By Alexia Saoulli
NINETEEN mountain villages in the Nicosia, Limassol and Paphos districts were snowed in yesterday. Children were kept home from school, with driving conditions deemed very dangerous and motorists cautioned to use chains or four-wheel drive vehicles around Troodos. All roads leading to the square were closed to all vehicles, police said. By lunchtime there was one metre of snow on Mount Olympus and 85 centimetres in Troodos Square.
In the Nicosia district, Spilia and Kannavia villages were cut off; in Limassol it was the villages of Foini, Palaiomylos, Ayios Demetris, Treis Elies, Kaminaria, Pachna and Lemithou; and in the Paphos district Salamiou, Mesana, Arminou, Kidasi, Kedares, Ayios Ioannis, Pretorio, Ayios Nicolaos, Archimandrita and Kouklia villages were snowed in.
Kakopetria village, just five kilometres from Spilia, was also coated in a thick blanket of snow. Most shops remained closed and only one or two residents could be seen clutching umbrellas as they hurried along the empty streets to get indoors. “Why stay open an entire day waiting for one shopper,” said 65-year-old Andreas Gerasimos. “It’s better to stay indoors until the weather clears.”
A 91-year-old woman greeted passers-by from her door, unable to venture out further for fear of slipping on the icy roads. From her roof, a huge slab of snow crashed to the ground, barely missing her daughter below.
“It’s like this every year,” said Anastasia Chrysanthou. “You can’t go anywhere or do anything. It’s too cold outside so I can’t go to the fields, and indoors my hands ache from the cold so I can’t get any chores done.” She gets through the winter by keeping on the gas heaters and wood-burning stoves. Unable to read and not interested in television, Chrysanthou heads for bed at around 9pm, after being forced to spend yet another winter day cooped up at home. “It’ll only get worse in days to come,” she warned. “We’ve not seen anything yet.”
Newsagent owner, Pantelis Kyriacou, 39, said the government had supplied families with bread and milk the night before because they had thought Kakopetria would be snowed in. Everyone had central heating in Kakopetria so winters were bearable, he said. “But if there’s a power cut you have to get to bed to warm up. It could last 12 hours.”
Yesterday he had walked to work. “My car was snowed in, so I walked here, although the main village road is clear. The local primary school and gymnasium are closed, but that’s because kids from surrounding villages can’t get to school. You can hardly open a school for just 15 students from this village,” said Kyriacou.
Restaurants along the road towards Spilia from Kakopetria also remained closed.
Snow weighed down the pine trees and the silence was only broken by the sound of the car chains breaking through the ice.
One resident told the Cyprus Mail a digger had broken down and could not clear the Kakopetria-Karvana-Spilia road. The road was covered in thick, freshly fallen, powder snow, painting a fairytale picture, as an abandoned white car lay parked by the mountainside, almost hidden from view.
Spilia itself was a ghost village. Shutters were closed, doors shut and not a person stirred. Most homes were unreachable because of the heavy snow blocking their entrances, and one resident could be seen shovelling snow from his garage so he could move his car. The village church was dressed in white, as piles of snow-covered logs, waiting to be used for firewood, lay strewn outside, too wet to use.
Seventy-four-year-old Eftychia Ploutarchou clutched to the railing as she gingerly ventured down her snow covered stairs with a grin on her face. The sprightly grandmother said she used electric blankets and hot water bottles to keep warm at night. She also used about four tonnes of wood in a winter this cold. Each ton was £110, said Ploutarchou. “It’s getting on my nerves, but I have to keep cheerful, because I can’t exactly break down and cry. It’s simply freezing and today I can’t get to my sister’s house. I think I’m going to get a walking stick and make my way there slowly,” she said, pointing up the mountain.
The village shop and supermarket were both closed. Two drenched cats struggled to jump over a pile of snow without getting wet, and failed. Once onto the road they raced off helplessly looking for some warm, dry shelter.
The only place humming with activity was the local coffee shop. Six or seven men sat around joking and laughing, and one pair played cards. A couple of men wore Wellington boots and explained they had had to wade through the thick snow to reach the coffee shop for their daily stint of pilotta (a card game).
“Very few people come out in this weather,” said owner, Ioannis Tsoutis. “Business has really dropped. They stay at home and drink zivania to keep warm.”
But Pambos Pepes said it didn’t bother any of the residents too much. “We’re used to being closed in and it’s only for three or four days. Besides if it doesn’t snow it will affect our crops in the summer,” he said, pointing to a number of walnut trees. Most villagers usually spent their time in the fields, not the coffee shop, 69-year-old Andreas Theodotou hastened to point out.
But the major problem for most people in Spilia residents was that they did not have central heating. Pepes said: “I keep applying for electricity and am told the power lines are too weak so my application is rejected. I’m going to apply again this year because sometimes my kitchen is four degrees, which I’ve been told is even too cold for a fridge to work.”
While the men played cards, the wives stayed at home cooking and cleaning, said Menelaos Andreades, 79. But, 82-year-old Ioannis Ioannides interjected: “We don’t stay here that long. Only one or two hours for a card game and then go home. When there’s nothing to do there, we come back.”
The Cyprus Mail is the only English-language daily newspaper published in Cyprus. It was established in 1945 and today, with its popular and widely-read website, the Cyprus Mail is among the most trusted news sites in Cyprus. The newspaper is not affiliated with any political parties and has always striven to maintain its independence. Over the past 70-plus years, the Cyprus Mail, with a small dedicated team, has covered momentous events in Cyprus’ modern history, chronicling the last gasps of British colonial rule, Cyprus’ truncated independence, the coup and Turkish invasion, and the decades of negotiations to stitch the divided island back together, plus a myriad of scandals, murders, and human interests stories that capture the island and its -people. Observers describe it as politically conservative.
