Sevgul Uludag
caramel_cy@yahoo.com
Tel: 00 357 99 966518
00 90 542 853 8436
For the Bayram holidays, we fly to Chania, Crete for a wonderful five days with my husband – this is our favourite place in the Mediterranean, an island that knows what it is doing, a city full of colour and warmth, an international destination with good food, lovely scenery and a multicultural historical heritage, well preserved.
We sit in the Venetian Harbour of Chania, the harbour that had been built by the same Italian architect as in Kyrenia…
We try to enjoy walks in the harbour, among the narrow labyrinth streets, lined with pots of flowers, shops, cafes, tavernas… Walking in Chania is like walking in the past and in the future at the same time… Cretans have embraced their multiculturalism in such a refreshing way, without any prejudice that you can see this everywhere: In restaurants, in the hotel we stay we have the photographs of the Yiali Mosque from old times – the mosque stands in the Venetian harbour without the minaret – I am surprised to see its photographs with the minaret in the hotel we stay, in our room, in the tavernas or cafes we go to – we find out that the minaret had fallen in an earthquake and was destroyed but they have preserved the mosque and it is used for exhibitions of handicrafts and art…
Cretans are not ashamed of the Italian heritage they have: Almost all the names of the hotels in and around the Venetian harbour in Chania sound Italian: Bel Mondo, Villa Venezia, Porto del Colombo, Hotel Contessa, Casa Leone, Casa Latina… They do not deny their Ottoman heritage, on the contrary, they put old photos of the Yiali Mosque everywhere, keeping Turkish words like `Tamam` as the name of a restaurant…
Cretans are one of the most relaxed communities in the whole of the Mediterranean and you can see why so many tourists enjoy being here… We sit with my husband at a rock café in the Venetian harbour, Avalon Rock Café and look at the tourists passing by: So many from the Scandinavian countries, Danish, Norwegian, Swedish, Finnish… I call them the `Vikings` and point out to my husband, `Here goes another Viking!` The waiter at a nearby café who came to work in Chania from Athens with only 40 Euros in his pocket tells us that some British and American tourists are also coming and staying in Chania… Lots from Holland, some from Japan, some from Italy, some from Cyprus and Turkey… Everyone has met here to enjoy the mild weather, the walk in the past and in the future – this is a dream place where cultures meet and enjoy Cretan food, music, dancing or simply sitting by the sea and enjoying the fish caught by the fishermen that day…
We come every year to Chania, sometimes twice a year, once in May and once in October to simply enjoy the harbour, to read, to sleep, to be away from the `Cyprus problem`, to relax and to see how tourism can be done… Cretans are not trying to `prove` that they are `pure Greeks` or `pure` anything… They are simply sharing all their multicultural heritage, well preserved and proud of it…
We have exactly the same harbour in Kyrenia but we cannot enjoy it the way we can here, in Chania: First of all the demographics, as well as the culture that goes with it has changed in Kyrenia. In the Kyrenia harbour, we wouldn't be able to sit so relaxed in a restaurant or in a café just being ourselves – we would hear or see things that would upset us… We wouldn't be able to enjoy a walk like this – the unspoken, unworded kind of `violence` in the air emanating from tension among people of different backgrounds would stop us from doing that…
In Chania, I realize that perhaps Cypriots are the only ones who do not feel proud of their multicultural heritage and are constantly trying to `prove` to everyone about how `Greek` or how `Turk` they are… In Chania, I remember the words of Joseph Solomo Andreou, a Maronite Cypriot whom I had interviewed and started publishing his interview during the Bayram in YENIDUZEN newspaper… Born in Agia Marina, raised in Kormakitis, sent to Lebanon to study to become a priest, he was the cousin of the famous priest of Agia Marina, Andreas Frangou who had saved the Turkish Cypriots from being killed by some Greek Cypriots led by someone from Kokkinotrimitia… Andreas Frangou was his father's brother, his uncle. Joseph Solomo Andreou in the end, did not choose to become a priest but went to London to work and then to Libya and finally back in Cyprus… I had wanted to interview him about his uncle but in the end I ended up with a wonderful interview about
the Catholic heritage of Cyprus that both Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots sort of `deny` or try to make it completely `invisible`… According to Joseph Solomo Andreou, when Ottomans came to `conquer` Cyprus, there had been 180 thousand Catholics living on the island, including Maronites, Venetians and others… Surely they did not `evaporate` overnight… In a detailed interview he would tell me details of where they had been settled, the rift between the Orthodox and Catholics throughout the centuries, how an ever-changing geography forced Catholics to `adapt` to `new conditions`…
Well, the Cretans have learned to cash on it: They do not `hide` their multicultural heritage while we let the summer houses of Caterina Cornaro to rot and decay… Chania uses it to attract more and more tourists to share what they have while we argue whether the name of Piyale Pasha Avenue should be changed to something else or not… While in the northern part of the island, names of all villages and streets have been changed and `Turkified` and huge flags have been painted on mountains, huge flagpoles erected everywhere to `prove` how `Turk` this part has `become`, Cretans are offering us the calm confidence of their multicultural heritage, making us go there not only once but twice a year and yearning for more days, more holidays, more human friendly environments…
Bravo to Cretans! Cypriots are the only ones in the Mediterranean who have a lot to learn from them!...
Photo: View from the Venetian Harbour of Chania...
(*) Article published in the POLITIS newspaper on the 26th of October, 2014 Sunday.
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