Snapshot: Forbidden Fresco

Inside this abandoned building on the Green Line, graffiti soldiers resemble church frescoes.

STRAY A FEW BLOCKS from Ledra Street—a busy shopping center on the Greek Cypriot side of Nicosia, which exudes a false sense of normalcy—and you run smack into sandbagged ruins, untouched since the summer of 74. At least, theoretically. Most of them are inaccessible. The area is patrolled by United Nations peacekeepers, and guarded on each side by Greek and Turkish Cypriot national guardsmen. I shouldn’t have

been able to step inside this building. But I did.

This room was directly accessible from the street on the Greek Cypriot side of the Green Line. It didn’t occur to me until I was inside to wonder if there might be booby traps or landmines. After all, the United Nations is responsible for securing the Green Line. Surely, I thought, they wouldn’t leave this building exposed to the street if it was dangerous. But the United Nations is also charged with preventing any alterations to the makeshift barriers that Greek and Turkish Cypriots erected between themselves years ago. That means making sure that no walls are raised even one brick higher, no new observation posts are built....

Obviously someone had been inside this building—and others that I spotted—because the walls were lined with colorful graffiti of soldiers and other martial symbols. Most likely these were the work of Greek Cypriot young men who were doing their compulsory military service. In this neighborhood, that meant sitting at guard posts for long hours in the beating sun, battling boredom. Their graffiti reminded me of church frescoes: a mixture of religion, politics and might.
tCr