks, Romans, Venetians, Ottoman Turks and British, it was
politically and physically split in 1974, when tensions between Greek and
Turkish Cypriots came to a head and Turkey intervened to stop a coup led
by a Greek military junta. Nowhere are the contrasts more striking than in
the ancient city of Nicosia, Europe's last divided capital.

The Green Line, a hodgepodge wall of concrete, barbed wire and sandbagged
barriers, divides a compact historical core, easy to navigate on foot and
filled with Gothic cathedrals, Venetian-style buildings, and Ottoman-era
monuments and mosques. Between the two sides is an unpopulated buffer zone
of overgrown weeds and abandoned homes and businesses guarded by United
Nations peacekeepers and Greek and Turkish Cypriot soldiers. Call it a
slice of Berlin on the Mediterranean.

The Greek-dominated Republic of Cyprus, set up in the 1960s after the
former British colony gained independence, is the only government
recognized internationally, but it controls just the southern two-thirds
of the island. Turkish Cypriots set up their own government, and in 1983,
the northern one-third became the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus,
officially recognized only by Turkey. Both sides warmly welcome visitors,
but until recently, border crossing regulations required tourists to
essentially pick sides. Most Westerners chose to spend their holidays in
the wealthier and more developed south.

The rules were lifted when Cyprus entered the European Union last year,
and for the first time in recent history, visitors can travel back and
forth without restrictions. Elegant buildings with faded ochre facades and
curved wrought-iron balconies line Lidras Street, the main pedestrian
shopping street inside the Greek sector of Old Nicosia. A new, modern city
sprawls outward, but it's the compact old city, surrounded by a three-mile
16th-century Venetian wall, that attracts most visitors.

Starbucks anchors a busy corner near shoe stores, boutiques and cafes.
Another pedestrian area called Laiki Yitonia is a miniature version of the
Plaka district in Athens, with souvenir shops and sidewalk restaurants.
Walking along Lidras Street is a little like strolling along Main Street
in a small town, then suddenly finding it blocked by a concrete wall.
While a U.N.-patrolled cease-fire line runs almost the entire length of
the country, the Green Line cuts east and west through the old city,
turning Lidras and every other north-south street into a dead-end.

Free of conflict since 1996, Cyprus today is a resort popular with
sun-seeking Europeans. Most don't visit the city that's been the capital
for 1,000 years, and from a beach chair, it's hard to visualize the island
as a country broken in two. In Nicosia, the reminders are everywhere. The
tourist office still hands out maps that leave out the street names in the
North. Whole areas are labeled "inaccessible because of Turkish
occupation."

A few blocks from Starbucks, at the Lidras Street Lookout, tourists can
climb a ladder and peer over a wall into the buffer zone that separates
the two sides. From the 11th floor of the Ledra Museum-Observatory in the
Shacolas Tower off Lidras, it's possible to view the entire city as it was
built to be - united, rather than divided. Minarets jut from the top of
the former St.  Sophia Cathedral, now the Selimiye mosque, in the Turkish
sector. Visible on a hillside in the north are giant side-by-side imprints
of the Turkish and Turkish Cypriot flags. An outsider can't help but be
struck by the potential of replacing the abandoned buildings along the
Green Line with the cultural equivalent of a footpath between Turkey and
Greece.

The constant sound of jackhammers and construction signals some hope. With
the United Nations and European Union urging reunification of the country
(Greek Cypriots last year turned down a United Nations proposal while
Turkish Cypriots voted in favor of it), planners are anxious to jump-start
a fledgling master plan for a unified Nicosia. Projects funded by the
European Union, the U.S. Agency for International Development, and the
United Nations are under way to restore neighborhoods on both sides.

One of the most ambitious is the Omeriye area, a South Nicosia
neighborhood that was one of the city's wealthiest in medieval times.
Recently restored were the Omeriye Mosque, formerly St. Marie Church,
converted to a mosque in the 16th century under Ottoman rule, and the
elegant Omeriye Hamam, where customers can now sip tea and snack on
oranges while treating themselves to steam baths and body scrubs.

The red-and-white Turkish and Turkish Cypriot flags flutter just a few
hundred feet away on the other side of a concrete barrier, but the only
legal way to cross into the north from anywhere in Cyprus is at the Ledra
Palace Hotel checkpoint, a 20- to 30-minute walk from the Omeriye area. No
longer the luxury hotel it was before the war, the bullet-riddled Ledra
Palace now serves as United Nations headquarters. The road leading to it
is littered with run-down buildings, political billboards and handmade
signs.

Along the main shopping street of Kyrenia Caddesi in North Nicosia, a
vendor wheels a cart filled with glazed ropes of fried dough. Another dabs
the arms of passersby with jasmine-scented oils. Poorer and lacking the
Western-style boutiques and cafes found in the South, North Nicosia tempts
visitors with the smell of baking bread and the sounds of the Muslim call
to prayer.

The "Blue Line," a path laid out by the tourist office, leads visitors on
a walking tour past stalls selling grilled sandwiches made with a rubbery
white cheese called halloumi, a covered market, and Gothic churches
converted by the Ottomans into Turkish baths and mosques. One of the star
projects is the restoration of the Buyuk Han or Great Inn.  The
Ottoman-style inn was built around a stone courtyard in the 16th century
and reopened recently with shops and restaurants.

"Hopefully, Nicosia will soon be reunited and the buffer zone will only be
a reminder of the city's history and not a painful scar," says Anna
Caramondani, a Nicosia planning and environmental consultant. In the
meantime, a few creative shopkeepers have come up with some ways to
improve the atmosphere for the old city's 11,000 residents, many
low-income immigrants who live near the Green Line. A few feet from where
a soldier stands at attention atop a lookout, one cafe owner has covered
the concrete barrier next to his restaurant with a mural depicting
volcanic rock formations in Cappadocia in central Turkey.

It's not the most realistic of scenes, considering that Nicosia is
surrounded by flat, dry plains. But when the alternative is concrete and
barbed wire, it's sure to transport customers to a better time and place.