Forgotten Places
Cyprus
Residents left for a weekend in 1974. Their cars are still in the driveways.
The Forgotten Atlas — Field Report
Residents left for a weekend in 1974. Their cars are still in the driveways.
In the early 1970s Varosha was one of the most glamorous resort destinations in the Mediterranean. The beachfront hotels — the Argo, the Grecian, the King George — were full of international tourists. Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton holidayed here. Brigitte Bardot photographed here. The beach was considered one of the finest in the Mediterranean. The city of Famagusta, which Varosha was part of, was the most modern and prosperous city in Cyprus. This was where people wanted to be.
Varosha is a place where time genuinely stopped. Not metaphorically. The calendar on the wall in the abandoned hotel lobby still shows August 1974.
The Forgotten Atlas
On August 14, 1974, Turkish military forces took control of Famagusta. The Greek Cypriot residents of Varosha fled. Within days the Turkish military had fenced off the entire beach resort area with barbed wire and declared it a military zone. For fifty years no one entered except soldiers on patrol. The hotels decayed in place. The beach grass grew through the boardwalks. Cars rusted in the hotel car parks. Shop mannequins wearing 1974 fashions stood in windows as vegetation pressed against the glass.
Parts of Varosha have been partially reopened since 2020, which has created a complicated and strange situation: some of the beach is accessible, some of the streets can be walked, but most of the fenced-off area remains closed. What is accessible is extraordinary and strange in equal measure — the boundary between the accessible and closed zones is an abrupt and surreal line between ordinary life and suspended time. The political situation remains unresolved. Go while the partial opening holds.
Famagusta is in northern Cyprus, accessible via Turkey. Stay in Famagusta old city, which has its own extraordinary Venetian and Ottoman architecture.
The stretch of Varosha beach that has been reopened. The sand is extraordinary. Looking north at the abandoned hotels rising behind the beach is unlike anything else.
The point where accessible Varosha meets the fenced-off zone. The transition from ordinary life to the sealed city happens in a single step.
The Venetian walls, Othello's Tower, the Lala Mustafa Pasha Mosque (formerly the Gothic Cathedral of Saint Nicholas). Outstanding.
A Famagusta institution. Turkish pastries and tea in a building that has barely changed in sixty years.
In the old city of Famagusta. Traditional Cypriot meze. The halloumi and the kleftiko are outstanding.
Fresh fish and meze with a view over the harbour. Simple and reliable.
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