Cyprus: The East Coast And Its Unexpected Horrors
Rather than take the bigger roads via Lefkosa we opt for what should be a more scenic route along the northern shores, then turn south to head over the mountains to Iskele on the east facing coast. The stretch along the north coast is remarkable for one giant, unmissable feature: construction works. It’s been well documented that President Erdogan is keen for North Cyprus to become a tourist hotspot, but the sheer scale of development is unimaginable.
Soon, at this rate, the flatlands between the mountains and the sea will be full, there will be nothing to see but concrete, steel and high rise, such is the breathtaking expanse of construction works. Giant hotels, vast resorts and entire towns of holiday apartment blocks are either skeletal, poised for occupation or newly opened. The spaces between the blocks are hidden behind hoarding bearing the name of the contractor who is about to rip up the remaining trees and build another hulking mass. And it goes on for mile after mile after mile. It’s a mind blowing level of change.
Turning inland is a godsend; construction sites vanish, replaced by hairpins, steep climbs and pine forests. Birds flit between trees, buzzards circle above, probably looking down on the land which is no longer theirs. We pull over and pause for a while, studying the views but wondering just what we’re doing to our planet in places like this.
Eventually we arrive in Iskele, a little unspoilt village with a cluster of “home cooking” style cafes sending delicious smells into the dusty streets. We feel encouraged. Too early to check in, we head along the coast to Bogaz, where small fishing boats bob in the pretty harbour and enticing restaurants on jetties display fresh fish ready to grill. We are now even more encouraged, especially after all that we’ve seen today.
And then. And then we follow the Sat Nav back through the two villages and towards our next accommodation, and as we turn off the main road, our jaws drop and our hearts sink simultaneously. Our eyes are greeted with the most appalling sight: a seemingly endless complex of recently built apartment blocks and probably an even greater number of blocks at various stages of construction. This fake city goes on, literally, for miles, the only interruption to the never ending forest of apartment blocks is the occasional monstrosity thirty-odd storeys high. Without seeing first hand, it’s just not possible to imagine the sheer size of this unstoppable nightmare creation which is racing to cover every inch of many, many square miles.
As we turn a dusty corner into another road devoid of people, past tower cranes, cement mixers and hoardings decorated with pictures of “paradise”, the sun disappears behind a dark cloud and if at that moment a wolf had howled at the moon or a witch had cackled from behind a wall, it would have been appropriate. This is one dreadful, depressing place. No wonder we could only find “apartments in developments” on line.
The completed part of Fake City is already a gigantic, claustrophobic mass, an inaccessibly huge sprawl – God only knows how big it will be when the whole ugly thing is finished.
As a teenager living in Bedford I saw the new city of Milton Keynes taking shape; later I watched on as London’s Canary Wharf reached for the sky. Those developments have absolutely nothing on the scale of this place – this giant, fake city of holiday apartments, communal pools and skyscrapers on barren land seems to stretch further than the eye can see. Then it dawns on us that there must be, potentially, hundreds of thousands of apartments here – so an awful lot of people must actually like this place. Or at least, there is an expectation that they will.
The one saving grace is that our own light and spacious apartment is comfortable, as long as we don’t spend too long “admiring” the view. From the front, we face the estate’s communal pool and its crappy looking bar, whilst from the back our view is of the temporary cement works and mountainous heaps of shale and aggregate forming the supply source for the gigantic building sites. Beyond, across a vast area, the land has been cleared in readiness – it looks like it’s miles until the first tree.
Between Fake City and the sea there’s a fast dual carriageway with a six foot high concrete wall in the middle, so the only route to the beach is via subways which despite their newness are already filled with graffiti. Muscling their way on to the sand are utterly gigantic restaurants with literally hundreds of covers, each place with a car park the size of a California cornfield. So many people must come here in season, who the hell are they?
Russians. That’s the answer. Signs around the pools and labels in shops have Russian translations, we can hear what sounds like Russian being spoken by the few neighbours we hear. We’re half expecting someone to step out of the shadows and say, in a menacing Russian accent….”aaah, Mister Philip, we’ve been expecting you…..”
Cyprus has long courted the Russian vacation market as well as Russian investment. Since the invasion of Ukraine, and the closure of virtually all European airports to flights from Russia, North Cyprus, presumably backed by Erdogan, has seized the opportunity, and the people of Russia have responded. Ercan/Lefkosa, the “illegal” airport through which we entered Cyprus, now has direct flights to and from Russian cities every day, for the first time. This is not just Russian holidays we’re looking at here, it’s Russian investment. This is, allegedly, one place where the money of the sanctioned oligarchs is now ending up. Allegedly. Had we known any of this prior to arrival, we wouldn’t be here at all.
What two giant ironies that creates. First, the EU, so rightly vocal in its criticism of the Ukraine war and so quick to implement sanctions, is turning a blind eye to massive Russian investment pouring into its own territory. Fat lot of use the sanctions are then. Second, we learnt earlier that Britain was first handed control of Cyprus by the Ottoman Empire in return for assurances that we would help to resist any invasion by the Russians. Well, they got here in the end, didn’t they.
As we rise on our first morning and look out across the concrete jungle which is Fake City – or shall we call it Cyprusgrad – a rainbow forms and attaches one end of its colourful arc to the heap of aggregate next to the cement works. There’s a pot of gold here for somebody, that’s for sure. Furthermore, as we look at the mass of white walls, gaze up at the monstrous skyscrapers, and wonder what this land used to look like before it sold its soul, we know we’re going to need both our sense of humour and our resourceful nature to make anything of the next few days. Thank goodness we have the car.
We could say that this place resembles a concrete new town, a fake city, the biggest housing estate you can imagine, or even a record size holiday camp. More fittingly perhaps, it also resembles a glorified version of the giant Soviet blocks one sees in Eastern Europe. That could explain a lot. Whatever, Cyprusgrad is quite possibly the most soulless and unattractive place we’ve ever stayed in, yet it’s clearly going to appeal to many. One man’s meat is another man’s poison.
With both the early rain and its attendant rainbow subsided, we walk down Concrete Street to the nearest coffee house, which looks like a wannabe Starbucks except that the coffee is, unexpectedly, quite drinkable. Trying not to get too tortured by our surroundings, we discuss where to go today to escape Cyprusgrad.
We head out of the jungle, hit the coast and turn left, through Bogaz and out towards the guitar neck at the island’s north east tip, an area described on line as “wild” and “untouched”. Oh, yes please….
53 Comments
Lynette d'Arty-Cross
Wow! That’s incredible, and so is the political pretzelling the EU is doing.
Lynette d'Arty-Cross
To continue my comment which I sent off too soon: I agree with you that Fake City is very ugly. What’s going to happen to all those buildings when the Russians stop coming? It’s inevitable that they will, probably because of political and/or economic reasons. Great post; thank you.
Phil & Michaela
It’s so very dispiriting in so many ways
Andrew Petcher
What a shocker, hope you weren’t staying too many nights.
Phil & Michaela
Shocker is an understatement! After all that we saw and heard in Asia earlier this year, it’s getting harder to shake the feeling that the world is sitting on its hands whilst China and Russia take control. Utterly disheartening to find that the sanctions we were told would work are simply futile as the oligarchs just simply invest elsewhere – and the fact that it’s still (technically) in Europe is even more appalling. And that’s without mentioning what is happening here environmentally.
Andrew Petcher
Is it confined to the north? I guess so, I didn’t see anything like that in the south.
Phil & Michaela
I don’t think they’d get away with it on the Greek side, whilst it’s behind the Green Line the whole thing is hidden from Europe and the EU. Somebody told us that there are similar size developments underway on mainland Turkey
Tanu Oberoi
Wow, what a vivid portrayal of the rapid changes in North Cyprus. 😮 It’s heartbreaking to see such beautiful places undergo such drastic transformations. 🏗️🌳 Yet, amidst the construction, you still managed to capture the pockets of charm and beauty. 🌊🛥️ Thanks for shedding light on this side of Cyprus; it’s a timely reminder to cherish and preserve our planet’s untouched gems. 🌍❤️ Safe travels! ✈️🌄🗺️
Phil & Michaela
Thank you for your kind comments. Yes this part of our trip has been a real learning curve and not all of it good, certainly this level of development does nothing for the spirit. Except of course you really have to see these things for yourself to have an opinion, I guess.
restlessjo
How utterly criminal, the whole thing. There’s always someone to make money out of other’s misfortune.
Phil & Michaela
It’s very, very disheartening. All that we were lead to believe about the sanctions causing pain – it’s just rubbish. And it’s all here, still inside Europe, still inside the EU.
Alison
An ironic post Phil, with the rainbow and pot of cement at the end. It makes you wonder where the people who lived there before are now. The British who were meant to be “keeping Russians out” have in their own way opened up the floodgates. I did read an article about how it’s very Russian now. You’ll need another trip to get over this one!. Anyway I’m sure you will find beauty somewhere.
Phil & Michaela
The world is sitting by while China and Russia take over. And getting carried away with climate change when there are at least four World leaders quite capable of destroying humanity long before global warming does. I feel very dispirited.
Suzanne@PictureRetirement
Phil, as much as I hate, hate to see this, maybe they’ll will be so preoccupied with their new tin city they will get the hell out of Miami. Ironic, but not surprizing, how our respective governments espouse one thing and do another.
Phil & Michaela
I just am so appalled by the fact that the sanctions turn out to be utterly pointless. Putin and Erdogan must be belly laughing at the West every day.
Toonsarah
Wow, I wasn’t expecting this! I had heard some parts of Cyprus were being over-developed, on the lines of what you saw on the north coast, but this is on another scale! Whatever way you look at it, it feels very wrong. Environmentally, to be destroying so much of the island and (it seems) doing nothing even to partly mitigate the damage. And ethically, to be welcoming Russian investment when the rest of the continent is, rightly, shunning it.
But I have higher hopes of your car explorations of the ‘guitar neck’, as I quite recently read another blogger’s post about that area and it sounded quite appealing.
Phil & Michaela
It’s so utterly dispiriting on so many levels, Sarah. To be seeing that this is where Russian investment has turned – still inside Europe, still inside the EU, is frankly unbelievable. China and Russia are taking over the world while the West pings bows and arrows. I am massively more distressed by this than by climate change – these guys are capable of destroying the planet regardless of what action the West takes. And of destroying humanity too. All we learnt about China whilst in Asia, and now this. Ugh.
Mike and Kellye Hefner
I felt your disappointment through your words. My mind was made up that this is a place I wouldn’t not want to visit long before I found out it was all Russian investment and development. It certainly is proof that someone has “paved paradise and put up a parking lot”. At one time it was probably gorgeous. Do you know if the same type of development is happening in the southern part of the island? I hope your trip got better as you went northeast, and I look forward to that post. Be safe.
Phil & Michaela
The Turkish President Erdogan is very much a Putin ally, so I doubt there’s such blatant Russian investment on the Greek side. It’s proof beyond doubt that the West’s sanctions were utterly futile. Let alone the environmental aspect. Awful, all of it.
Annie Berger
Phil,
Thanks for making me and likely other readers aware of how Russian oligarchs managed to still find a place to spend their ill-gotten gains despite the sanctions. As someone else commented, you’ve got to wonder if Russians will still want to visit Fake City when they have other options in the future.
Phil & Michaela
Honestly, you wouldn’t believe what it’s like here, Annie. Never mind climate change, I think I’ve seen where the end of the world is coming from
Mike and Kellye Hefner
Yes, it’s awful, and quite scary.
Heyjude
As if the state of the world is not bad enough. Sigh…
Phil & Michaela
Very, very dispiriting
Laura
The word ‘dispiriting’ definitely seems fitting in this case. I became more and more depressed with each photo and description of this amount of overdevelopment. It boggles my mind that they anticipate such a vast influx of vacationers and are building to such excess, environment be damned. Truly shocking.
Phil & Michaela
Absolutely, so awful on so many levels
Travels Through My Lens
What a heartbreaking development; it really is sickening.
Phil & Michaela
So so wrong on so many levels
ourcrossings
Yes, it looks like Russians bank on north Cyprus to buy into a new life in Europe. But the Mediterranean island has long served as a banking home for the grey fortunes of Russian investors, from arms dealers to gambling firms and pornographic websites. In the early 1990s, post-Soviet figures like Slobodan Milošević travelled to the island with cash-filled suitcases. Today, the Republic of Cyprus has banned flights from Russia, eliminating an easy option for many Russians who flew to the island’s south and drove north. But they found a new route – Russian nationals now can fly to Ercan airport in occupied northern Nicosia. I’ve heard that alternative routes have also emerged through Turkey, where a flight between a Black Sea coastal town and Ercan was inaugurated in the last month. It’s shocking!
Phil & Michaela
Yes we’ve read similar things, it’s all shocking – but for all this investment to be pouring in here when the West has supposedly brought sanctions is just soul destroying. This is still the EU at the end of the day, not some far off land way out of the jurisdiction of the West.
Lookoom
It’s warm in Cyprus when it’s cold in Russia, not unlike the way Canadians who can afford go to Florida to spend the winter – the Snowbirds – it seems a seasonal migration is on the way. But is this forest of buildings even attractive? It’s not Florida yet!
Phil & Michaela
Not as bad as Florida??! Wow, if there’s similar but worse places on Earth than Iskele then I definitely don’t want to go there!
wetanddustyroads
Yes, it’s a shame when a beautiful unspoilt part of a country is turned into tourist accommodation. Definitely not a place we would want to relax. It turns out that money is power … unfortunately.
Monkey's Tale
Oh no! And one of the worst kind of tourists. As if Fetiye and other parts weren’t enough. Thanks for the warning. Maggie
Phil & Michaela
Don’t go there!!
grandmisadventures
That must have been a real disappointment to say the least. Of all the beautiful places you’ve seen on this trip, this is hands down the worst of them with the whole under construction, cement and concrete feel.
Phil & Michaela
I think it’s fair to say it wasn’t our favourite place
WanderingCanadians
Ugh, it seems like construction is happening everywhere. That complex of apartment blocks looks awful. The Russians can have this place all to themselves.
Phil & Michaela
Good call!
Christie
Wow.. but why I’m not too surprised? With enough money and power, they can do pretty much what they want. So sad..
Phil & Michaela
Not our favourite place!
Cherryl
This is a very interesting insight, thanks for sharing your honest observations and thoughts. Very different to the little I’ve seen online of the holiday scene in Cyprus. The fakecity is quite a monster lol, not what I’d expect to see, looks a bit out of place, and its a shame they’re going down that road rather than holding onto the natural beauty of the island…..seems to be the trend in a lot of places these days.
Hopefully there are still some nicer parts to visit though! 🔆
Phil & Michaela
Thank you Cherryl. Yes as you probably saw from some other of our posts, we definitely found some better spots. Overall though Northern Cyprus isn’t somewhere we’d be in a hurry to return to.
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rkrontheroad
For the most part, you have been lucky, or done your research well, to find out of the way charming villages. But not this one. Can’t win them all. ☹
Phil & Michaela
Not a place we’re in a hurry to go back to!
Forestwood
What is happening there is deeply disturbing. No sentient being would tolerate it. What more is there to say?
Phil & Michaela
Not a lot. It’s not a place we’d be in a hurry to return to.
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leightontravels
Phil, Michaela… it has been too long. After a sadly essential break from the blogosphere I am back and slightly concerned that if I’m going to properly catch up with everyone I might have to take a week off work! This was something of a depressing read one that feels quite topical. We recently found ourselves in the middle of such a street when we did a month in Croatia. In a way we were lucky because we had just a touch of distance from the worst of it. From the people living right next to the various construction sights… well, I don’t know how they put up with this relentless shit day in day out. You have to wonder, bearing in mind the scale of what’s going on, how long it will take before Cyprusgrad is liveable. I mean wherever you buy or rent, short term or long term, you’re going to be dealing with the unfolding nightmare around you 24/7 for a very, very long time.
Phil & Michaela
Absolutely not our scene, but the fact that it’s where the riches if Russian oligarchs is going to- INSIDE the EU despite all of the so called sanctions – is utterly galling. They must be laughing at us.
KCVillas
Some areas here. Are unfortunately becoming a concrete jungle again. No doubt they will stop selling and leave everything half built as they have done before.
Phil & Michaela
We saw a lot of evidence of that!