Apostolos Kouroupakis
Trozena and Gerovasa, along with Fasli, are villages that, truth be told, very few people know. The first two are in the Limassol district, while the other is in the Paphos district. Trozena is a Greek Cypriot village, while Gerovasa and Fasli are Turkish Cypriot ones. Small villages, forgotten villages, abandoned today, until suddenly they turned into investment El Dorados. Now everyone is trying to balance somewhere between development and what people politely call “rural gentrification,” while the State once again watches from the sidelines.
What is happening in Trozena, in the Limassol district, is the clearest example of the Republic of Cyprus failing to control its own territory and enforce its own laws. An entire village, or at least a large part of it, was bought by an investor. Construction began before the required studies were completed and before permits were issued. Most important of all was the Environmental Impact Assessment, since the area falls within and near protected Natura 2000 zones.
But really, what major project in this country has ever been carried out in an organized way? Which major investment ever advanced without us eventually saying that nothing went the way it should have? So many investors have come and gone. Qataris, Hungarians, Israelis, English, French, Portuguese.
The investment planned for abandoned Trozena by the Jewish-born Hungarian investor almost feels like an attempt to gentrify nature itself. It is already changing the identity of the place, even renaming Trozena as “New Trozena,” while we drift along doing nothing. At the same time, we are rightly outraged when Greek place names are changed in the occupied territories. You might say this is not an official renaming, that one individual did it and the state never approved it. With all due respect, that changes very little.
Speaking to my colleague Paris Demetriades, who met the investor in Trozena, the investor said he came to Cyprus because we speak English, whereas if he had gone to Belgium he would have needed to speak Belgian. Reading that statement, I cannot help but feel irritated. Shouldn’t he have known Greek? Why is it “Belgian” in Belgium, but English in Cyprus?
And for the record, opposing this investment, at least in my case, has nothing to do with antisemitism or fear of Jews. It comes from disgust with the mentality that money can buy anything. Forgive the phrase. But the investor is not really the one at fault. He found an unfenced vineyard and appointed himself its guardian. Between a village desperate to live again and the realities people face every day, it does not take much for everything to be sold off quickly and cheaply. The blame falls on the state and its agencies, whose disorder allows anyone with money and ambition to do business however they please.
Of course there is nothing wrong with doing business. But it should happen with respect for the place itself. It should come from genuine care for what is being built and for the type of investment taking shape, especially when millions are being spent. Reviving a region is not simply about housing developments, rental rooms, and streams of visitors coming and going. Projects like these consume land and alter places permanently. Once that happens, nothing brings things back to the way they once were. And frankly, using wood and roof tiles is hardly enough to preserve the character of a village.
In the end, it seems the toast made by British Governor John Harding when he visited Gerovasa and Trozena in October 1956, announcing the construction of the bridge, led nowhere: “I drink to the health of the two Mukhtars and to the prosperity of everyone here.”
