On the 21st July 1974, one day after the Turkish invasion of Cyprus,  I and my fellow homesteads found ourselves emptied of our human hosts.

They scattered across the island and have never returned.

Today, from their loftier perches higher up the valley, the remains of the other abandoned villages look down on us and cry ‘brazen!’

Positioned at the base of the Diarizos valley, blessed with the arresting spectacle  of the river winding up to its source in the Troodos mass, should we not be proud of being part of the largest, most exposed and most brazen of the valley’s abandoned villages?…

…Or should we be ashamed that I and my neighbours lie bare, undressed at the mouth of the valley, compromised by our recent history and current reality?

Our story is part of a larger, portentous narrative that speaks of the island's recent past and the transitions of its people. Once bustling with human life, we, the structures that trace out the village of Souskiou/Susuz, now lie in an haunting domain where feral animals roam freely among our decaying remnants. Left untended, humanity’s structures crumble. Animals, both living and dead, have reclaimed the space as their own.

But it was not always like this…

Awakened by archaeologists from the big sleep, an ancient necropolis, recoiling from the attack of sunlight to which they had not been exposed for around 5000 years, proclaimed  an illustrious heritage.  As testament to a small community that persisted through the rise and fall of empires, our status among the villages of the valley grew.

The liberated chalcolithic cemetery spoke of inhabitants in those ancient times that were neither Greek or Turkish. How could that be, we wondered? I, and what was left of my neighbours, had only housed either Greek or Turk; our cami and eglesia said they were not aware of any other structures of alien faith on our site. So who were our original human founders?

From somewhere called the Levant, the necropolis offered. In our forsaken condition, condemned to a slow death, the revelation of our venerable, international progenitors made us, today’s remains, even more melancholic. After five millennia , ancient roots and a quiet persistence against the forces of change gave way to decline and abandonment in a blink of an eye.

To think, early settlers in our village played their part in shaping the island’s future as a hub for trade in the eastern Mediterranean. The necropolis spoke of a workshop engaging in copper metallurgy no less , working copper from the surrounding hills into beads, rings, sickles and even axes. But it was the description of the figurines made from the soft volcanic rock found on the Troodos massif and produced in large quantities that caught our attention.  We persuade ourselves that our ancient figurines were the inspiration for those found on today’s coin  - in a small way it helps us come to terms with our current state. A figurine factory and a metallurgical workshop from the copper age thousands of years ago that launched our settlement – now that’s a heritage to help ease the pain of today’s naked and, supposedly, brazen ruins.

Was it the whisper after the roar, we ask ourselves, when, with the help of the Diarizos river, those whom our predecessors housed and kept warm went on to become dependent on subsistence farming and tending livestock to sustain themselves?  

A jumbled medley of mud and brick, clay and straw, stone and plaster structures rose and fell. But not before they passed on stories of life as a Byzantine middle age fief, and later a part of a royal estate of Lusignan kings before becoming a property of the Venetian state no less. This was  followed by centuries as a less aristocratic mixed community of Greek and Turkish Cypriots.  

Until, that is, our bi-communal harmony turned to tensions in 1950s and1960s that separated Christian from Muslim neighbour. First, our homes and coffee shops lost the sounds of Greek welcome  and church bells heralding Byzantine chants, leaving some of my neighbours empty of life and vulnerable to  the elements and predators.  

Soon the sound of the call to prayer and the smell of lokum was also lost to our village.  Even the  Diarizos itself seems to have abandoned us, sucked dry by ever thirsty farms and citrus groves and mantras higher up the valley, a thirst  which the Arsinou dam struggles to quench.

Were our Turkish inhabitants prescient when they named our collection of abodes Susuz - village without water. Or were they mocking our British installed water fountains with their promise of potable water, who scream out their date of birth as eerie as a ghost’s wail.

Now we stand unsteady by overgrown tracks, our insides exposed or used as containers for detritus. Or worse,  inhabited by feral squatters and their victims.

Around us goats and sheep graze cautiously, ears twitching at the faintest sound. Semi-wild pigs roam the streets or lie in the shade of fig trees.

Predators and prey play out their ancient dance here.  Animal carcasses, tell the grim tale -  where life thrives, there is also death.

Brazen, indeed, how animals have assumed our carcasses for their own use, a stark reminder of our village’s transformation from sanctuary to untamed wilderness. Animals, both living and dead, have redefined the space as their own, transforming it into a raw and unfiltered ecosystem.

Among our remains, like a phoenix rising among ashes, stand two of my cousins, evading the attentions of time and beast. Over centuries we have witnessed first-hand the religious fervour of our human landlords. This seems to survive even their desertion. Witness the white mosque standing complete and proud in the centre of a sea of ruins, and the humble but wholesome Christian church dedicated to Ayia Marina, the Great Martyr and patron of kidney sufferers and barren women.

Both structures receive the love of absentee devotees as the rest of the village crumbles with age… 

 … two sentinels guarding fading ghosts, for that is all we are.

Souskiou/ Susuz Population Census

Source: PRIO - Cyprus