Sevgul Uludag
caramel_cy@yahoo.com
Τel: 99 966518
Born around 1872, Costis Kiriakou Tantis, known as `Tanti` by both Turkish Cypriots and Greek Cypriots, was from Pallouriotissa. He had got married Christallou, also from Pallouriotissa. He had been working as a builder... At some point, he would visit the Holy Land, Jerusalem and there would see a `Hamam` and really like it... When he came back to Cyprus, he would want to build a `Hamam` for himself.
He had vast amounts of land and gardens in the Ayios Kasianos area, an area that had been mixed in those times... He built the famous `Tanti's Hamam` that cost him around 900 pounds, which was a huge amount in those times... He also built small houses around The Hamam, to hire them for the working class... This was housing for poor workers' families. He had also built some bigger houses in 1933 and 1938 in the same area, for himself and for his sons...
He had three sons: Othonas, Theodoros and Herodotus. Othonas would become a famous football player at APOEL and would open the `Mavros` shop selling toys and sports accessories at the Ledra Street. Theodoros would open a shop inside the new Ledra Palace Hotel when it had been built, selling cosmetics, perfumes, cigarettes to the tourists coming to stay there. Herodotus would become a pharmacist and would open a pharmacy at the Ledra Street.
Tanti's Hamam during the days would serve women and during the evening, men... It was built in the Ottoman style and in those times, the tradition was to go to the Hamam for various occasions: If a woman was going to get married, they would invite the guests to the Hamam and would bring food and would wash, sing, eat and get the new bride ready for the wedding. If a woman gave birth to a baby, for the woman to recover there would be a Hamam party to celebrate the birth of the newborn and to cheer up the new mother. There was a Turkish Cypriot woman working for the Tanti family in the hamam called Pembe. Both Pembe and her daughter Fatma were the `tellaks`- the masseurs of the hamam for the women. Pembe was also dealing with gold and bringing gold from Arabic countries to sell to Cypriot women. Pembe's nickname was `Simsar` (`Broker`) since she also found young Turkish Cypriot girls to be married to Arabs from Syria, Jordan, Palestine and the whole area... She would go round the houses in villages and find particularly fair girls since the Arabs did not prefer dark girls, offer to the family the marriage of the girl for someone from the Arab countries and when the Arab would come, would have the Arab meet the family and strike the deal for the marriage. In this way, hundreds of Turkish Cypriot girls were shipped to unknown destinies in the Middle East, without knowing what to expect... Those were times of extreme poverty and these arranged marriages were a result of extreme poverty: There would be one less mouth to feed... So apart from working in the Tanti's Hamam, Pembe had also this job...
Until 1956 everything went fine with the Tanti's Hamam and his family... In 1956 the plan to split the Turkish Cypriots and Greek Cypriots started taking shape: There would be riots in the streets, particularly in mixed areas like Ayios Lucas, Omerge and Ayios Kasianos in order to push the mixed population apart. In Ayios Lucas, crowds would attempt to burn the church and the houses of Greek Cypriots in order to push them away from the neighbourhood. In Omerge, a Turkish Cypriot woman, Peyker, the aunt of Tuncer Baghiskan would be killed in order to frighten the Turkish Cypriots and push them away from this neighbourhood so they would leave Omerge and the neighbourhood would become pure Greek Cypriot. The same thing happened in Ayios Kasianos: rioting crowds would come and try to set fire to the depot of Tanti's Hamam, they would attempt to kill a Greek Cypriot woman and his daughter – the mother, Antigona would die but her daughter Lolla would survive from this violent attack... Crowds would come and throw stones at Tanti's house and the police would simply watch and do nothing to protect the ones under attack. They were implementing the famous `Divide and rule`, the `Taksim` policies of the British colonialists... During the night together with a British sergeant, a Greek Cypriot and a Turkish Cypriot policeman would go round in a land rover with two colours of paint: red and blue. They would write `Taksim` on the walls of some Greek Cypriot schools with red and the same policemen would write in blue `Enosis` and `EOKA` on Turkish Cypriot schools. And next morning they would watch the fasariya that these slogans would create among the crowds. So Ayios Kasianos, Ayios Lucas and Omerge were areas where such provocations and uncontrolled riots took part.
In those times, there was an `underground` organization, a paramilitary gang created by some Turkish Cypriots called `The Black Gang` (Kara Chete). The Black Gang would fill some bottles with petrol and would give half a shilling to some kids from these mahalles to go and throw it at the Greek Cypriot houses...
While Pembe was running the women's hamam in these years, The Black Gang got one of the `private` rooms of Tanti's Hamam to hold their secret meetings there. The Black Gang had decided to kill Tanti's sons Theodoros and Othonas – Herodotus was abroad studying to become a pharmacist, so that's why he was not on `the hit list`. A kind hearted Turkish Cypriot, having learnt that they had decided to kill Tanti's sons, would go to Tanti and warn him to take his family and leave. The whole of Tanti's family would leave Ayios Kasianos in 1957 in a hurry, to save the lives of his sons.
But more would come: Violence wasn't one sided, it never is... Violence is a circle that has no end... In 1958, the Hodja of the Kirklar Tekkesi, Yusuf Mehmet Hilmi while going to his Tekke on his donkey would be kidnapped at Timbou and would be killed by some Greek Cypriots, probably by some EOKA members. There were rumors that his body would be burned in a gamini so his family would never be able to recover his remains, even until now... So, in `retaliation` of the murder of this innocent man `The Black Gang` would decide to kill Tanti.
They would lay a trap for him: They would send news to him that there was a customer who wanted to buy his house in the same area as the Tanti's Hamam and ask him to come and show the house to the customer. This imaginary customer would pay Tanti 300 pounds if they agree, they would tell him. According to the investigation of my friend Tuncer Baghiskan, an archaeologist and a researcher, this message must have been conveyed to Tanti through a Turkish Cypriot friend of his, whom he must have trusted a lot...
So on the 29th of July 1958, Tanti would set out to cross to Ayios Kasianos. By now, he was 86 years old with a failing eye sight due to cataract. He had a cane to help him walk. Tanti would stop at the `Mavros` shop of his son to drink coffee. When he got up to leave, some fishing hooks hanging there would catch his clothes and the girl working in the Mavros shop would say to Tanti:
`Uncle, don't go where you're going... This is a sign that you must postpone your visit... The fish hook got your clothes, it means you shouldn't go!`
But Tanti would not listen to her and set out to go... He had not told his sons that he was going to Tanti's mahalle to show his house to a Turkish Cypriot customer because he knew that his sons would prevent him from going there...
So he would go to his rendezvous with death... `The Black Gang` would be waiting for him inside his house and would kill him in his kitchen... He would struggle with them, trying to hit them with his cane but he was only an 86 year old man, fragile with old age...
Together with Tuncer Baghiskan, my archaeologist friend who had done research about Tanti's Hamam and what had happened to Tanti, we would look for the relatives of Tanti to find out details about the Hamam and about Tanti. I would call my friend Michalis Yangou Savva whom I knew had lived in Tanti's mahalle in those small houses of Tanti and he would get me in touch with the granddaughters of Tanti.
We would go with Tuncer to meet Androula Michalidou and Elena Makrides at the Home for Cooperation on the Green Line and talk about Tanti, try to put pieces of the puzzle together so we would get the whole picture. We would tell them what we knew and they would tell us what they knew so the whole story would come out crystal clear about what had actually happened to Tanti...
Two innocent men: The Hodja of Kirklar Tekke and the owner of Tanti's Hamam, their blood would be spilt as part of the `separation` of the two communities... The most horrible prospect for the enemies of this island in the last 50 years have been in case Turkish Cypriots and Greek Cypriots move together, think together, act together... The last 50 years have been orchestrated in order to make sure that Turkish Cypriots and Greek Cypriots are SEPARATED... We can say that the best laid plans for the past 50 years have actually been successful and they have managed, step by step to separate our two main communities of the island and to plant fear and mistrust in the hearts of our people. The dividing line shows clearly their success and the killings of Tanti and the Hodja of Kirklar or the aunt of Tuncer, Peyker from Omerge were the first steps towards that plan.
We can understand all of this, we can analyse but we do not need to accept that we have to be separated... As Dionisis Dionisiou once wrote, we are the strategic partners on this island and the sooner we realize this, the more hope for a common future will exist for both our communities...
15.8.2012
Photos: Costis Kyriacou Tanti and the Tanti's Hamam as it is in 2012...
(*) Article published in the POLITIS newspaper on the 9th of September 2012, Sunday.
No comments:
Post a Comment