Nicosia: Inside the world's last divided capital

Decades after the Berlin Wall fell, Cyprus's capital remains cleaved in two and separated by watchtowers, barbed wire and a UN buffer zone.

Moments after passing Nicosia's weathered Venetian walls, I followed a series of chain-link fences topped with barbed wire into a no-man's land. Here, at the checkpoint, I was suddenly surrounded by watchtowers and crumbling buildings in the heart of the United Nations buffer zone – a geopolitical scar cutting directly through Cyprus's capital.

A guard inside a pop-up tent eyed our passports before waving us through to the other side. Even though I was in the same city on the same Mediterranean island, I had just left the Republic of Cyprus and the European Union. Now, I was standing in self-declared state of the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC), in the middle of the world's last divided capital.

In 1974, Turkish forces invaded northern Cyprus in response to a military coup backed by the junta ruling Greece, leading to the displacement of 150,000 Greek Cypriots and 50,000 Turkish Cypriots across the island. Ever since, Cyprus, and its capital of Nicosia, has been cleaved in two, with one side ruled by the island's Greek Cypriot majority, and the other run by its Turkish minority.

Today, visiting this divided Mediterranean city offers travellers a rare glimpse at a place where residents have been separated from their neighbours for more than 50 years.

For the past seven years, I've lived in arguably the world's most famous formerly divided city, Berlin. The scars of the Berlin Wall are a short walk from my home in the former East, and I regularly move across both sides. After learning how the city's decades of division have shaped the place I now call home, I was curious to see the last capital where such a border still remains.

Before the war, Cyprus's only international airport was in the heart of Nicosia, but for the last 52 years, its rusting remains have sat abandoned in the middle of the UN buffer zone (known as the Green Line). So I flew into Paphos, a coastal city in south-west Cyprus, and took a two-hour bus ride to Nicosia, where I signed up for the Walk Talk Cyprus tour led by local Greek Cypriot Eleni Ellinas.

"I started this journey because I felt that Cyprus, and Nicosia in particular, is often oversimplified or misunderstood by outsiders," she said. "People read about the conflict in history books or news headlines, but they rarely get to feel the living, breathing soul of the city or understand what daily life actually looks like along a crossing."

Ellinas was just four years old when years of ethnic and nationalist tensions between Greek and Turkish Cypriots led Turkish forces to invade northern Cyprus. The fighting forced her family out of their home in Famagusta (modern-day Gazimağusa, in the TRNC) and into a refugee camp on the island's south-eastern coast. 

"Life in the camp was harsh," she recalled. "My mother, sister, and I were ill. When my father came to check on us and saw the dire conditions we were living in, he knew he had to save his family. He managed to drive us to the RAF base in Akrotiri, and we were fortunate to be evacuated by British forces to the UK." 

Their hearts never left Cyprus, so in 1980, the family returned to the island and relocated in Nicosia. "This city welcomed us, embraced our broken pieces and slowly became the place where we laid down new roots and made a home."

In 1983, a separate Turkish Cypriot state was established unilaterally. Yet, it wasn't until 2003 that travellers and Cypriots alike – both Greek and Turkish – were allowed to cross the internationally unrecognised border separating each side. Today, the Republic of Turkey is the only nation to officially recognise the TRNC.

Ellinas says she remembers crossing the border for the first time since fleeing like it was yesterday.

"Stepping across was like walking straight into a dream," she said. "As I walked through those neighbourhoods for the first time as an adult, it felt like I was stepping back into the 1970s… It felt completely surreal, overwhelming and deeply emotional."

In 2019, Ellinas launched her tours "to share the soul of the island I love so dearly" and convey that emotion to travellers.

Ellinas' tours start at the Ledra Palace Checkpoint, the first crossing that Turkish Cypriot authorities opened inside the demilitarised UN Green Line in 2003.

The Ledra Palace was once Cyprus's most famous hotel, a luxury property that opened in 1949 and frequently hosted politicians and actors like Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton and Sophia Loren. It also became the site of intense fighting during the 1974 invasion. Bullet holes can still be seen throughout the exterior, walled off today by UN peacekeeping forces with barbed wire. Following the ceasefire, it was used as a headquarters and barracks for UN peacekeepers until 2019.

Today, homes and other buildings caught in the middle of the buffer zone remain abandoned and frozen in time. On the other end of the road near the Ledra Palace, Ellinas pointed out the TRNC border crossing. The word "FOREVER" stands in large, emboldened red letters underneath the name "Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus". Similarly, a giant TRNC flag painted on the hillside north of Nicosia with the message, "How happy is he who says I am a Turk" is visible from the Greek side.

Ellinas expressed disappointment over the nationalistic messaging and expressed hope that the island will one day be reunited.

"While some [Cypriots] remain stuck in the past, there is an overwhelming longing for unity felt by many," she said. "You see this energy bringing new life to areas like the restored streets around Ermou [the city's premier shopping hub up until the war] where art, youth and community are reclaiming space that was once deserted and dead."

To help visitors experience both sides of Nicosia, Ellinas encourages all travellers to cross into the Turkish side following the end of her tour.

"You cannot truly understand a divided capital by looking at it through a single window," she said. "You have to feel both perspectives."

For her, Cyprus is still in many ways one place. The two sides have a shared history, architecture, and in her words, pain. 

"Suffering was experienced by all Cypriots, regardless of background," she said. "When you step across and walk through places like the old Armenian quarter in Arab Ahmet, or stroll down historic Victoria Street, it feels as though time stood frozen in place. Seeing the old homes, breathing in the quiet atmosphere, and connecting the human threads on both sides gives travellers a complete, empathetic picture of what this island truly is."

Passing through the checkpoint in the UN buffer zone and stepping foot into the TRNC felt like entering a different country. Whereas the Green Line along the Greek side was marked by abandoned buildings, the Turkish side appeared much livelier. Pedestrians spilled out onto the narrow streets, the savoury aroma of Turkish kebabs filled the air and a domed mosque from a 16th-Century caravanserai soon appeared before me.

I visited some of the sights that Ellinas had recommended, namely the 16th-Century Büyük Han caravanserai and the Samanbahçe Evler neighbourhood – a one-of-a-kind social housing estate with geometric mud-brick units. The highlight, though, was my stop at the Rüstem Kitabevi, a bookstore founded in 1937 where I sipped coffee and ate carrot cake after admiring towers of hardback tomes spread across two floors.

More like this:

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Ali Rüstem's father started the business out of his grandfather's house in 1937 when Cyprus was under British colonial rule (1878-1960). Born in 1971, Rüstem was too young to remember much of Cyprus before the buffer zone divided it in two. He says that he has good friends from the Greek community, but for people of his generation, it's normal for Nicosia to be segregated between the two communities.

"Of course, things could always be better," he said, adding that he hopes for more "common sense" and "logic" between the Greek and Turkish administrations. In the meantime, like Ellinas, he encourages travellers to also visit the Greek side to experience the different cultures firsthand.

As Ellinas told me: "Nicosia isn't just a divided city of the past. It is a living, breathing, hopeful city where people are reaching across borders to heal, rebuild and belong to one another again."

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