Abandoned Cyprus: Derelict Houses, Larnaca

A few streets across from a burnt-out souvenir shop, we stumbled across this row of abandoned houses. The facades of the houses looked as though they had once been quite grand, with shutters in the windows and crumbling ornate plasterwork clinging onto the walls around the windows.

Though the island was hit hard by Coronavirus, and more recently the loss of the Russian tourist market, these houses look like they were abandoned long before these events impacted the local economy.

The rear of the block was in a state of semi-demolition, with upper floor bathroom tiles now hovering mid-air. After the Turkish invasion of the island in 1974, there was a large shift in population, as Turkish Cypriots escaped to the north of the island, and Greek Cypriots moving the other way. It’s possible that these houses belonged to Turkish Cypriots who left for the north, now forgotten and left to decay. It is this population shift that has left entire villages abandoned on the island, with 50,000 Turkish Cypriots and 160,000 Greek Cypriots displaced.

Last Updated on 3 January 2023 by Michael