Over To The Dark Side

Tuesday, September 20, 2011
Famagusta, Cyprus
Whilst Loody and Shupiwe were visiting we figured we might as well go and check out Northern Cyprus because, let's face it, when the Green Line was drawn they got a lot of the cool shit. Probably a good thing, if the Greeks got it they'd have promptly concreted over it.
Border crossing are relatively relaxed these days, you'll be needing your passport and if you're driving over you need to buy Turkish insurance on the border, but they'll stamp a separate piece of paper and not your passport so it won't come back to haunt you should things go really tits up politically. Things are still a leeeetle bit tense when it comes to the whole Greece/Turkey thing, y'know, with the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus only being recognised by... erm... Turkey...

So anyway. This disputed territory. Once you're over the border, you notice the difference straight away. It seems somehow, I dunno, sparser or dustier and clearly all the signage is in Turkish an all. One thing you'll notice is that the TRNC's flag will never be flown alone; the Turkish flag is always flown next to it, hammering home the idea that this land belongs to Turkey now.

First stop was Famagusta where we found a little museum, the Canbulat Museum, which looked like it was actually inside the Venetian walls that surround the city so we had a quick look at that. It has portraits of Sultans who ruled during the time of the Ottomans, paintings depicting the battles that relieved the Venetians of Famagusta in 1571 and a replica of a tent which smelt like dead goat. So it's named for a dude who was instrumental in conquering Famagusta; The Venetians had set up this epic wheel type thing covered with knives which would pretty much turn anyone who tried to get into the city into thinly sliced Turk, so this fella rode his horse into the mechanism thus writing off his horse, himself and the slicey wheel effort. One legend says that he merely picked up his head and carried on kicking Venetian arse because he was a double hard bastard. This isn't the actual wording they used.

The Ottomans ruled for fucking ages. I mean, we're talking 300 years or so until they signed the island over to the British, the deal being that the Turks retained sovereign rule.
Haha righto, Turkey, good luck luck with that. You'd think nations would realise by now that the British can't be trusted with land. When the first world war kicked off in 1914, we were like, screw you, Turkey. Cyprus is ours now. Turkey grudgingly accepted this fact in 1923. No mention of any of the in the museum though is there, they're ridiculously proud of the arse kicking they gave the Venetians and probably aren't too happy about the fact that the British whipped the island out from under their noses with the cunning use of signed documents.

We climbed to the top of the wall and had a quick look around before heading off to find the fence that protects the area known as Maraş from trespassers. The forbidden zone. Known in Greek as Varosia, it used to be where the tourists flocked to soak up the Cypriot sun. The devastation is pretty epic, everything on the other side of the fence is totally derelict, populated only by cats who were no doubt pouring over international maps and planning world domination whilst they waited to evolve opposable thumbs. It looks post-apocalyptic over there, land has been reclaimed by plants and weeds and buildings stand completely abandoned apart from the odd feline. Apparently there are shops within the buffer zone that were vacated so suddenly, they still contain stock from 1974. We're talking groceries, televisions, even a car show room. Plates and cups were left on tables as the Greek Cypriot citizens of the bustling tourist town fled. Clearly we couldn't get into these areas on account of an unwillingness to get shot at so I've scraped together a few bits and pieces off the internet and out of a magazine for you to peruse.

See, I don't care what anyone else says about me, I'm awesome to you guys. Next stop, Ancient Salamis. Insert processed sausage jokes here.

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