As I look up, the Middle East is in a renewed round of war yet again, and this time the conflagration has reached all the way to the Eastern Mediterranean island of Cyprus, with Iranian drone attacks on the UK Sovereign Bases in early March.

These bases, typically enlisted by RAF surveillance flights over Gaza and strikes on Iraq, have drawn increased controversy for the Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot communities in Cyprus. However, because their existence is engraved into the 1960 Cypriot constitution, these bases are not going anywhere anytime soon.

In quick succession, two Greek warships were dispatched to Cyprus as a show of force, and at the same time, the Turkish military deployed more F-16s to the “Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus” (“TRNC”), the unrecognized state in the north of the island, known internationally as the “Turkish-occupied area” and home to most Turkish Cypriots (as well as an estimated 30,000 Turkish soldiers). The move, like that of the Greek ships, seemed to be part of a defensive posture toward Iran.

While in this case the moves are arguably defensive, the renewed armament of the divided island—where British forces, United Nations Peacekeepers, the Greek Cypriot National Guard, and Turkish armies are all clustered on a landmass half the size of Connecticut—reflects the ingrained nature of the conflict, a stalemate so broadly accepted that the competing geopolitical interests remain at loggerheads.

Which brings me to my next point. Last month, I had the privilege of seeing a fascinating exploration of this inexorable conflict—and the seeming unending nature of Middle East wars—through an exhibition of Ali Cherri’s 2024 short film “The Watchman”1 at the Giovanni’s Room gallery in Hollywood, California.

Cherri is a Lebanese artist and filmmaker based in Paris whose work, per his website, engages with “geographies of violence.” His film explores the experience of a Turkish soldier on guard in a watchtower of the Green Line outside the village of Lourijina / Akıncılar, a village almost completely surrounded by the Green Line that separates the two sides of Cyprus.2

I visited the village in 2022, when I met older Turkish Cypriots at a gas station who were completely fluent in Cypriot Greek; I also attended a festival where I’ve had some of the best baked lamb I’ve ever had.3

Louroujina / Akıncılar serves as an eerie setting for the film, where the bleary-eyed guard watches the “Dead Zone” in earnest through Cyprus’ hot, oppressive days. On his break, he meets an old woman in the village who tells him about how long the conflict has been going on—a de facto division since 1974, with origins even earlier, during the Cypriot troubles between the two communities in 1963 and 1964.

In the night, the guard witnesses mysterious lights along the Dead Zone and though he informs his superiors, they dismiss his reports. As the guard goes to investigate, he is shocked to encounter a troop of soldiers marching along the path. The soldiers, strangely dressed in mid-century uniforms and caked in dust, are not real people, but phantoms. When they reach the soldier, they stop, open their mouths, and emanate a menacing, Lynchian howl.

The film is only a half-hour, but it’s a poignant, magic realist representation of how long this form of conflict has been going on—not just in Cyprus, but across the Middle East. Generations have lived and died, been destroyed or defined by these wars. The Watchman is a singular and insightful way to drive at that truth.

Though “The Watchman” exhibit has concluded at Giovanni’s Room, the film is available on Mubi to stream.

I meant to wrap up my Famagusta series a long time ago, and I intended to time the publication with a 4,000 word story about the modern state of Famagusta, the principal outcome of my Fulbright research. However, that magazine went bankrupt as soon as I filed the story. I’m still looking for a new publisher. That piece will see the light of day eventually, but in the interest of closing loose ends, I wanted to conclude the Famagusta miniseries with a different chunk of research about Famagusta, about efforts to turn the abandoned city of Varosha into an “eco-city.” This is an excerpt of a presentation I gave at the 2022 Modern Greek Studies Association Symposium in Toronto.

At the edge of the Greek Cypriot municipality of Deryneia, a few blocks from the checkpoint that offers access through the UN Buffer Zone into the Turkish-occupied territory of Cyprus, is a macabre tourist destination. The so-called “Famagusta Viewpoint” is a classic example of “dark tourism,” a bungalow sitting at the edge of inhabited Deryneia and the abandoned, walled-off and militarized area to its north.

That area is of course the ghost city of Varosha. Those familiar with the modern Cypriot conflict are aware of the broad strokes of the tragic fate of Varosha, a thriving and modern Greek Cypriot community adjacent to old town Famagusta, that was in the 1960s the Miami Beach of Cyprus, boasting celebrity visitors like Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton. In 1974, following the coup in the Republic of Cyprus, the Turkish military invaded the island, and Varosha was abandoned by its fleeing Greek Cypriot inhabitants. As the occupation of the north of the island concretized into de facto partition, leading to the 1983 self-proclamation of the unrecognized “Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus,” Varosha was walled off by the Turkish military and held as a bargaining chip in the endless peace negotiations. Varosha decayed in place, a grim reminder of that war.

Even in 2022, the Famagusta Viewpoint tourist site offers a glimpse at Varosha through a combined lens of nationalism and voyeurism. Pay a couple of euros for admission into the Viewpoint’s museum, and you might stroll through the viewpoint’s display of articles listing Turkish atrocities before ascending the rickety stairs to the roof, where you can make use of the worn binoculars included in your admission ticket to peer more closely at the restricted area beyond, the area that you’re not supposed to photograph. Through the lens you can see the hollowed-out, gray wrecks of hotels and apartments, seemingly stranded amidst sweeping fields of green, against the horizon of a cerulean sea. If this view somehow makes you hungry, downstairs the Viewpoint sells snacks and Nescafe.

The Viewpoint treats Varosha as it was for more than a generation—completely inaccessible, this elusive totemic place that could only be witnessed by standing atop a roof, with artificial magnification. But Varosha is no longer so—in 2020, thanks to the provocative actions of Turkish Cypriot leader Ersin Tatar, with the blessing of Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Varosha itself has taken on the dark tourism qualities of the Viewpoint which long lingered on its periphery.

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This means that today, you can go to Palm Beach in Famagusta, pass through a guarded gate, where you’ll enter another, upside-down world. In this place, bikes can be rented, drinks and snacks are available for purchase, and you can walk along repaved and landscaped roads (complete with bike lanes). Just make sure to stay behind the ropes and heed the signs that warn that the surrounding buildings might fall on you at any moment. But apart from these measures, this ghost-town-as-amusement park is all yours—contrary to the rules outside Varosha, you can take as many photos as you like. You can even sunbathe or swim on the beach.

The Disneyfication of Varosha is an astonishing development. Its harshest critics might consider it akin to allowing people to skateboard on the 9/11 Memorial in New York. To turn what is a symbol of pain for respective Cypriot communities into a theme park is decidedly not the ideal vision of the many different stakeholders who would like to have a say in the future of Varosha, its status still firmly determined by the will of the Turkish authorities. The city remains encased in amber, its essential ingredients crystallized. But few can agree what should happen to Varosha if that fossil coating ever cracked.

Given the drama of Varosha’s predicament, the situation has motivated its fair share of moonshot plans. One such initiative proposed a radical reimagining of what Varosha could be—a vision that owes its origins to a chance interaction between Cypriot-American documentary filmmaker Vasia Markides, and Turkish Cypriot architect Ceren Boğaç.

Boğaç grew up in a house near the fence that enclosed Varosha. Before the war, her family was from Paphos, but in the aftermath they were resettled in Famagusta. After the Annan Plan failed, Boğaç went to Prague and taught at the Academy of Arts, Architecture & Design. One day she was browsing the internet and came across the title of a short documentary called “Hidden in the Sand,” an allusion to the meaning of Αμμόχωστος, the Greek origin for the name Famagusta. Boğaç wrote to the filmmaker asking if she could see the film. Two months later, Vasia Markides replied apologetically with the link, explaining she didn’t check the inbox very often.

Ceren watched the film and was surprised to find that Vasia, the American daughter of displaced Greek Cypriots, had interviewed many Turkish Cypriots she knew in Famagusta—including her father. The unexpected connection led to a correspondence, and an extended exchange. As it turned out, Vasia’s mother Emily was a permaculture professor at the University of Maine. Her dream was to conceive a new beginning for Famagusta as an “eco-city”—a city reimagined on sustainable lines for a greater connection between the built environment and its natural setting. But an eco-city could mean a lot of things, and what the Famagusta Eco-City Project in effect amounted to was trying to establish a consensus for a planning vision, and crafting a documentary about that process.

In 2014, design workshops and roundtables were held in Famagusta. Jan Wampler, an MIT architecture professor, brought 15 students from the University of South Florida to Cyprus to study the issue. There was a lot of energy in the discussions, which brought in the support of foreign embassies and the participation of Cypriots from both communities. As Markides told me:

At that point, it was exactly 40 years since Famagusta had been abandoned. And [many participants] felt like this was the first moment where they could actually see the future, and a bright future for the city. And they felt hopeful, because they were seeing young Greek and Turkish Cypriots working together…

But the futuristic discussions were not all sunny. As with everything having to do with Famagusta, and Cyprus more generally, controversy abounded. The Eco-City Project found the most resistance from the Greek Cypriot property owners of abandoned Varosha. As Markides said:

You know the big elephant-in-the-closet issue? Those giant, hideous high-rise hotels. People are so attached to these hotels, because they were the thing that brought all the wealth to the city… what they don’t understand is that no one wants to go stay in a giant concrete box anymore… Tourists want to have a unique local experience.

This was a huge issue for the vision of the Eco-City project, because the hotel ruins are, in all likelihood, no longer safe to live in—not without massive renovations. Many of them also contribute to beach erosion. To architect Jan Wampler, the hotels represent a vision of tourism that is passé. He said:

I believe that the notion of tourism [in] the [1950s] and 60s is over—Rich people going to hotels around the world—it’s got to be more sustainable. I have found that all over the world, tourism is a death sentence to places.

Wampler explained that tourism-service industries in developing countries don’t often actually promote economic development, as most of the revenue ends up in the company which owns the resorts, usually in the West. He sees the future of tourism as adventure tourism, like spending weeks working on a farm, harvesting apples, or working on fishing boats on Block Island, off the coast of Rhode Island, where Wampler spends his summers today.

Wampler’s idea is… interesting. But it seems hard to believe that the kind of tourism that Cyprus tends to attract—the hard-drinking beach tourism of predominantly British and Russian visitors—might be compatible with this vision, the vision of “paying-to-do-romantic-hard-labor” for someone else.

The attachment to the modern hotels is ironic. Like most problems on Cyprus, the problem was imported. According to a 2022 article by Panayiota Pyla and Dimitris Venizelos, Varosha was targeted and developed as a modern tourist site in the 1960s thanks to teams of economic and technical assistance from the United Nations and France. Willard Thorp, an American economist who had been previously involved in the Marshall Plan, wrote a report in 1961 at the behest of the United Nations that suggested the development of Varosha for tourism. It would be reductive to say that Varosha’s development was solely caused by these interventions, but it was surely informed by them.

As of this writing, the documentary about the eco-city project remains unfinished, seemingly just like all the visions for a new Varosha.

A comet leaves a long tail as it approaches the sun.

The same principal might apply to the impacts of the Trump Administration’s gutting of the federal bureaucracy.

In recent weeks, much has been made of Elon Musk’s so-called “Department of Government Efficiency” (i.e., D.O.G.E.) as it goes after what it deems as unnecessary federal programs. Their first target has been USAID, causing the cessation of their international aid programs and demanding the termination of the majority of the agency’s employees.

USAID was established by President Kennedy in 1961 and built on the legacy of the Marshall Plan by providing development aid, food and medical supplies to countries around the world. The agency’s logo directly references the Marshall Plan, with a shield emblazoned with the stars and stripes.

Sixty percent of U.S. foreign aid is managed by USAID, and while much of that aid comes in the form of foodstuffs and emergency medicines, one underreported aspect is the agency’s support of architectural and cultural heritage around the world.

In Cyprus, several monuments have been restored with USAID funding, including Hala Sultan Tekke, a mosque in Larnaca considered one of the holiest sites to Islam. Established on the site of the death of the prophet Muhammad’s aunt, the Ottoman-era mosque had fallen into disrepair after the 1974 Turkish-Cypriot conflict and the de facto partition of island, with the Turkish-Cypriot Muslim community relocating to the northern, Turkish-occupied part of the island.

Efforts by the Cypriot Department of Antiquities, with funding from USAID and the United Nations Development Program, restored the mosque from 2001 to 2005. Given the divided nature of Cyprus, restoring a religious building of a Muslin faith in the Greek Orthodox Christian-majority side of the island held the promise of creating bridges between the two communities, still separated by a UN Buffer Zone more than 50 years later.

In the meantime, the Trump Administration claims the USAID’s programs are filled with waste and that taxpayer money should only be devoted to Americans back home.

Defenders of USAID say that criticism of foreign aid is short-sighted and foolish. They argue that foreign aid can comprise generosity affording goodwill to the United States, but the aid also can do real good for the countries that benefit.

I agree with USAID’s defenders. The current Administration is not only foolishly eliminating that source of U.S. goodwill, but hurting so many who depend on this aid, much of it life-saving. Moreover, in these heritage projects, we cannot plan for the future if we do not acknowledge and preserve important aspects of history for future generations. The restoration of Hala Sultan Tekke proves the value of such efforts.

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I’ll be back with regularly scheduled content next week. In the meantime, here’s a photo I took of the Hala Sultan Tekke last summer with a very awesome film camera.

“When, after passing a pleasant range of hills, Levkosia first bursts upon the sight, with her slender palms and minarets, seated in a desert plain, a chain of picturesque mountains as the background, it is like a dream of the Arabian Nights realised—a bouquet of orange gardens and palm trees in a country without verdure, an oasis encircled with walls framed by human hands.”

–Archduke Louis Salvator of Austria, 1881

On a June afternoon, a Lufthansa Airbus descended over the airport of Larnaca, Cyprus. The barren hills and hardy shrubs of the island appeared first, simmering in the summer light, then as the plane turned, the aircraft cruised over the wine-dark sea before touching down on the heated concrete.

The airport was the same—gleaming with a nouveau-brutalist sheen—but, according to a Cypriot friend with knowledge of the situation, the landing pattern was different, a redirection thanks to the Israel-Hamas War, so as to avoid exposing allied warships that have since habitually anchored off the Cypriot coast.

I left Cyprus two years ago. Some things, thanks to the many developments in the region, had changed. Aside from the conflict, it was certainly hotter, with temperatures routinely cresting 40 ºC (104 ºF), plus humidity.

But many other aspects, the good and the bad, remained. The island remained peaceful, and in many ways, prosperous. And yet the island remained divided, with no solution in sight.

When I departed Cyprus in 2022 after almost a year on the island, I felt a little bit fatalistic. Here I had spent many months building a network and a relationship with a community, and in the last three months I had slowly, brick-by-brick, dismantled the life I’d built.

I remembered the day I left vividly. It was cloudy that morning, when I walked to the taxi waiting outside, the weighty luggage of a year abroad trailing behind—so weighty that one of my luggage wheels had broken the week before. And as I watched the city speed by and its white-toned sprawl recede into the distance, my year there felt like some kind of dream, fading into the fog.

So, after all this time, I wondered, what it would be like to return?

Jet-lagged and sweaty with the patina of intercontinental travel, as I drove my rental Hertz Ford Fiesta back to the Old City of Nicosia (on the left side of the road, no less), I marveled at the barren countryside as it rushed past, the billboards for Starbucks and curiously novel systems for transferring assets (Flyfish, anyone?), and finally I headed into the lurching Nicosia traffic, which now seemed tame compared to my present-day driving reality in Los Angeles.

And as I steered through the Venetian battlements of Nicosia, the old city loomed ahead like a senescent creature, its haphazard alleys filled with the mystery of time and the romance of date palms, mosques and churches intermingled in the village squares—and then and only then did I realize what it meant to be back.

Because it wasn’t necessarily the familiar places that mattered to me—the monuments, the walkways, the slow cafés—nor the inevitably Orientalized perceptions that a Westerner must recognize and shake off in him or herself—it was the many faces and figures of the city that I had bonded with. And over the course of my two weeks on the island, I met again with many of the people I’d encountered before. Here, unlike the brisk 30 minutes afforded to a coffee meeting in California, one café date might stretch for hours; if you weren’t careful, a conversation might last weeks.

And though the sun and the sea, the humble-yet-elevated cuisine, were aspects that drew me to the Mediterranean in the first place, it was the warmth of these interactions that have led me to come back to this part of the world, again and again.

And so my work on Cyprus remains unfinished. Here’s a taste of it:

• The burgeoning city of Limassol has a new mayor—and he’s an architect. (See my interview with now-mayor Giannis Armeftis in a previous article in the newsletter). I’ll be following this story keenly as Armeftis’ career continues.

• The Usonian’s “Famagusta Collage” will be completed with Parts IV and V in the next two months—finally. I’d been waiting for another piece on a related subject to come out, but as that piece has become interminably delayed, it’s time to move forward and complete this miniseries.

• A few more projects, either in the works for a long time, or just emerging, are on the way.

In the meantime, we can look back at a publication that is just now getting a second-life…

TRIO, relaunched

In 2022, I—along with two other Americans, janan alexandra and Caroline Sager—published a small art book with Phaneromenis70, a local press in Nicosia. This summer, the Cyprus-themed book has been reprinted. TRIO features janan’s poetry, Caroline’s photographs, and my short story “Silent G,” about the abandoned ghost town of Varosha. That story is presented in both English and in Greek.

If you’re in Cyprus or elsewhere in Europe and you’re interested in picking up a copy, it’s probably easiest to buy the book from Phaneromenis70, by ordering online or walking into the Old City Nicosia shop, in Phaneromenis Square.

As it happens, I brought home a bunch of copies of the second edition of Trio. So if you’re stateside and you’d like to order a copy directly from me, please reply to this newsletter email (or send me a message at hb.batonentertainment[at]gmail.com) and we can arrange order details.

I’m charging $20 for the book, or $25 for the book + postcard pack, plus shipping and handling (~$5.23 for domestic shipments). I’m also happy to sign the book and leave a small message, gratis.

So if you’ve yet to see our incredible glimpse at the island of Aphrodite, please order soon—supplies are limited. I’d love to share this work with more readers.

Departure

In July, as I once again prepared to depart the island, I felt a sense of renewal. The year I had previously spent on the island was life-changing. In my two-week return, my past life in Cyprus was affirmed. It was not a dream, but an investment in a lasting relationship.

The island and its people would be here, continuing. And on occasion, I’d be permitted to briefly enter the rarified world that I’d once inhabited, and be part of it once again.

In June 2022, in connection with my Fulbright research, I interviewed architect Giannis Armeftis. The founder of influential firm Armeftis + Partners, based in Limassol, Cyprus, Armeftis has supervised several high-profile projects in the region, such as the Oval office tower, a collaboration with the firm WKK, and the Blu Marine residential towers, co-designed with the firm Benoy.

Armeftis was born in Thessaloniki, Greece in 1971 and grew up in Limassol, Cyprus. Like most Cypriots during this time, he lived through tragedy. His father was slain by EOKA B terrorists ahead of the 1974 Greek-sponsored coup in Cyprus, which was followed by the Turkish invasion and sustained occupation of the northern third of the island.

Armeftis’ architectural office, located in the heart of the old town of Limassol, is a fusion of the classical Cypriot and modernist landscape. A city of 260,000, Limassol is one of the most cosmopolitan and dense areas of Cyprus, home to many expatriate communities and international businesses, as well as the city’s annual tradition of Carnival.

Not content with his prominent firm, Armeftis has also founded a constellation of local organizations. A charitable foundation in honor of his father, the Greek-language media platform Limassol Today, a podcast called L-Air, and a community planning initiative called Για τη Λεμεσό (“For Limassol”), which includes a ten-year plan for Limassol’s development, one in which he proposes principles of a 15-minute city, including the creation of a light rail line and new public parks and bike routes.

In 2021, in an unusual step for an architect, Armeftis announced he was running to be Limassol’s mayor, facing off against incumbent mayor Nicos Nicolaides. The election was postponed due to the pandemic, and when I met Armeftis in 2022, he downplayed his candidacy, iterating that at that point it was all up in the air.

Now that the election is upon us, it’s no longer up in the air. With the vote slated for June 9, 2024, it felt time to revisit part of this interview, quoted in my 2022 lecture at CVAR and related 2023 conference paper in New Zealand.

On occasion, the idea of an architect being mayor has been the province of science fiction, such as in Fritz Lang’s classic 1927 film Metropolis, in which a man named Joh Frederson serves as both the “master builder” and leader of his eponymous city.

So, will an architect become mayor in Limassol? And what would that look like? This is, of course, an immensely interesting question to readers of The Usonian.

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HARRISON BLACKMAN: Limassol is a city of many symbols—the sea, ancient Amathus, Limassol and Kolossi castles, and now high-rises. In your eyes, what is the image and identity of Limassol?

GIANNIS ARMEFTIS: The most characteristic part of the landscape of Limassol is the sea. At the same time, the symbols you mentioned as well as the old and the new port, the marina, the embankment, all together form the identity of Limassol. The city’s identity is also shaped by its increasing multiculturalism and multi-leveled development. More and more people from different cultures, perceptions, occupation or social status are living, working and socializing in Limassol.

HB: In an article published in Cyprus International Business Magazine, you posed the question as to whether Limassol can become a coastal metropolis. Well, can it? What is your vision for the future of Limassol?

GA: Yes, I strongly believe that Limassol can become a modern coastal metropolis, and a modern European Mediterranean city. A vision that can only be achieved through a series of actions and an innovative planning and intervention. Planning that must include policies to transform Limassol into a green, smart and creative city, a city that is organically connected to its greatest element, the sea. Planning and policies that will make Limassol a driving force for growth, an important business centre, and at the same time a role model-city for quality of life.

HB: Let’s talk about the Oval. The firm’s website describes the Oval’s shape as a reference to the morphology of the shell and also the pebbles on the nearby beach. Can you tell me about the symbolism of the building and its relationship with the Limassol landscape and situation?

GA: The concept design of the Oval was developed by ATKINS UK (now WKK Architects). By its shape, the Oval is strongly connected to Limassol landscape’s main characteristic, the sea. This shape, in combination with the fact that it is one of the first tall buildings in Limassol, serves as a landmark and reference point for the city. It is a building that fulfills the objective of creating more sustainable developments in the city. Its north-south orientation aims at the optimal result in terms of sustainability and energy efficiency. The building has openings, allowing fresh air circulation from one side to the other. At the last level, an accessible roof garden is created for use by the offices. All tall buildings should serve the purpose of creating a “relationship” between the building and the user.

HB: Some of your firm’s projects are monumental and contemporary in design, but the design for your office in the old part of Limassol works with the built environment and combines the historic building’s facade in combination with the modern wing of the building. What is your guiding philosophy as a designer?

GA: Our designs are experience oriented. We are interested in creating spaces that facilitate human interaction and relations’ building. Spaces that encourage socializing. Buildings that create experiences both for the user and the passer-by. We focus on designing sustainable buildings that contribute to the development of social sustainability, wellbeing and quality of life. In our designs we often include semi-outdoor spaces, such as arcades, patios, balconies, which work wonderfully in the climate of Cyprus. We also experiment with spaces that have vague boundaries.

HB: In Limassol, the recent proliferation of high-rise buildings is a topic on everyone’s mind. In an interview with All About Limassol, you said, “I believe that the tall buildings in the city are not only not a threat, but on the contrary they can function with specific conditions and as an opportunity.” What are the challenges and opportunities presented by tall buildings in Limassol, in your view?

GA: In the case of Limassol, the development and especially the construction of tall buildings by the private sector has preceded the central urban planning. Tall buildings are connected to the identity, size, and density of cities. What we need is more compact cities, able to accommodate more people, with large parks. Factors that should be taken into account, through integrated development plans of our urban centres. Tall buildings are an integral part of evolution. As in all cities in the world, they are located in specific areas. To avoid causing traffic problems, they are located in areas served by public transport networks. Also, the development of tall buildings is associated with the creation of compensations such as large square spaces and green spaces, and other infrastructure of public utility in the area. Tall buildings should be a product of real-life needs, arising from economic activity and sustainable development.

HB: I was looking at the description of Blu Marine on the firm’s website. The description touts that the building, once complete will “leave as many visual corridors as possible in the east-west direction parallel to the coastline.” How does one design for creating ocean views for a skyscraper while respecting the potential views of neighboring properties?

GA: The area that the Limassol Blu Marine is being developed is a tall building zoning district. So, the concept design of the project was developed taking into account that other high-rise buildings will be developed in the area in the future. Moreover, the design includes huge elevated squares, both private and public, thus encouraging interaction between residents and neighbors or visitors of the area. Nevertheless, when someone designs a skyscraper, it is vital to consider the orientation of the building, as well as its location within the site and in relation to the neighboring properties.

HB: You announced your candidacy for mayor of Limassol last year [2021]. As an architect, how would your background and experience in your design career play into a political and administrative role such as this one?

GA: I have been an active Limassol citizen for many years. I served as a Municipal Councillor for 10 years. During my term, I was chairman of the Municipal Development and Tourism Committee. Also, as an Architect for 26 years, I have walked every inch of this city and explored all aspects of it. I know Limassol very well, its problems and weaknesses as well as its benefits and prospects and I have a clear picture of how I want to see my city evolve. Furthermore, it is my belief that a mayor needs to act, more or less, like a CEO of a company. To have a clear vision and a plan for the city, to be able to exercise effective lobbying within the state, to promote decisions and policies for the benefit of the city.

HB: In the article in Cyprus International Business Magazine, you write that Limassol must become a “green” city and a “smart” city. What kinds of approaches would you hope that Limassol takes to achieve such goals?

GA: There are three ways to transform Limassol into a Green City: First, through the development of new and flagship projects, such as the Metropolitan Park, the Linear Park of the Coastal Road (Aktaia Street), the unification of large suburban parks and the enhancement of urban green areas in streets and squares. Second, through city connection, which means connection with cycle paths / pedestrian zones between the Ancient Kourion and the Akrotiri Aliki (Salt Lake) ecosystem and the Amathus archeological site, with an extension to the Governor’s Beach. Third, by designing the “15-minute City”. With an expanded network of pedestrian zones and cycle paths that will connect neighbourhoods, schools, local shopping centres with the city centre and the beach. Also, Limassol will manage to be “smart” when the city invests in digital technology and provides with applications directly serving the citizen. The most important of all is for the Municipality organization and governance to be upgraded and modernized. Municipal services need to be improved and digitalized and new, innovative forms of city administration need to be adopted.

HB: It is evident, from all your efforts in Limassol—from Limassol Today to Για τη Λεμεσό, that you are deeply passionate about your city. What is your favorite place in the city and why?

GA: It has more to do with emotion rather than a specific place. So, I would say that I feel more content when I am at the center of the old city, where my office is, in an area where there is more social interaction, a stronger connection with the city. It is an area where you feel the smells, the pulse of the city. I have a special preference for places where people connect and come closer. However, no one can resist the charm of the sea, so almost every morning I start my day walking on the beach.

When we think of global cities we often think of architectural landmarks—Big Ben, the Eiffel Tower, the Golden Gate Bridge. These architectural idioms often act as visual metaphors for the cities at large, serving as tangible examples of cultural heritage.

But cultural heritage doesn’t have to be physical. Just ask Shakespeare. In his play Coriolanus, the bard wrote, “What is the city but the people?” Indeed, sometimes cultural heritage is intangible, invisible for 90 percent of the year.

That’s certainly the case in the Cypriot city of Limassol, where the city’s rapid growth amidst a scandalous high-rise building boom has produced something of an identity crisis—a humble fishing village in the 19th century has, in 2024, found itself the small island nation’s answer to Dubai. And despite the city’s unchecked growth and constantly shifting demographics, there’s one unique aspect of Limassol that has unified the city: the city’s annual celebration of Carnival.

In 2022, when I gave a presentation on competing visions for the image of Limassol at a Cypriot museum, I discussed the initiatives of several architects and intellectuals discussing their plans and ideas for Limassol’s future image, all attempts to bring order to the built environment’s chaotic state.1 But I had the good fortune of meeting Stelios Georgiades, a Cypriot diplomat who spent 14 years writing the definitive book on the Limassol Carnival (ΚΑΡΝΑΒΑΛΙ ΛΕΜΕΣΟΥ: Μια μαγική ιστορία, 2016). Georgiades explained to me what my analysis was missing—an evaluation of the heritage that couldn’t always be seen, and yet has been present for hundreds of years.

While some go as far as tracing Limassol’s carnival to an ancient festival of Dionysus, a more likely origin is the influx of Catholic Europeans during the Crusades and later Venetian rule on the island, when the French and Venetians brought their pre-Lenten festival to the island. Though Limassol’s Carnival is celebrated by a majority Greek Orthodox population, it has a lot in common with the Mardi Gras in New Orleans and Rio de Janeiro’s Carnival celebrations—featuring parades, masked balls and parties. “In the past, people could not travel,” Georgiades said.  “Carnival was like the window to something different, something more exciting.”

A work of oral history, Georgiades’ book preserves the memories of multiple generations of Limassol residents.  To Georgiades, Limassol’s Carnival is an example of what UNESCO calls “intangible heritage,” local traditions passed down from generation to generation.

Other examples of intangible heritage, per UNESCO, include Syrian glassblowing and Switzerland’s pasture culture. “You cannot touch it like a building,” Georgiades said. “You cannot preserve it in the way you preserve a building.”

After centuries of celebrations, carnival achieved a resurgence in the early 20th century, when British rule spurred industrial development in Limassol, and the festival facilitated social mixing between classes—the well-to-do mixed with the working class, sex workers, and British sailors. The carnival acted as a mechanism for social fluidity, and sexual and gender fluidity as well.

“The carnival gives a sense of pride for all these people,” Georgiades said. “Pride of their town, a connection of a group. It builds an identity… [of] being very artistic and creative.” The carnival has also earned Limassolians a nickname in Cypriot Greek: The Crazy People. “It’s considered a compliment for the people of Limassol, a title of honor to be called crazy,” Georgiades added.

The Limassol Carnival’s annual revelries, masked balls and costumed parades are an annual tradition and expectation. When the city canceled its parade in 2021 and 2022 to meet the country’s stern COVID measures, Limassolians organized their own unofficial celebration.

“You could feel that there was an unease, quiet, and I felt that it was going to explode,” Georgiades recalled. He explained that a former carnival queen organized a parade of cars on the main Limassol avenues as a makeshift celebration. “There were like thousands of cars in the streets.” Many of them were festively decorated, their drivers honking and passengers shrieking for joy. Naturally, a large number of the revelers ended up gathering on the coastal road, causing chaos and violating covid restrictions. “Carnival could not be forbidden, not even in the most strict days of the pandemic,” Georgiades said. “It’s an anarchic town.”

With its cosmopolitan expatriate population, Limassol is unlike any other place in Cyprus. Walk its streets, and you can hear languages like English and Russian just as often as Greek (lately, Limassol has also been known as “Limassolgrad”). In this way, the carnival tradition has persisted as a binding glue between residents of the city—intangible heritage filling in where perhaps the built environment cannot.

Georgiades wrote the book because he worried that the carnival runs the risk of becoming too commercial at the expense of its authentic roots. “The carnival is becoming so huge that a lot of people are making a lot of money,” Georgiades said. “There is a danger the carnival can go in the totally wrong direction.”

Taken together, Georgiades saw Limassol as a city caught in between its lengthy past and its preoccupation for building a new tomorrow. “You have all this construction which concerns the future,” Georgiades said. “You are caught between a mess created for the future and a very heavy past. Where are we now?”

This is the 37th post in The Cyprus Files, a newsletter series from The Usonian chronicling my Fulbright experiences in Cyprus. Thanks for reading, and if you haven’t subscribed to The Usonian to learn about storytelling and design from the edge, please consider joining the list.

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A sublime landscape of hills and grass, mountains and sky, all consumed by fire. You might think I’d be talking about California or Nevada or even Canada these days, but this time I’m talking about Greece.

I’m a Californian by birth, and (briefly) a Nevadan by choice. This summer, the East Coast’s sky finally went Blade Runner 2049 (it’s basically been that way out West since the original Blade Runner came out in 1982). But on my recent trip to Greece, the specter of the great burning returned.

On a day trip to Delphi, I stopped at the Monastery of Saint Luke (Hosios Loukas), established by the Byzantines in the 10th century CE. An UNESCO World Heritage site, the Greek Orthodox monastery features a church with spectacular gold mosaics, the church’s design in many ways a smaller-scale version of Hagia Sophia in Istanbul.

That day the winds were high and fire warnings were present. A few days after our visit, a brushfire nearly burned the complex to the ground. The church was saved, but some adjoining buildings were destroyed. At the same time, fires erupted all over the country.

And then came the floods. Torrential rain has flooded many parts of Greece in the weeks that followed—rain even sweeping away cafe tables in downtown Athens.

Climate change is real, and it’s not just in California, or Nevada, or Canada. As an Athenian once joked to me—with all this rain, Greece has finally become a full-fledged member of the European Union.

Anti-migrant violence in Limassol, Cyprus

Across the Mediterranean, another disaster has impacted a city I’ve written often about—Limassol. On the night of September 1, more than 200 far-right protesters—some disguised by hoods—descended on the Molos boardwalk of Limassol, holding signs that read “Refugees Not Welcome” and “Cyprus is Greek.” Five people were assaulted (including two journalists), and the protest was accompanied by vandalism against Syrian restaurants and businesses in the city, breaking glass and setting at least one car on fire. Twenty-one people have been arrested so far.

More encouraging has been the response. Days later, a peaceful anti-fascist protest gathered in the same area, with about a thousand in attendance.

Official refugee camps in Cyprus remain crowded, and as a result of the attacks, tensions are high. The hatred of some far-right groups in the United States are mirrored in the small island in the Eastern Mediterranean.

Disasters in Morocco and Libya

Which brings me to the other, much more devastating news. Morocco’s earthquake has claimed the lives of almost 3,000. Morocco, one of the most stable countries in North Africa, is a former French colony with a rich history and culture. It’s also a popular spot for film productions and Western tourists. I donated to the Global Giving earthquake fund, which allocates funds to local charities on the ground and has a strong rating. You can also donate to the earthquake fund of the Moroccan Red Crescent, the Red Cross equivalent.

And then there’s Libya. The extreme rain in that country—the same storm that has afflicted Greece—caused two dams to burst, leading to a devastating floods that flushed out entire neighborhoods of the city of Derna to see. More than 5,200 people have been killed. Making matters worse is the fact that Derna is not currently administered by the official Libyan state, but a separate administration, a product of the still-unresolved civil war. International aid has been arriving to Benghazi, but that’s 180 miles from Derna. Though it is difficult to reach the survivors, the organizations listed on this Time article are accepting donations for their aid efforts.

In a world afflicted by so much strife and tragedy, we don’t have to just watch. We can do something about it.

The Usonian Appendix

The Usonian went paid this month! And though the launch offer has expired, there are more to come. Starting today, I’m going to offer 7-day free trials for new paid subscribers. Don’t be afraid to try Usonian+ out—the water’s fine. And hey, you’d probably spend the $10/month on Pumpkin Nitro Cold Brews or late-season Aperol Spritzes anyway. (I certainly would). Might as well take the plunge?

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On a completely unrelated note, it’s not just spooky season—but the stern, stressful time of college apps. If you or a loved one is in need of college admissions essay advising, then consider my services. I’ve been advising university admissions essays for ten years now, and my students have been admitted to places like Georgetown Law School, Harvard University, Dartmouth College, University of Maryland-College Park, University of Wisconsin-Madison, among others. I’ll help your student realize their full potential so that they’ll write an essay way better than ChatGPT ever could. For remote consulting, I charge an entirely reasonable rate of $70/hour. If interested, please drop a line to my business email, hb.batonentertainment[at]gmail.com.

The Writers Strike is at its end, and the deal with the AMPTP have included protections against AI! Since the ink is still wet on the deal, I’ll touch on this further in an upcoming newsletter—but it’s huge, and may be an important precedent for the future of writing in general.

Meanwhile, friend of the newsletter Amy Koppelman recently re-released her novel Hesitation Wounds as an ebook on an online retailer. The book, an affecting and artful portrait of grief, had fallen out of print, so it’s great for this modern classic to be available again in this new format.

You might also enjoy my article in Princeton Alumni Weekly on the chalice once thought to be the actual “Holy Grail”—and the two all-star professors who got caught up in the debate.

IN THE WEEKS TO COME:

• Our Jordanian adventure continues with a modern journey to Petra, the ancient Nabatean kingdom (Usonian+ only—upgrade to a paid subscription today!)

• An interview with poet Max Stone on his new chapbook, Temporary Preparations.

• Examining a deeply mysterious film of Doxiadis Associates known only by two curious words—“Hip Tags.”

• Our long-awaited return to Famagusta, Cyprus, for Part IV of our series.

It wasn’t long after I arrived in Cyprus that I stumbled on an uncanny image that made me feel a strange fit of déjà vu. In the northern part of old Nicosia, within what is known as the unrecognized state of “The Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus,” are several historic monuments that have been re-tooled for tourism purposes.

One of these is Büyük Han, an inn dating back to the Ottoman Empire—sort of like the medieval version of a motel. In what had been the former bedrooms and stables of this establishment are artisans who sell trinkets and other souvenirs to tourists. And some of these products were very surprising—far from the typical wares typically found in Mediterranean locales.

That’s because some of the items sold were associated with a completely different culture. Turkish Cypriots were selling dreamcatchers.

The dreamcatcher is typically associated with Native American art. Though they originate from the Great Lakes and became a popular symbol with the rise of the American Indian Movement in the 1970s, they tend to be associated with the peoples of the Southwest.

And here, in the middle of Cyprus, were what seemed to be unmistakably dreamcatchers with some local symbols and innovations. The above photo shows dreamcatchers with the Mediterranean evil eye motif and the traditional lefkara lace of Cyprus.

The episode got me thinking about the global influence of a regional mythology as expressed through art and architecture. After I spent a summer reporting at The Taos News in Northern New Mexico, I had become interested in the motif of Pueblo Revival architecture—an attempt to reinforce a vernacular building style to define a region. The Southwestern U.S. was the center of many indigenous cultures that were conquered and absorbed into the Spanish Empire, eventually becoming the territory of New Mexico. All of this building style is rooted in indigenous dwellings, such as the historic Taos Pueblo, the oldest continuously inhabited structure in the United States, perhaps existing as such for a thousand years.

Even though places like Taos and Santa Fe are renowned for this local building style, the effect is more calculated, and much more recent than Taos Pueblo. In fact, many of the buildings in this style date back to the 1920s. And many were designed by a single figure—the Brazilian-born, American architect John Gaw Meem (1894-1983).

In places like Taos Plaza, souvenir shops hawk turquoise, silver, and dreamcatchers—just like in Cyprus’ Büyük Han. What places like Taos Plaza sell is a “fantasy” of the Southwest—one that evokes the Wild West, even though the architectural style in the region during the 19th century was more colonial in style, featuring neoclassical columns.

In fact, the movement to give the Southwest a regional identity stems from the City Beautiful movement in the early 20th century and tourism-centric marketing by the Santa Fe Railroad. In fact, John Gaw Meem, the architect responsible for many Pueblo Revival buildings in New Mexico, was first inspired to move to the state thanks to the Santa Fe Railroad’s marketing of the region in New York City. Similar processes occurred in Southern California, where architects like Bertram Goodhue tried to give the region a Mission Revival-look to advertise the region’s historic heritage as Alta California, the Andalusian fantasy of a New Spain.

The process of establishing the Southwest’s regional identity began as early as the first encounters between the Spanish invaders and indigenous tribes, when a Southwestern fantasy advertising a “city of gold” of rich heritage and history was promulgated—either to attract or repel its visitors.

I explore this history in depth in my essay, “Southwestern Fantasy: Pueblo Revival in New Mexico” in the latest volume of Architectural Humanities Research Association’s Critiques series: Region from Routledge. The essay is based on my presentation at the AHRA conference in 2021. I’m very proud to contribute this text to this edited collection. The volume features many fascinating essays on the subject (including a few more on Cyprus). You can order a copy from the Routledge website here or a major online retailer.

As the dreamcatchers in Cyprus elide, the legacy of the Southwestern fantasy is global. Even if a motif is calculated (and consciously artificial), it doesn’t mean that the effort is not desirable. But it’s the process of an artificial design aging into a status of cultural authenticity and heritage that interests me. What is authentic? Can anything ever be?

Many thanks to Professor Simon Richards of Loughborough University for encouraging me to attend the conference and develop the essay for the Routledge volume, which he co-edited.

This is the thirty-fifth post in The Cyprus Files, a newsletter series from The Usonian chronicling my Fulbright experiences in Cyprus. Thanks for reading, and if you haven’t subscribed to The Usonian to learn about storytelling and design from the edge, please consider joining the list.

The Usonian Appendix

News & updates from the Usonian world

We have a new web domain. If you type in “www.theusonian.com” into your browser, you’ll be directed to the site. Plus, the old domain (“www.harrisonblackman.substack.com”) still works. Imagine that—an upgrade, without broken links!

Coming up: Carhenge. Yep, that’s right—Carhenge. Stonehenge made of cars!

Also: An interview with Casey Bell on her short story collection Little Fury.

Plus: A big announcement about the future of The Usonian (hint: it’s good news).

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About eight hundred years ago, a fabulously wealthy city emerged on the golden shores of the Mediterranean island of Cyprus. The city’s name in Greek was Αμμόχωστος, a name which meant “hidden in the sand.” But this city was ruled by the Franks, and they called it Famagusta, and under the rule of the French-speaking kings the city was anything but inconspicuous.

This is Part III of a five-part series on the history of Famagusta. We’re moving through time quickly, and this time we’ve jumped ahead 2000 years, more or less. [Catch up with Parts I and II here.] But now, we’ve moved on to the medieval city which remains the traditional heart of the city today.

Medieval Dubai?

The last European outpost of the Crusades standing after Saladin’s reconquest of Jerusalem, Famagusta’s port became fabulously wealthy as an European clearinghouse between Europe and the Middle East, bypassing Constantinople (modern-day Istanbul) in the spice trade—that is, until the European discovery of the Americas and the colonization of South Asia and Oceania started eroding Venetian and Ottoman spice monopolies for good.

The staggering wealth of Famagusta meant that massive sandstone cathedrals were built here, the medieval version of conspicuous consumption you might today see in Dubai (or heck, on the other side of the island of Cyprus, in Limassol). Today these cathedrals stand like eroded coral reefs, majestic ships of stone that have seemingly accreted here, some in a state of partial ruin for more than five hundred years. It was here, within the halls of the grandest cathedral of Saint Nicholas, that the French kings of Cyprus were crowned the “kings of Jerusalem”—really, more of an aspiration to identify with an historical blip of proto-colonial sovereignty than anything else. Think of medieval royalty like the modern-day CEO—you could remove a king from one domain just for them to be appointed to run another.

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Venice and Othello

When the Venetians took control of Cyprus in the late 1400s, a hostile takeover that involved marrying off a queen, they armed that glamorous port city to the teeth. Fearing the domineering Ottoman presence just miles away, the Venetians upgraded the French-built walls around the city, some of the most impressive of the Renaissance. After all, the Serene Republic, at the height of its empire, was a naval cartel.

And it was in that context, with Venetian Cyprus preparing for war, that Shakespeare chose to set his tragedy of a warrior betrayed by his own comrade. The play’s name was Othello. To refresh your high school reading list: Othello, a Moorish captain of Venice (typically cast as a Black lead) is married to the white Desdemona, daughter of a Venetian senator. Othello’s subordinate, Iago, bitter at Othello passing him over for promotion, convinces Othello that Desdemona has been unfaithful, and in his rage, Othello murders her.

However, when Othello finds out that he was misinformed, he takes his own life. Iago is punished, but he never elaborates as to his exact motive. A melodrama with themes of race and jealousy, Othello has endured as a classic story, and in 2001 it was even staged as taking place on a high school basketball team in Julia Stiles’ very weird but engaging Shakespeare adaptation, O.

Othello may be inspired by an Italian folktale drawn from a real-life incident (if that doesn’t sound like a line from Knives Out, then I don’t know what does). But the title character may also bear some inspiration to an historical Venetian doge named Cristoforo Moro, as well as a London court visit by the ambassador from the Barbary Coast in Shakespeare’s time—but of course the inception of a story is a multitude of factors including the air pressure of the days and weeks Shakespeare composed the play, so all that stuff is fine-grain trivia to debate about.

And though Shakespeare never refers to Famagusta by name, this is the port of Cyprus that would have been the epitome of the Cyprus Shakespeare was describing—a Cyprus that by the 1603 release of Othello was more than a generation gone.

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The siege of Famagusta

In 1570, Sultan Selim II sent a fiery letter to the Venetian rulers of Cyprus demanding the handover of the island to the Ottoman Empire. Here is a sample of what the letter contained:

“The providence of the Gods has given me the right to destroy the faith of the Christians and to become the sovereign of all. I greet all of you who have in an unjust and abusive manner inveighed against me. And you give me the right to take revenge and to crush both you and those who support you, who are guilty of the bloodshed which they have caused among my brethren. It will not be difficult with my sharp sword to inflict utter defeat upon you and neither hope nor strength nor your wealth will be able to help you. And so great is the power which I have at sea that before me you will all be swiftly turned to flight…. I will wipe you out, I will put you all to death, I will lay waste everything…”1

To our modern ears, this statement seems pretty scary, but was not so uncommon in those days. The Crusaders under the Knights Templar had taken over the island with much the same brutality a few hundred years before.

But the threat was not without commitment. Once the Ottoman siege began on the island, it was a decisive campaign. The capital of Nicosia fell first, in the matter of a month. Famagusta’s siege, however, lasted nearly an entire year, and the defenders were reduced to starvation. The damage of the bombardment on the city’s many ornate churches is still evident today.

I’ve touched on this story on this newsletter before, but it’s so captivating I had to touch on it again. Such a defense required strong leadership, and the Venetians were led by a particularly savvy Venetian captain named Marcantonio Bragadin. His military genius greatly flustered his mercurial Ottoman opponent, Lala Mustafa Pasha.

Eventually, the Venetians had no choice but to surrender. And the defenders came to favorable terms with Lala Mustafa, an agreement that would allow them safe passage to depart the city. Now, at this point the accounts diverge. Some historians claim that Bragadin executed some Turkish prisoners. Others don’t mention that at all, arguing that Lala Mustafa was after some buried treasure. Either way, Lala Mustafa must have felt embarrassed by the length of the siege, given his greater numbers.

Lala Mustafa had Bragadin and his comrades arrested and tortured. In a horrific episode that surely inspired George R.R. Martin in his composition of the Game of Thrones books, Bragadin was flayed alive and his skin stuffed, an echo of the cruelty of the ancient world, of a similar fate that perhaps befell Emperor Valerian after he was captured by the Persians in 260 CE. Eventually Bragadin’s remains were smuggled out of Constantinople and returned to Venice, where they were interred in the city’s Basilica dei Santi Giovanni e Paolo.

The Ottomans had taken over Cyprus, and with that, one of the final pieces of the island’s modern character was established, becoming once again a true entrepôt between East and West. Some would say the events set the stage, or at least foreshadowed, the island’s current predicament. As always, the truth is more complicated.

The green-eyed monster

As we have seen, throughout its history Famagusta has been the site of such wealth and power, and with that elevated position came cruelty and greed. It is fitting that the Shakespeare play Othello, about envy, was set in Renaissance Famagusta. As Iago states in the play, “beware my lord of jealousy. It is the green-eyed monster which doth mock the meat it feeds on.”

For our next chapter in the Famagusta Collage, we will travel another few hundred years forward, to the waning period of British rule of the island after World War II, during another episode of power, cruelty, desire, and change.

But for a moment, let’s turn back to Othello. Although the play’s themes telegraph a warning about the vicissitudes of human nature, the play itself can also serve as a symbol of hope.

From 2014 to 2015, the Tower of Othello was restored by the Bi-Communal Technical Committee on Cultural Heritage, a group that pursues conservation projects for endangered monuments across the island. In 2015, a performance of Othello was held inside the restored castle itself, with a cast of Greek-Cypriot and Turkish-Cypriot actors.2 Attended by the then-respective leaders of the Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot communities, Nicos Anasastiades and Mustafa Akıncı, the event was a gesture of hope in a long contested city, a place where harmony had given the community its gleaming vitality in the past, a quality it one day may achieve again in a reunited Cyprus.

This is the thirty-fourth post in The Cyprus Files, a newsletter series from The Usonian chronicling my Fulbright experiences in Cyprus. Thanks for reading, and if you haven’t subscribed to The Usonian to learn about storytelling and design from the edge, please consider joining the list.

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In 599 BCE, the Persian Achaemenid Empire stretched from the west coast of Asia Minor to modern-day Pakistan. But, in an event remembered as the “Ionian Revolt,” Greek subjects in city-states across the west coast of Asia Minor (the “Ionians”1) and Cyprus formed a rebellion against Persian rule. This included the Cypriot city-state of Salamis, the successor of Bronze Age Engomi and the precursor to medieval Famagusta. In the end, Salamis’ participation did not bode well for the city and its allies.

As our five-part historical collage of Famagusta continues, the classical period’s city of Salamis comprised a vital chapter [catch up with Part I here]. In this vast swath of time, Salamis participated in the Ionian Revolt; later, it was one of two major Roman cities on the island, as well as the setting for a Christianized, Byzantine city built atop its ruins.

Of course, moving through a few thousand years in a short newsletter article is like flipping through all seven volumes of Marcel Proust’s In Search of Lost Time and claiming “you got the gist.” Given our constraints, we’ll spotlight just a few stories.

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Salamis and the Trojan War

While we know of Engomi as a city of indigenous Cypriot origin and Phoenician influence established in the Bronze Age, classical Greeks attributed the city of Salamis as exclusively founded by a Greek figure of the Trojan War in the 12th century BCE—Teucer, a prince of the island of Salamis near Athens.2 Teucer, having failed to avenge the death of his brother Ajax in the Trojan War, was exiled from his homeland, and as a result he settled on Cyprus and founded Salamis in honor of his birthplace.

By the time of the Ionian Revolt, Salamis was again one of the important centers of the island, alongside Kition (modern-day Larnaca).

The Ionian Revolt

Much of what we know about the Ionian revolt and the ensuing Greco-Persian conflicts derives from the writings of Herodotus. The historian claimed that the Ionian revolt was not truly a cry for pan-Hellenic independence so much as the outcome of intrigues by a few opportunistic Greek lieutenants in the Persian imperial hierarchy.

The Persians had conquered and annexed the Ionian states of Anatolia in 546 BCE, when the region’s previous overlord, King Croesus of Sardis, was defeated. The Persians installed puppet rulers in these Ionian states, including a man named Aristagoras, who was chosen to govern the city-state of Miletus.

In Herodotus’ telling, Aristagoras was one of those schemers who so often appear in Greek history—a rogue intriguer with grand ambitions, whether that was within the Ionian League, the alliance of Ionian city-states, or in the court of the imperial Persian empire. This was a real-life Game of Thrones.

Aristagoras’ father-in-law Histaeus was the previous tyrant of the Ionian city-state of Miletus. Placed under suspicion by his enemies at court, Histaeus was recalled to the Persian capital at Susa. Histaeus recommended Aristagoras take over his position, and the Persian king Darius I assented.

Now in power, Aristagoras strove to take advantage of his position by besieging the Greek island of Naxos with the backing of Persian troops. However, the siege ended in quagmire, and suddenly Aristagoras knew he had to make another move to stay in power lest Darius remove him from his post, or worse.

Aristagoras, conspiring with Histaeus, chose to use this moment to incite rebellion among the dissatisfied Greek subjects, who chafed at Persian rule (despite the fact they had previously rejected a Persian deal to rebel against King Croesus of Sardis in exchange for increased autonomy). While this took place in an era before modern conceptions of nationalism, it was of course ironic that a Greek who attacked Naxos now led a rebellion of Greeks against the Persians.

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Salamis during the Ionian Revolt

The revolt spread from the Ionian states of Anatolia to Cyprus. Onesilus, brother of Gorgus, the king of Salamis, wanted to join the revolt, but his brother did not. So Onesilus launched a coup d’état and took over Salamis. Onesilus aligned all the Cypriot cities together to rebel against Persia, except for Amathus (modern-day Limassol), which refused. So Onesilus besieged Amathus—until the Persian fleet arrived to take on the Cypriots. Onesilus wrote to the Ionians for reinforcements, and they dispatched their own fleet. While the Ionian fleet defeated the Persians at sea, the Cypriots were defeated on land, and Onesilus was killed.

Overall, the Ionian revolt failed, and its chief instigator did not survive for long. Aristagoras fled to Thrace (modern-day Bulgaria), where he hoped to establish a colony, but his landing party was slain upon arrival. The Ionian rebellion was an early spark in the Greco-Roman wars, setting in motion the first Persian invasion of Greece, which led to Athens’ unlikely victory at Marathon. In response to Marathon, the second Persian invasion led to the famous defeat of the 300 Spartans at Thermopylae and the Athenian naval victory at the island of Salamis,3 teeing up the golden age of Athens, leading to the construction of the Parthenon and many of the other cultural milestones that Athens became known for.

In Cyprus, Onesilus’ corpse was put on display in Amathus as a stark warning to traitors. In Herodotus’ account, his skull became the setting for a bee honeycomb, an example of “bugonia,” a belief in antiquity that animal carcasses could spontaneously generate bees. Due to the miracle of Onesilus’ honeycomb skull, he became the subject of a cult’s worship. Over the centuries, heroes became villains before becoming heroes once again—a cycle of public opinion we moderns can relate to, albeit at a much faster pace.

Salamis today: Ruins of the Roman city

If you visit Salamis today, you’ll be hard-pressed to find the city of the Ionian Revolt. Rather, you’ll encounter what's left of the city of the Romans, and their Byzantine successors, who renamed the city “Constantia.”

What is amazing about these ruins is that they are easier to comprehend than many other, more famous classical sites. Unlike the Forum at Rome, which is crowded and overwhelmed by the sheer volume of ruins bordered by the elevated, modern city, Salamis is a ruin apart. Enter into the gymnasium and its ring of columns, and read text engraved in the floor centuries earlier. Walk a little further into an enormous complex of baths, and you’ll find a few mosaics peeking out from the corners, the subterranean heating system cut away for all to see, like a cross-section drawing you might find in an encyclopedia. Sit in the restored amphitheater and listen to your friends call from the bottom, their voices astonishingly clear—the acoustics continue to impress. Elsewhere columns lie toppled and cracked, a once monolithic Temple to Jupiter a vacant, sun-baked ruin, and meanwhile medieval walls mere suggestions of a fortress of antiquity.

But even if the traces are incomplete, they remain evocative. Set foot on a Roman road worn by the path of successive carts, yet still integral all these millennia later, evidence of the persistence of Roman engineering. Further still, all that remains of a Byzantine basilica built on the shoreline is its foundations, as well as a startling abstract mosaic toward the shore, long ago laid by the artistic precursors of M.C. Escher.

Salamis fell into decline in the 4th century CE, when devastating earthquakes wreaked havoc and the port gradually filled in. The city of Constantia that replaced it, built with the backing of Emperor Constantius II, endured until Arab raids in the 7th century CE compelled the inhabitants to relocate down the coast. But the location remained strategic, and in the medieval period the region became vital once again.

The French crusaders and Venetians who next ruled Cyprus had learned from the mistakes of the Romans. The Latins ended up constructing one of the most impressive fortifications in medieval European history—Famagusta, what we might recognize as the city of Othello—the next destination in our historical collage.

Selected References

Herodotus, translated by Tom Holland, The Histories. Penguin, 2013.

This is the thirty-third post in The Cyprus Files, a newsletter series from The Usonian chronicling my Fulbright experiences in Cyprus. Thanks for reading, and if you haven’t subscribed to The Usonian to read about storytelling and design from the edge, please consider joining the list.

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“I seized the king of Alashiya with his wives, his children… All the goods, including silver and gold, and all the captured people I removed and brought home to Hattusa. I enslaved the country of Alashiya, and made it tributary on the spot.”

—Hittite tablet of Tudhaliya, republished in Eric Cline’s “1177 B.C.: The Year Civilization Collapsed” (Princeton University Press, 2014)

The Middle East. Various states vie for a strategic resource critical to military supply chains and the international economy. The various geopolitical players intervene and colonize regions critical to the acquisition and production of this resource.

But this resource is not oil or natural gas. Four thousand years ago, it was copper, fought over in the same region where those fossil fuel-centric conflicts are being played out today.

The name of the island of Cyprus may be the inspiration for the name of copper, or else the metal copper gives us the name of the island. Either way, Cyprus was famous first for its copper.

Copper was a critical resource for the production of bronze, an amalgam of copper and tin, crucial in the production of bronze tools and weapons, a technological linchpin for early Mesopotamian, Anatolian, Hellenic, and Egyptian civilizations.

And Engomi, an ancient city on the east coast of Cyprus—being the capital of the Bronze Age kingdom of Alashiya (the original name of the island)—was a crucial broker in the strategic race for access to copper ore. The Hittites, Greeks, and Egyptians—they all wanted a piece of the copper pie.

While the world of the Bronze Age collapsed around 1177 B.C.E.—due to invasions of mysterious “Sea Peoples,” climate change, or a combination of such factors—Engomi’s rise would be followed in the classical era by impressive cities erected near the same ground.

Engomi’s urban successors would be equally strategic, but for different reasons. From Salamis to Constantia, the city that became Famagusta has always been surrounded by ruins from an earlier time.

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The legacies of Famagusta

The city of Famagusta is one of the most fascinating locations on the island of Cyprus. Its name in Greek, Αμμόχωστος, means “hidden in the sand.” The setting of Shakespeare’s classic play Othello, the various urban areas in and around Famagusta have been an important center from the oldest periods of recorded antiquity in the Bronze Age—all the way to the modern Cypriot conflict.

With such a rich history, Famagusta is also a good lens into the long and tumultuous history of Cyprus. As The Cyprus Files blog series moves closer to its “endgame,” I wanted to tackle the multifaceted story of Famagusta, a narrative I’d been saving for a more ambitious approach: history as collage.

In this five part series, we’ll go into the history of Famagusta. Part I considers the region in the Bronze Age, when the settlement of Engomi was an important center and capital for Cyprus, then the strategic source of copper.

In Part II, we’ll fast-forward to ancient Greek and Roman times, when Salamis (later rebuilt as Constantia) became one of the more important cities on the island.

In Part III, we’ll consider Famagusta in the medieval period, when Frankish crusaders and later Venetians turned Famagusta into the last trading outpost on the route to the Middle East, before a bruising invasion by the Ottoman Empire and a new role within the Ottoman state.

In Part IV, we’ll consider Famagusta in the waning days of the British Empire’s hold over the island, when it became the home of detention camps for Jewish zionists, a chapter dramatized in the Leon Uris novel Exodus and its film adaptation (filmed on location).

Finally, in Part V, we’ll take a look at the ghost city of Varosha, once the prospering Greek Cypriot neighborhood and tourism center on the island. Since the Turkish invasion and occupation of the north of the island in 1974, Varosha has become an abandoned city, recently converted into a dark tourism destination.

We’ll take our time with this Famagusta miniseries, but it should wrap up in summer 2023. But enough of scheduling—let’s run it back to copper.

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Copper towns

The city of Engomi was established around 1700 B.C.E.—about four thousand years ago. A center of copper processing, Engomi was a location where Mycenaean Greeks settled (apocryphally, the Greeks who went to war with Troy). The people at Engomi worshipped the “Horned God,” thought to be an early version of Apollo.

Back then, Cyprus was coming under the geopolitical influence of both the Greeks and by 850 B.C., the Phoenicians (hailing from modern-day Lebanon), alongside cities of Eteo-Cypriote origin (the island’s original inhabitants), such as the copper-centric city of Idalion.

Cypriot copper was mined at the foot of the Troödos mountains. “The amount of slag found near the ancient mines exceeds four million tons,” wrote historian Katia Hadjidemetriou. She added, “It is today estimated that at least two hundred thousand tones of copper ore were produced in ancient Cyprus. This huge production undoubtedly renders Cyprus the biggest centre of copper ore production in antiquity.”

Such success made Cyprus a target that made it even further integrated in the Bronze Age world. Two Hittite kings claim to have conquered Cyprus in a period of instability ahead of the Bronze Age collapse in 1177 B.C.E. When the breakdown of these civilizations came, Cyprus was part of the story. In the ruins of the palace of Ugarit, a port city in modern-day Syria, a letter addressed to the king of Alashiya on a tablet was found, suggesting it had never been sent (though this document is heavily studied and debated). The letter said, “the ships of the enemy have come. They have been setting fire to my cities and have done harm to the land.” The letter requested assistance.

The disturbances in the Eastern Mediterranean were so damaging that by 1085 B.C.E., an Egyptian messenger visiting Byblos (modern-day Jbeil in Lebanon) was blown off course to Cyprus, and he probably visited Engomi. “The people of the city came out in order to slay me,” the Egyptian recounted. “I was dragged by them to the place where Hathaba, the queen of the city, was.” To his relief, a member of the queen’s court spoke Egyptian, and through the courtier’s translation the Egyptian begged for pardon as an ambassador of the Pharoah. “She said to me: ‘Lie down and sleep.’” Thanks to his connections, the Egyptian had found refuge. But it would not remain as such forever. Engomi was fully abandoned by 700 B.C.E.

After the crises of the 12th century B.C.E., most of the Bronze Age civilizations receded into a “Dark Age,” with the exception of Egypt. And out of that period grew the civilizations of the classical period, lending bloom to Famagusta’s next major flourishing—as the city of Salamis.

Sources

Cline, Eric. 1177 B.C.: The Year Civilization Collapsed (Princeton University Press: Princeton, 2014).

Hadjidemetriou, Katia, (trans. by Costas Hadjigeorgiou). A History of Cyprus (Cassoulides Masterprinters: Nicosia, 2018).

This is the thirty-second post in The Cyprus Files, a newsletter series from The Usonian chronicling my Fulbright experiences in Cyprus. Thanks for reading, and if you haven’t subscribed to The Usonian to read about storytelling and design from the edge, please consider joining the list.

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What does it mean to be alone?

The institution of the Christian monastery has been asking that question for a long time. There have always been holy people in this part of the world—the sybil at Delphi, the Vestal Virgins of Rome—and of course other religions, such as Buddhism, have monks, nuns, and monasteries as well. And yet, there is something distinct about the holy personality who lives apart from society.

The origins of Christian monasticism trace their roots to legendary hermits who established the example of an alternative lifestyle. Perhaps the first was Saint Anthony of Egypt, who wandered into the desert and lived out his days in a cave. Stories glorifying his asceticism—as well as suggesting he was both healthy and vigorous despite his poverty—helped promote the idea that one didn’t have to participate in the Roman and Late Antique society in a traditional way, particularly in the 3rd and 4th centuries CE, when that society was in a state of sustained collapse—why work for others when one could work directly for God?

The history of Western monasticism may derive its inspiration from an outside source. In Late Antiquity, the period of Roman collapse and the rise of Christianity, there was a wave of religious disruption in the form of the Manicheans—in modern terms, a countercultural movement.

The Manicheans, Augustine, and the invention of the monastery

In the third century, a religious movement swept across both the Western and Eastern worlds. The prophet Mani, from the kingdom of Parthia (modern-day Iran), lived from 216 to 274 CE. The Manichean cult achieved popularity in not only Mani’s native Iran but the Mediterranean world and China. The movement’s followers believed that Mani was the final prophet after Zoroaster, Buddha, and Jesus. At the center of their theology was belief in an ongoing battle between light and darkness. Modern fantasy stories, like The Lord of the Rings and Star Wars, owe more than a little inspiration from the example of this duality-based theological conflict.

One of the key components of the Manichean beliefs included that a small group of believers would serve as the “Elect”—taking vows to abstain from meat, alcohol, and even from preparing plant-based foods. The “Auditors,” a larger group of believers, would support the elect financially and prepare vegetarian foods for them. Though the Auditors would commit the “sin of food preparation,” the elect would pray for them and absolve them of these sins. This social structure—a community supporting a monastery of individuals who had taken up a vow—proved an influential model for Christian monasticism.

Among the adherents of Manicheanism at one time included St. Augustine of Hippo, one of the most influential figures in the early Catholic Church who helped steer the Church into its more recognizable, medieval form. Though Augustine later characterized his Manichean period as a dalliance, it certainly left its mark on how he viewed the world.

According to historian Peter Brown, early in his spiritual evolution, Augustine tried to set up a commune for his like-minded intellectual friends (many former Manicheans) today known as the “Jerusalem Community.” This was sort of an ancient form of counterculture. Unlike the hippies of the 1960s, these commune members were giving up their wealth and other vices to become more conservative (as opposed to America’s 20th century hippies, who became more liberal). Augustine’s circle was radical—just in the opposite trajectory of what we might expect.

Augustine’s initial failed commune influenced his later design establishment of a monastery in his home of North Africa (modern-day Tunisia). He called his new community a monastery, a word of Greek origin, which meant “to live alone.” Augustine’s monks gave up their property, wealth, and swore off marriage. They gave up (most of) their individual clothing. They were supported by the revenues of the church. All of the preconditions for the medieval monastic system were in place.

As Brown wrote in his magnum opus, Through the Eye of a Needle, about the transition of civic wealth from the pagan-secular Roman State to the Roman church:

“Compared with how we tend to imagine monks and monasteries, based on their later history in the West, Augustine’s monasteries and those who lived in them were almost indistinguishable from the world around them. Yet Augustine expected these men and women to participate in the most carefully thought-through experiment in the Christian West.” (p. 175).

While Augustine didn’t exclusively “invent” the monastery, his previous (and later disavowed) relationship to the Manichean cult is certainly an interesting example of how cultural exchange helped create an institutional model that came to define the Middle Ages in Europe.

The monasteries of Cyprus are mostly in the Eastern Orthodox tradition, a different sect than Augustine’s Catholicism owing to an ancient schism. But on the island today, monasteries continue to play an important role in Greek-Cypriot culture as well as those of Christian minorities on the island such as that of the Maronites and Armenians.

Monasteries in Cyprus and the legend of Kykkos

Cyprus is home to several active monasteries and convents, as well as several defunct monasteries in the north of the island abandoned in the wake of the 1974 conflict.

Two of the most famous are the monastery of Saint Neophytos in Paphos, and Kykkos Monastery in the Troödos Mountains. While the Neophytos monastery shows the example of an organic foundation of a monastery based on a charismatic leader, the Kykkos monastery’s foundation story had its origins in political intrigue of an imperial dimension.

Saint Neophytos was a hermit monk who lived in a cave near Paphos. His followers started living in adjacent caves, and they eventually painted frescoes inside the grottoes. These humble beginnings launched a monastic community that grew to encompass a building adjacent to the cave complex. Thus, the example of Neophytos represented a monastery created organically by a trailblazing monk, whose followers and neighboring villages gradually turned the monastery into an institution with an important spiritual, political, and religious role on the island. Many monasteries in Cyprus and in the former Roman Empire followed this model.

But arguably the most important monastery on Cyprus was created in an act of political (and allegedly spiritual) intrigue. Regardless of its veracity, the legend of the foundation of Kykkos Monastery, located deep within the Troödos Mountain range—with a view of both the island’s Mount Olympus and the sea—is an interesting narrative in itself.

In the 11th century there was a hermit monk in the Troödos named Esaias who lived peaceably in the forest. One day, the Byzantine governor of Cyprus went hunting in the woods and encountered Esaias and asked him for directions. Unbothered by ordinary concerns, Esaias refused to answer.

Angered, the governor cursed out the hermit, but when he returned to Paphos, he fell gravely ill. He prayed for forgiveness, and he was cured. However, God apparently appeared to him and said that to pay back the favor, he’d have to go to the imperial capital of Constantinople and bring back to Cyprus an icon of the Virgin Mary painted by the Apostle Luke.

The governor was skeptical—would the emperor really give up an icon painted by Luke? But Esaias persuaded him that it had to be done. Together they took a ship to Constantinople.

As expected, the emperor didn’t want to give them the icon. He told them he would, but he secretly ordered a copy produced of the icon in question, with the idea that he would keep the original and give them the copy. (In effect, the old “switcheroo”.)

But then the emperor’s daughter fell ill—of allegedly the same illness which had previously befallen the Cypriot governor. After witnessing the Virgin Mary in a dream, the emperor finally relented, and gave the Cypriots the original icon after all, after which his daughter miraculously recovered.

Feeling guilt for his deception, the emperor went on to found the monastery of Kykkos, the icon being its principal possession. Today, the icon is encased in protective wrapping; with some exceptions, it is forbidden to be witnessed by even the monks, lest the bearer be blinded by its power.

Sure. You need not buy into this legend or any other. But Kykkos remains an important site in modern Cyprus, and not just as a religious place. Because it was once the home of the Archbishop Makarios, the first president of the Republic of Cyprus, the area is also a national monument of sorts. Makarios’ grave is located on the top of the mountain, accompanied by a monumental statue of him, the Throni, a pagoda-like monument with mosaic shrines to many saints. (Notably, Kykkos is also the namesake of one of the brands of bottled water popular on the island).

As a result, no cultural visit to Cyprus is complete without a visit to a monastery, and Kykkos, thanks to its remoteness and general aura of mystery, is one of the more spectacular island locations.

The monastic legacy

Monasteries may have started out as “counterculture”—a way to rebel from society by ironically becoming more conservative—but they eventually became part of the institutionalized tapestry of life in Medieval Europe, a legacy that extends to the present. In many ways, it’s a story as old as time—what is initially radical becomes incorporated and subsumed into mainstream society.

One more lesson—it’s probably wise not to insult a monk on a mountaintop. Bad ju-ju. You may even have to go to the White House and ask for a painting.

Sources

Peter Brown, Through the Eye of a Needle: Wealth, the Fall of Rome, and the Making of Christianity in the West 350–550 AD (Princeton University Press: Princeton, 2012).

Colin Thubron, Journey Into Cyprus (London: Vintage, 2012).

Rupert Gunnis, Historic Cyprus: A Guide to its Towns and Villages, Monasteries and Castles (London: Methuen, 1936).

L. & H. A. Mangoian, The Island of Cyprus: An Illustrated Guide and Handbook (Nicosia: Mangoian Bros, 1947).

This is the thirty-first post in The Cyprus Files, a newsletter series from The Usonian chronicling my Fulbright experiences in Cyprus. Thanks for reading, and if you haven’t subscribed to The Usonian to read about storytelling and design from the edge, please consider joining the list.

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In an island filled with antiquities from every era, it is difficult to single out individual sites for their superlative grandeur. That said, the Tombs of the Kings may be one of the most impressive and arresting antique sites in Cyprus. A subterranean tomb complex dating to the Ptolemaic dynasty in Egypt, the Tombs of the Kings are one of those features that seem pulled from a Lara Croft video game, or that silly adventure movie with Tom Holland. Due to the number of burial chambers found, the site forms what might be called a necropolis—a city of the dead.

Alexander the Great conquered most of the Near East in the fourth century B.C.E. Following his (mysterious) death, his Greek-speaking empire was broken up between his generals—these included the Seleucid dynasty (based in Persia, modern-day Iran), the Antigonid dynasty (Anatolia, modern-day Turkey), and the Ptolemaic dynasty (Egypt). The Ptolemies took control of Cyprus and made their capital at Paphos. The Tombs of the Kings became the grand burial place for the regime’s elites. Despite the modern naming convention, though they were tombs, the entombed weren’t kings so much as lords or nobles.

In constructing subterranean tombs with Doric columns usually associated with Greek temples such as the Parthenon, the Ptolemaic lords on Cyprus followed the tradition of their Macedonian culture. Perhaps the most impressive extant example of this style of tomb is the site at Vergina, Greece, where the tomb of Philip II (Alexander the Great’s father), was discovered intact in 1977—the gold treasures miraculously undisturbed, the bright colors of the facades preserved by the soil which encased it.

The Macedonian tomb style usually featured a hill called a tumulus that covered the entry to the underground complex. In Cypite common before the Ptolemaic invasion, but according to Sophocles Hadjisavvas, a former director of the Cypriot Department of Antiquities, the Hellenistic ornamentation of the Tombs of the Kings are a clear export of Ptolemaic hegemony.

On the other end of the island, in Ayia Napa, are more underground tombs alongside the water—the Makronissos site that dates back to the Roman and earlier Macedonian period. Now wedged between beach resorts, the Makronissos tombs indicate a pattern of that time period’s tomb architecture—carved into the rock, by the soft whisper of the sea.

Today, the excavated Tombs of the Kings are the province of tourists and influencers posing suggestively against dour columns, the radical backdrop for exotic yoga and meditation videos.

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For me, these tombs are a venue for a more cerebral reflection. The Ptolemaic peoples placed their tombs in proximity to the sea. Poetically, I wonder if the Macedonians recognized that their homeland of Northern Greece was across the sea, and that’s why they wanted to be interred alongside it.

At the risk of sounding like a “goth kid,” I’ll admit I enjoy visiting cemeteries. In modern American cemeteries, I like finding the names of local people whose names now adorn city streets and high schools. In visiting this ancient seaside cemetery, however, it is possible to consider the vastness of time and our small place within it. Though we don’t know much about who was buried at the Tombs of the Kings, we know these peoples lived their lives in radically different circumstances from our own. Most people back then were not granted the privilege to have ornate tombs. Sites like the Tombs of the Kings can help us appreciate that honoring the memory of loved ones is a universal human sentiment, one that transcends the relentless march of time.

Sources

Sophocles Hadjisavvas, Digging up the Tombs of the Kings: A World Heritage Site, Napaphos Publishers: Nicosia, 2019.

This is the thirtieth post in The Cyprus Files, a newsletter series from The Usonian chronicling my Fulbright experiences in Cyprus. Thanks for reading, and if you haven’t subscribed to The Usonian to read about storytelling and design from the edge, please consider joining the list.

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In the spirit of the month of giving thanks, this month I’d like to express my gratitude for two recent opportunities to share my research and writing abroad—in Turin, Italy, and Toronto, Canada.

In this post, I’ll touch on both experiences and outline the main points of the articles I presented. These projects represent outcomes of my long-term research on the legacy of Constantinos Doxiadis and my Fulbright-sponsored research in Cyprus, respectively.

Ekistics in Nigeria at the AISU Congress in Turin

In September, I traveled to Turin, Italy, to present my paper “‘Close to being right?’ C.A. Doxiadis, The Lagos Handbook, and the Harvard Project on the City’s Narrativization of Postcolonial Planning in Nigeria,” at the 2022 Congress of the Associazone Italiana di Storia Urbana (AISU).

If you know me, you’ve probably heard about my research on the life and times of Constantinos A. Doxiadis (1913-1975), a global architect and planner who notably designed Islamabad, the capital of Pakistan and also worked on other projects in 35 countries across the world. He also was the creator of a design philosophy called ekistics, the science of human settlements.

My paper shed light on one aspect of how Doxiadis’ work in Nigeria and overall ekistics framework has been received by later architects, particularly by the influential Dutch architect and writer, Rem Koolhaas. My lens into that view was through a particularly arresting chapter of The Lagos Handbook, a mysterious and massive unpublished book that only exists in galley editions the Harvard Library’s archives.

Written by the Harvard Project of the City (a program supervised by Koolhaas), The Lagos Handbook takes an encyclopedic look at the eponymous megacity of Nigeria while interrogating how earlier global architects and planners interpreted the city’s situation across time.

Though Doxiadis is ignored by most subsequent planning histories, The Lagos Handbook offers a fascinating critique with a surprisingly lucid interpretation of Doxiadis’ ambition and vision.

It was an honor to present on an amazingly talented international panel regarding postcolonial architectural interventions. My essay about the handbook should be published next year in the conference proceedings. This newsletter will keep you posted as to when that article becomes available.

Conferences in Lombardy have their own special attractions. The opening cocktail party was held at a palace. The final dinner was… held at another, more elaborate palace.

Meanwhile, Turin’s cuisine is incredible, its espresso and prosciutto dazzling; the quiet nature of the city on the Po and at the edge of the Alps a pleasant salve to the hustle and bustle of nearby Milan. All in all, I am very grateful for this opportunity, which was supported by AISU’s young scholar participation grants.

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Discussing Varosha at the MGSA Symposium in Toronto

One of the key components of my research in Cyprus was studying the various perspectives and visions for the future of the ghost city of Varosha, Cyprus, a once-prospering modern neighborhood of the port city of Famagusta that was abandoned by its Greek Cypriot inhabitants during the Turkish invasion of the island in 1974, an intervention preceded by a Greek-sponsored coup in the Cypriot government.

Since then, one-third of Cyprus has been occupied by Turkey, and Varosha was fenced off by the Turkish military and allowed to decay in place as a bargaining chip in the ongoing (and elusive) peace process.

My presentation at the 2022 Modern Greek Studies Association (MGSA) Symposium in Toronto, “City in Amber: Competing visions for the future of Varosha,” juxtaposed such contrasting perspectives held by the Famagusta Ecocity Project, the Greek Cypriot municipality-in-exile, and the Turkish Cypriot Muslim Foundation of EVKAF, all who have opinions on their respective ideal futures for Varosha.

And yet, the future of Varosha is still under the purview of the Turkish military, which in 2020 turned part of the ghost city into a site for dark tourism. I hope to adapt this presentation, a narrative collage and companion piece to my June lecture on the image of Limassol at the CVAR Museum in Nicosia, for publication in other venues soon.

It was wonderful to present my research at the MGSA alongside other scholars working on topics related to Greece and Cyprus, a welcoming community that I’ve been proud to have been a part of for a while now. I am very grateful for the support the MGSA gave me to present at the conference, which made my appearance possible. Though I didn’t get to spend much time in the city, Toronto is an amazing metropolis, with friendly people, broad access to public transportation, and excellent cuisine.

Still on the horizon for The Usonian is a four-part series on the history of Famagusta, one of the most fascinating places in all of Cyprus, a city whose history stretches from the Bronze Age to now, with ruins from every period of human habitation. Keep an eye out for these posts, which will arrive in early 2023.

This is the twenty-ninth post in The Cyprus Files, a newsletter series from The Usonian chronicling my Fulbright experiences in Cyprus. Thanks for reading, and if you haven’t subscribed to The Usonian to read about storytelling and design from the edge, please consider joining the list.

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Language learning is not easy. I’m American, and being brought up on English has its advantages and drawbacks. For one, being natively fluent in English is a convenient passport to the world; the legacy of the British Empire and the US-centric postwar international system giving English speakers a huge privilege in interaction, trade, and tourism. In many parts of the world, the native language is effectively subtitled in English, so much so that many an English-speaking tourist or expatriate can conduct all their affairs exclusively in their own language without ever learning a word of the local tongue.

But the privilege of English-as-dominant-language also puts those of us Americans who grew up only speaking English at a disadvantage for learning other languages. In high school or university, we may get the chance to learn a foreign language from a set list (i.e. Spanish, French, Mandarin), as if those three languages could account for the linguistic complexity of the entire world.

Due to the limited menu on the public school system, the first second language I tried to learn was French. I studied French for years! But in the absence of traveling to a Francophone country during that language-learning process, most of my French practice consisted of reading French texts, which, as you can expect, doesn’t really help you conversationally, and certainly doesn’t account for the variety of vernacular accents.

That pattern shifted when I started studying a third language in university, when suddenly I was given the opportunity to take courses in many languages outside the ambit of the limited public school menu. Of course, what I ended up studying was modern Greek, which, as the lovable patriarch in My Big Fat Greek Wedding would tell you, is the origin of a lot of Western European language etymology. And though modern Greek is a difficult, difficult language, it still has some strong structural similarities to the Romance languages.

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But I started noticing a phenomenon that began to cause me some language-learning problems. My brain kept categorizing my French and Greek vocabulary into a similar box—that is, when I’d try to toggle between these tertiary languages, I’d mix up the words because in my mind they were all classified in the same “second gear” space. For example, when trying to say the phrase “I will take it,” in French, I’d mix up prendre with παίρνω. (“I will take it” vs. “Je le prendrai” vs. “θα το πάρω”). Those two words for “take” sound similar in French and Greek, but this sort of “second gear” confusion would also happen with other words, like “make” (faire, κάνω), or even prepositions of the same meaning, like “at” (à / au, στη / στο).

Anecdotally, some of my friends who have studied more than one language have reported the same feeling of flitting through a rolodex while speaking in a different language, trying to pull the right word from the varied lexical portfolio in their heads. This really manifested for me when I’d try to engage with French-speaking friends in Greek-speaking countries. (If any of you knowledgeable readers know of a specific scientific study confirming or debunking this observation about “second tracking” in languages, or otherwise have also felt this feeling, please feel free to share with me by replying to this newsletter).

But learning languages (and learning more languages outside the ambit of your immediate language family) can really help you understand the often intuitive structures of different languages and therefore make you a better language learner overall. Last year I had the chance to take classes in Turkish, my first foray into the Turkic language family, where sentences are structured subject-object-verb (as opposed to English’s subject-verb-object). Also, in Turkish, many suffixes, prefixes, and internal additions can inflect meaning on the verb. And then, after all that, I’d be surprised by all the French loan words resident in the Turkish mix.

Regardless of the languages you learn on the page, you’re not going to pick up on the accent unless you’re in the context. I remember once transiting through the Madrid airport and, though I had been exposed to Mexican-accented Spanish my whole life, I at first found spoken Spain-accented Spanish nearly unrecognizable. The same process went for me in Cyprus. Whereas my Greek is now relatively effective in the Athenian context, in Cyprus I found the Cypriot accent quite hard to parse. (Some of my mainland Greek friends agreed; meanwhile, Cypriots assert that their dialect is closer to ancient Greek). The other problem being, in the Republic of Cyprus, even if you try to speak Greek, you get English in return. Of course, English dialects around the world can be equally divergent and confusing. For example, I absolutely need the subtitles turned on to process indecipherable British accents when wading through the occasional episode of “Love Island.”

Language learning is about persistence. But in a world where modern life is increasingly globalized—with similar consumer products and systems—linguistic difference is one way in which the world has not been wholly flattened.

In the future, the global lingua franca will undoubtably shift again, depending on the prevailing geopolitical and cultural winds. And by that time the prototypical English-speaking American will no longer be able to skate by internationally with their meager knowledge of high school “¿donde está la biblioteca?”

The time to start learning more languages is now, always, yesterday.

This is the twenty-eighth post in The Cyprus Files, a newsletter series from The Usonian chronicling my Fulbright experiences in Cyprus. Thanks for reading, and if you haven’t subscribed to The Usonian to read about storytelling and design from the edge, please consider joining the list.

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All the most beautiful places in the world, once discovered by the world, tend to lose their magic. Take, for example, the island of Mykonos. Its windmills and narrow alleys amidst sea-sprayed white-and-blue houses are indeed beautiful, but for the past half-century the setting has been privatized and globalized as the home for upscale beach bars, key chain shops, and luxury boutiques. What is left is not a community for its people but a Disneyland shopping center colonizing a former Mediterranean island once known for its unique Greek dialect and way of life.

Just 25 kilometers across the sea from Mykonos is an island on the cusp of similar change: Tinos. With the aforementioned island’s potential tapped out, neighboring Tinos is becoming the target for real estate development and tourist exploitation. Into this milieu, this moment of flux, entered Cypriot artist Kyriaki Costa, a multi-faceted creator who utilizes several different modes of artistic expression in the service of activism regarding cultural landscapes and legacy resources. Even when Costa is addressing the heritage of long-dead ruins, she searches for their connections to the commons at what she believes to be the opportune time.

In 2021 she brought her Head and Hand series to Tinos, dubbing this iteration of the project, Kairos.1 In the world of ancient Greek rhetoric, the word Kairos (καιρός) refers to speaking to the right time, a moment that will slip away if one does not have the will to act. In Costa’s estimation, Tinos, at the bleeding edge of such development, has reached the critical moment suggested by Kairos.

Head and Hand has taken on many forms over the years, but in Tinos the concept was to trace a walking route through a cultural landscape that stretched from the Culture Foundation of Tinos, through the village of Tripotamos (where a pop-up exhibition was held), all the way along the medieval trail to the ancient castle of Exombourgos. The trail was marked by flags fabricated from materials representing the tourism industry—sheets, linens, and towels—to reference the economic driver, and perhaps the cultural doom, of the Cycladic island region.2

The Kairos project’s title emphasizes the opportune time for Tinos. But it would be reductive to say that Kyriaki Costa’s other projects aren’t timely. For her works on her native island of Cyprus, the extended period of time in which the island has been in geopolitical limbo shades all aspects of life on the island, and also her artistic efforts.

“I like ruins,” Costa has written, “I have learned to live among them.”3 In her introduction to her 2017 exhibition at the Nicosia Municipal Arts Center (NiMAC) and associated publication regarding the abandoned Turkish Cypriot village of Foinikas, Costa explained that ruins formed a touchstone in her daily walking routine through Nicosia, the last divided capital of Europe, where the so-called “Green Line” has split the old capital into two since the 1960s. To this day, barbed-wire barricades generate a situation reminiscent of postwar Berlin.

“On my way home, I walk through remains of older buildings,” Costa wrote. “It is the material abandonment, the footprint of a material presence, its preservation or oblivion that has always constituted central points of my personal thought and artistic creation.”4

Cyprus and its capital of Nicosia are no stranger to ruins. The island features the traces of human inhabitation from practically every era of human history (and prehistory)—the Neolithic, the classical, the medieval, the Renaissance, and finally the most vexing ruins of all—the villages and urban areas abandoned on both sides of the island after the 1974 Turkish invasion.

In her Foinikas project, Costa analyzed the forms and outlines of the ruins of the eponymous Turkish Cypriot village near Paphos. Today, the ruins sit on the edge of the Asprokremmos Reservoir.5

One of the possible etymologies of Foinikas is that of phoenix. Ironically, Foinikas the village has yet to rise from its ashes and fulfill the promise of its evocative name. Costa wrote, “The village of Foinikas lives its long and irreversible death for many years now.” She then asked the question, “Really, where do all the villages go when they die?”6

Many villages have died on Cyprus, over many periods of history. Thus Cyprus’s de facto division, with all its complexities, demands multiple lines of artistic inquiry. As art critic Ledaki Evangelia wrote in another retrospective of Costa’s work: “[Costa] chooses varying tactics; sometimes dedicating herself to the monitoring of architectural typologies, fieldwork and the creation of archives, and at others matching natural materials, vocal or musical performances and embroidery, guided in her creation by her personal hybrid aesthetics.”7

Such artistic adaptability can be seen in Costa’s 2008 embroidery “Ο τόπος μου” (“My Land”), which depicts a dragon devouring two divergent threads of stitching. In one thread, helicopters and paratroopers form the prelude to a series of floating guns firing at each other, in between the images of Cypress trees and the scales of justice. The second thread features two wheel-like forms evoking the iconic bastions of the Venetian walls of Nicosia. In another section of the second thread, trees face each other in a mirror image along what appears to be a road. This duality, this depiction of the Cyprus conflict as a dragon that has swallowed both sides of the divided island into its gaping maw, supports a nuanced, albeit unforgiving, expression of Cyprus’s predicament.8

To return to the subject of ruins—it’s not just the wrecks of buildings, probably the most obvious symbols of the island’s unresolved pain, that demand consideration in Costa’s unique combination of genres. Costa’s work also investigates matters of what can be termed “infrastructural heritage,” the components of the commons, as in the case of old Mykonos, that have been cast aside in the search for modernity, the hunt for development and profit. Within an historic built environment, there are continuities that can be renewed to generate a stronger connection between past and present as well as with the land. In Nicosia, it still might be the right time for such a re-evaluation.

These concerns formed the philosophical spine of Kyriaki Costa’s 2015 project Το Νερο Της: Κρήνες και πηγές της Λευκωσίας [“Its Water: Taps and Sources of Nicosia”], which mapped and catalogued the historical water sources in the capital.9 As one turns through the pages of the book, it is astonishing how many fountains in Nicosia have been photographed, revealing a wondrous infrastructural heritage hiding in plain sight. As Costa explained in her volume on that subject:

Identifying the inactive water sources of modern cities such as drinking water fountains, taps, springs, which once constituted places of meeting and interaction and the effort to reactivate them, brings forward issues such as peoples’ relationship with water, the right to the use of water, the idea of water as a common good, its presence in public space, the multisensory pleasure it can offer, and the activation of values that arise from all the above.10

Today, Cyprus is a place without much water. Though water is potable in the Republic of Cyprus (but not always in the “north”), most people drink from bottled water on either side; in 2008, during the worst drought in the region in 900 years, the reservoirs ran dry, and water was imported from Greece to the Republic of Cyprus. Climate change promises more drought, higher temperatures, and the need for a more intimate relationship between Cypriots and their water supplies in their cities.11

Water, indeed, is a potent metaphor and point of reference for Nicosia. As Ledaki Evangelia wrote in contextualizing Costa’s work: “The political can be found precisely at the unexpected encounter with the conditions of the real; the condition causing the desertification of Nicosia’s transition zone and the realization that the divided city draws its water from common groundwater sources.”12

Historically speaking, a famous political cartoon of the longtime Greek Cypriot mayor of Nicosia Lellos Demetriades and his Turkish Cypriot counterpart Mustafa Akinci flushing their toilets in tandem proved a potent metaphor when the two leaders realized that, even in division, the city retained a common sewerage system. That led to the Nicosia Master Plan, an initiative in the 1970s and 1980s to bring some aspects of the planning framework for the old city of Nicosia into unison.13

Though this framework limps on in one shape or another in the 21st century, the Master Plan has not found the impact it had sought. Nicosia remains divided, its water resources strained. Thus, Costa’s work tends to become a jumping-off point for conversation and activism. In her project regarding the fountains, she did just that, calling for the revitalization of the city’s fountains and wells, with the timely suggestion that some of them be renovated for the purposes of the stray cats.14 If not for a human user, perhaps the infrastructure could be adapted for the animal that most needs that kind of support in Nicosia?

In a publication accompanying her 2019 iteration of Head and Hand: Interactive Flow Solutions, Costa printed her correspondence with various groups and authorities concerning repairing the destroyed interior wall of Phytorio—the Visual Arts and Theorists Association building—designed by noted Nicosia architect Neoptolemos Michaelides. Within that correspondence was a credo regarding Costa’s intentions. “My project concerns the repair and therefore the redefinitions of destroyed parts of the city which lie unrepaired and forgotten in the wider framework of urban culture,” Costa wrote then. “A culture of ‘couldn’t-give-a-damn’ attitudes and quick fixes, that encourages the constant change of the urban setting.”15

Since the Cyprus problem accreted into its current fossilized form, the island has become a cash grab. Much of its heritage and landscape have long been looted; in the case of the fenced-off Famagusta neighborhood of Varosha, which has recently become a “dark tourism” destination under the Turkish authorities—even Cyprus’s ruins have, in a sense, become ruined.

If events continue as they have, it’s feasible that parts of Cyprus will continue to be developed and exploited and attain the growth expected of Tinos—transforming into the shallow Disney shell that Mykonos has long been cursed to become.

Even if Costa’s pushback is coming at the right time, the question is whether the wider Cypriot community will listen. Perhaps Costa put the unsettled state of affairs most beautifully in her introduction to the 2016 publication associated with her exhibition at Stedelijk Museum Bureau in Amsterdam: Diaspora: I must have swallowed the dust. “The ground upon which the prospects of our lives are based is certainly unstable,” Costa wrote. “Our ‘lust for eternity’ and the word of the ‘past’ are the means by which we understand our present. So we continue to sweep our yards, waiting for the seeds that fall from the Sky to take root and grow.”16

The search for the commons is never finished. The time is always now.

This is the twenty-seventh post in The Cyprus Files, a newsletter series from The Usonian chronicling my Fulbright experiences in Cyprus. Thanks for reading, and if you haven’t subscribed to The Usonian to read about storytelling and design from the edge, please consider joining the list.

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It was a miracle it happened at all. A year on a fascinating and amazing island in the Eastern Mediterranean, amidst another wave of the interminable global pandemic and a major war on the European continent.

As of this writing, it’s now been a week since I returned from my year abroad in Cyprus. Now that I’ve had some to reflect, this post will seek to tie up some loose ends and put them all into perspective. And while I still have a few posts teed up for The Cyprus Files over the next few months, this post will serve as the spiritual and thematic finale to an extraordinary year abroad.

The long road to Cyprus

My journey to Cyprus actually started ten years ago. When I started at Princeton, I applied to take a geology course that involved research in the Troödos, and I applied for my first passport, with my theoretical destination—Cyprus.

I wasn’t accepted into the class, but over the course of my studies, one of my modern Greek instructors was Cypriot, and he took the above photo of me during an event at the Princeton University Art Museum. I was pointing out the island of Aphrodite.

Little did I know that several years later, I’d get to know Cyprus better than most of the other places in which I’ve had the opportunity to live.

A year to remember

What happened this year? I saw the Pope. I learned to drive on the left side of the road. I co-organized two writing workshops in the UN Buffer Zone. I gave two lectures, one at a museum. I published a little book. I felt a couple of earthquakes. I went skiing. I went to the beach a lot. I saw far more heritage places of worship than I could ever count.

In the service of my research project on the recent history of Cypriot cities, I interviewed about sixty people and examined archival materials at the Press Information Office, the Centre for Visual Arts Research, and the Cyprus American Archaeological Research Institute.

At times it was hard. In the winter, it got cold, and wet, and the Omicron surge made things difficult. The Mediterranean has a different pace, and it can take a while to set up meetings, to make connections, to hit your stride and get going. And once you do get going, it’s time to leave.

The Kafkaesque finale

I wanted to pick up one of the threads of last year and describe the sequel of my previous post written in October 2021, “Kafka on the Shore.” One of the most long-running procedural dramas during the run-up to my grant period and throughout my time in Cyprus was in receiving my research visa.

After all the background checks, apostillations, chest x-rays, and other medical tests, I still hadn’t received my Cypriot ID card that would function as my “green card.” Though I had a “yellow slip” that functioned as a temporary residence permit, it was far from the bureaucratic stability I desired.

Though I hadn’t received any notification from the Migration office, in May I decided enough was enough, and went there anyway. I walked through the door and approached a desk, labeled VISA CARDS. I showed the woman behind the desk my passport. She told me to follow her. In another room, she opened a drawer—in which could be found thousands of unclaimed identification cards.

I could not help but barely hold in my laughter. So much effort—for a process as absurd as this?

I signed a form and received my ID. Then I left—finally armed with the identity card that would only help me out for another three weeks.

A burst of gratitude

I am grateful to all the people who helped me get here, and all the people who helped me get set up once I arrived. I am grateful for all their support and the welcoming quality of the Cypriot community which made my year so special. Here are some of the people I am grateful for:

• My recommenders from my various Fulbright applications—through each individual effort, for each application, all helped me get to where I am today.

• I am thankful for my fellow Fulbrighters, and the Fulbrighters who came before me who helped me find the way.

• The welcoming community at The Cyprus Institute, and of course my sponsor Dr. Nikolas Bakirtzis.

• The wonderful community who helped me find a house, a car, and all the tricky utility questions.

• All my Greek teachers over the years—especially the Institute for Balkan Studies’ International Summer School for Greek Language, History and Culture, with whom I studied in August 2021 thanks to a generous scholarship from the Greek Ministry of Culture and Sports.

• My Turkish teacher and class community at the Home for Cooperation.

• I am grateful for the support of the Fulbright Program, the US Embassy in Cyprus, and to have been able to work with Phaneromenis70, the Centre for Visual Arts Research, and the Home for Cooperation.

• A journalist in a new land needs some “fixers,” and I am glad that I found great points of contact in Nicosia, Limassol, Larnaca, and Famagusta.

The shape of things to come

In 1943, T. S. Eliot wrote an-oft quoted poem called “Little Gidding,” of which a stanza goes like this:

We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.

Though this poem may be more than a little pretentious, and it may be the end of the Cyprus-living phase of my blog project The Cyprus Files, I’m not done writing about Cyprus—this is not the end of my “exploring.” My book project about Cypriot cities in the 21st century is ongoing, and some shorter articles and essays related to this research are in the works.

I still hope to write a few more Cyprus-related posts for the blog, such as a four-part series on the history of the complicated city of Famagusta, but these will come out on a more relaxed and spaced-out timeline.

That goes without saying that I hope to continue to have a research interest in Cyprus going forward, that the exchange will not end here.

I also have a new series of posts planned, describing aspects of my extracurricular travel to important architectural monuments outside of Cyprus, so stay tuned.

In the meantime, The Usonian will be taking a few weeks off and return sometime in August, in the process scaling back to its original twice-a-month schedule, and resuming its original content scope regarding storytelling and design.

The farewell

Now I have returned to my home country, a nation in political, social, and economic tumult. It may be strange to say that a de facto divided nation mired in an unresolved conflict feels safer and more stable than the current status of the United States, but that’s the truth.

In the conclusion to Patricia Storace’s 1996 memoir, Dinner with Persephone, about a year she spent in Greece, the poet described her departure from Athens:

I made myself look out the window as the plane took off, leaping over the cliffs and the Aegean Sea like a champion horse clearing a jump, as we moved away from the adamantine glitter of the sun on the white buildings and the Saronic Gulf to skies of a more diaphanous blue, the plane ascending delicately, securely, as if on a current of breath, a breath calibrated with precisely enough force to blow a candle out.

Cyprus is not Greece, but the magic of the place has its own particular allure. And so as my American Airlines flight, operated by British Airways, lifted off from Larnaca Airport, I contemplated all the ground I’d covered, all the people I’d met, all the stories I’d heard, from so many different communities on the island—Greek Cypriot, Turkish Cypriot, and so many others. And I smiled.

Even a small island contains multitudes.

This is the twenty-sixth edition and (if not the final, a post of finality) in The Cyprus Files, a limited-run newsletter series from The Usonian chronicling my Fulbright experiences in Cyprus. You can read all the posts in The Cyprus Files here. Thanks for reading, and if you haven’t subscribed to The Usonian to read about storytelling and design from the edge, please consider joining the list.

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I had long heard tales of the mouflon. In Cyprus the symbol of the mountain sheep is everywhere. You can find statues of it on main streets, statues at monasteries high in the mountains. An important bookstore in Nicosia uses it as its namesake. The EU penny’s Cyprus variety has the animal on its coin. When Cyprus had an airline (defunct for a while, but recently resurrected), the sheep’s head was its logo. In metaphorical and symbolic ways, the mouflon is everywhere—but at the same time, the real-life mountain sheep remains elusive.

A threatened species with an ancient heritage, the mouflon is one of those charismatic species that takes on a life of its own—even when its own life was almost extinguished.

Sheep of the ancients

The mouflon’s scientific name is Ovus gmelini, and its modern name may derive from the ancient Greek, “ophion.”

Thought to be the ancestor to all domesticated sheep species, the mouflon is native to the Near East and Central Asia. It’s possible the sheep arrived to Cyprus in the Neolithic period, brought to the island by settlers from Asia. But Cyprus was also home to pygmy hippos and dwarf elephants until these mini-megafauna went extinct at about 11,000 B.C.E. Perhaps before that time, the mouflon had already made their debut on the island.

Regardless, the mouflon was an important animal in prehistoric times for Cypriots, and during the period of Roman control of the island (starting at 22 B.C.E.), the sheep’s existence was celebrated with floor mosaics in Paphos.

And though the mouflon had great longevity on the island, hunting had nearly extinguished the mouflon by the end of the Ottoman period in Cyprus, a time in which hunting was unrestricted. When the Ottomans handed over the island to British administration in 1878, there were only 15 mouflon left on the island. British conservation management helped the mouflon bounce back, especially in the mountains of the Paphos region.

Mouflon have become a symbol of modern Cyprus since the Republic of Cyprus’s independence in 1960. Today, there are about 3,000 wild mouflon on the island, but the species remains a threatened species in Cyprus and is endangered on other islands, such as the Italian island of Sardinia, where the sheep has been cloned as part of conservation attempts.

The apparition

My quest for mouflon, over my time in Cyprus, felt fraught. On hikes, jogs, and other excursions, I had encountered snakes, lizards, birds, fish, and donkeys, but no mouflons.

That is, until one day in April, when, as my car rounded the highway near Aphrodite’s rock, I thought I saw them.

A herd of goats, stumbling across a cliff above the freeway. Could it be? Had I found the elusive mountain goat? They did possess horns. But no sooner had I witnessed these creatures, did I drive around a bend, and they were out of sight, instilling doubt in my mind.

For a moment, I thought I had finally spotted a herd of mouflon. But as my excitement faded into rationality, I realized that what I had seen were in all likelihood just a group of regular goats, a shepherd’s errant flock, as I had often seen in other rural situations on Cyprus. The dream of seeing a mouflon remained just that. My quest for the elusive mouflon—it would never end.

This is the twenty-fifth post in The Cyprus Files, a limited-run newsletter series from The Usonian chronicling my Fulbright experiences in Cyprus. You can read all the posts in The Cyprus Files here. Thanks for reading, and don’t forget to subscribe so you don’t miss a dispatch from the island of Aphrodite.

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One of the most striking aspects of modern Cyprus is how the city of Limassol has expanded from a humble village of 150 people in the Ottoman period, to a sprawling modern metropolis of 240,000 where about 70 high-rise buildings have sprung up in the last five years.

As my time in Cyprus draws to a close, I am honored to have had the opportunity to present my research—on Limassol and otherwise—in two venues in Nicosia: The Cyprus Institute and the Centre for Visual Arts Research (CVAR).

“On storytelling across genres” at The Cyprus Institute

On the 9th of June, I spoke to an audience at the Graduate Student Club of The Cyprus Institute, my host institution over the course of the Fulbright grant. The Cyprus Institute is a research institution and graduate school that focuses on high-tech archaeology and scientific research. Work from their very specialized researchers are often featured in Mediterranean-staged documentaries, such as the 2020 National Geographic documentary, Buried Secrets of Keros.

My presentation focused on a description of my Fulbright research in Cyprus and my background as a writer as well as a discussion of the mission of the US Fulbright program.

Even though I’m neither archaeologist nor scientist, I’m grateful for the opportunity to have spoken with such researchers at the Institute.

“The City In-Between” at CVAR

On the 16th of June, I presented a section of my Fulbright research on Cypriot cities at the Centre for Visual Arts and Research (CVAR), operated by the Severis Foundation. The lecture was a work-in-progress titled, “The City In-Between: Competing visions for the image of Limassol,” and drew from my urban studies, historical, and journalistic research methods to provide a narrative collage of competing visions for what the transitional city of Limassol might become in the future.

Read the abstract of my talk below. You can learn more about the event at the CVAR website.

One of the possible origins for the name of the Cypriot city now known as Limassol is ανάμεσος, referring to the place as a city geographically “in-between” the more important urban centres of antiquity, Amathus and Kourion.

Ironically, the etymology of being “in-between” suits the status of Limassol today—a city caught in-between its past as a sleepy industrial port and a rapidly expanding, burgeoning modern metropolis whose impressive scale seems to emulate Dubai.

Amidst that transition, Limassol is a city whose form remains unsettled, whose idioms for expressing its status as a unique place are contested, torn somewhere between the scattered columns of the sanctuary of Amathus and the massive cruise ships anchored offshore. Out of this confusion have emerged several visions for what Limassol was, is, and will become.

This presentation, a work-in-progress deriving from my research sponsored by the US Fulbright Program, is an attempt to track the competing visions for Limassol. Using an urban studies approach that combines history, journalism, photography, and creative nonfiction, I will present a narrative collage of a city in-between, an approach I hope to apply to bicommunal issues in Nicosia and Famagusta.

It was a great honor to speak in front of quite a large crowd, and I am very grateful for the support of Dr. Christina Roditou and Dr. Rita Severis of CVAR, as well as my supervisor Dr. Nikolas Bakirtzis of The Cyprus Institute for the opportunity to speak at this wonderful museum and research center. The event was made possible with the support of the Active Citizens Fund.

I have much gratitude for the generous audience, made up of many people who I’ve met along the way this past year in Cyprus, whose constructive feedback will guide my research going forward.

This is the twenty-third post in The Cyprus Files, a limited-run newsletter series from The Usonian chronicling my Fulbright experiences in Cyprus. You can read all the posts in The Cyprus Files here. Thanks for reading, and don’t forget to subscribe so you don’t miss a (free) dispatch from the island of Aphrodite!

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There are legends about this place. Karpas, or Karpassia—the long panhandle of the island of Cyprus—is also its most remote locale. Time slows down. You can forget when and where you are.

To get to Karpas, you have to drive. It’s not that far in terms of kilometers, but thanks to the poor quality of the roads—which helps ensure the region’s conservation—it can take as many as three hours to arrive at the end of the peninsula from the capital of Nicosia.

The entry to the furthest section is a town called Rizokarpaso (in Greek), or Dipkarpaz (in Turkish—literally, Tip-Karpas). Despite the legacy of the 1974 Turkish invasion and the ensuing quasi-permanent de facto division of the island, the bicommunal village is still home to members of both Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot communities. Along the village’s main street, cafés dedicated to each respective community stand across from each other.

While in much of Cyprus, thanks to the island’s topography (and the Green Line that cuts across the island) you can pretend you’re on a much bigger landmass, in Karpas that illusion falters. At a certain point you’re on a road hemmed in by mountains, but as the hills fade away, you can see water on either side.

The area forms a sort of an odd microclimate. It’s just this narrow strip of land, a miniature valley, and you feel that you are on the edge of… something. You know there’s land to the East, but it also feels like there could also be nothing on the other side. This is the end, at least when it comes to Cyprus.

Apostolos Andreas Monastery

Many of the legends about Karpas derive from Apostolos Andreas Monastery, an extremely important holy site for the Greek Orthodox Church. In 1191 CE, it was at the monastery that the Byzantine ruler Isaac Komnenos surrendered to Richard the Lionheart, chased all the way to the tip of the island.

There are also countless stories about the supernatural happenings at Saint Andrew’s monastery. Here are three, excerpted from Rupert Gunnis’ classic travel guide, Historic Cyprus, later published by Turkish Cypriot bookstore Rüstem Kitabevi.

“Indeed, the writer himself knows of a case of a child who had always been completely blind, and whose sight was restored as soon as he had crossed the threshold of the church. But St. Andrew is a jealous saint. Once a Turk was bringing his blind child, and had promised a great present to Saint Andrew if he would but cure his son. As soon as the child came within sight of the church he was able to see. The Turk at once turned back, but hardly had they passed the monastic boundary when the child was blind, and no amount of prayers or gifts could make St. Andrew relent.” —Rupert Gunnis, Historic Cyprus, p. 169

Saint Andrew is apparently quite protective of his monastery. According to another legend:

“Not so long ago thieves from a neighboring village broke into the church and opened the safe. As soon as they took the money out, the doors of the church disappeared, and they were hemmed in by blank walls. Trembling, they returned the money, and at once the doors appeared and the thieves fled, never to rob or steal again.” —Rupert Gunnis, Historic Cyprus, p. 169.

But Saint Andrew, it seems, would also protect his believers:

“When the writer was there in 1935 there was a boy who was going to work for two years without fee or remuneration of any sort at all. He had been motoring, and while overtaking another car on a narrow road with a steep cliff below had gone too near the edge, and had felt the car turning over. In the actual moment of danger he prayed to the saint, and though the car overturned and fell to the bottom of the cliff the boy was unhurt.” —Rupert Gunnis, Historic Cyprus, pp. 169-170.

More recently, too. A friend of mine told me she visited Apostolos Andreas Monastery with a tour group. On their approach, the weather was stormy, the sky glowering overhead, and rain drumming the bus’s glass. But as soon as their buses pulled into the monastery’s parking lot, the rain stopped, the clouds cleared and light beamed down on them.

After the events of the 1974 Turkish invasion and the monastery’s abandonment, the monastery fell into severe disrepair. From 2014 to 2016, restoration work was undertaken by the Technical Committee on Cultural Heritage to repair the monastery—and given the monastery’s alleged spiritual resonance, it certainly sounds like good karma to me.

Golden Beach

At Golden Beach, located near the edge of the island, another friend of mine described the setting as evocative of the beach in the 1997 film, Contact. That film, based on the Carl Sagan book of the same name, features a sequence when Jodie Foster has a supernatural experience while being strapped into a machine that may or may not allow her to travel through an intergalactic wormhole. In that experience, she sits on a beach and speaks to a being who adopts the guise of her late father.

When I visited the beach, there were only about fifteen people scattered across the sands. And then, out of nowhere, two riders on horseback appeared. One of them rode bareback, without saddle or boots, and he took his horse to a full gallop. Then he steered the horse into the sea. Meanwhile, a drone filming the riders hovered overhead. It was like a dream.

But horses aren’t the only animals to be found in the Karpas. The region is most famous for its wild donkeys. After the 1974 invasion, many Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots abandoned their homesteads all over the island. And the donkeys were suddenly free.

Signs in Karpas warn drivers about the presence of these “feral donkeys.” In this region, the donkeys will stand outside your car window and stick their head into your car, so you’d better have carrots at the ready!

Whether you choose to believe in the legends or not, Karpas/Karpassia is a magical place, its wonder heightened by its remoteness, its difficulty in visiting.

As I make my preparations to leave the island, I will cherish my memories of visiting what may be Cyprus’s most sublime locale.

This is the twenty-second post in The Cyprus Files, a limited-run newsletter series from The Usonian chronicling my Fulbright experiences in Cyprus. You can read all the posts in The Cyprus Files here. Thanks for reading, and don’t forget to subscribe so you don’t miss a (free) dispatch from the island of Aphrodite!

Subscribe now