RESIDENTS AND shopkeepers of Nicosia’s Athalassa Avenue yesterday said a big “NO” to renaming their 60-year-old road Tassos Papadopoulos Avenue, echoing as they did so the late president’s stance on the Annan plan.
One shopkeeper, Panayiotis Olympios, who has been there for half a century, when it was still a dirt road, said: “We raised this road, and feel for it like it was our child. We held it by the hand. Who has the right to grab it from our hand and change its name?”
The 71-year-old added: “Just like in 2004 when the public and Tassos Papadopoulos democratically said ‘no’, we will say ‘no’ to this too. We got used to the name, it’s blessed by God.”
Olympios is not alone as 97 per cent of all residents and shopkeepers of the more than 500 polled said they were against the name change. According to Christodoulos Stefanis, a member of the committee formed to block the name change, the opposition came from across the political spectrum and throughout the avenue. The remaining three per cent asked did not know or did not wish to answer.
“Not one single person said they were in favour. Nobody wants it,” said Stefanis. He added that in Florence the street names date back to Roman times, while no historic study was made before the proposal to change Athalassa.
The committee said they had the utmost respect for the late president but that there were better ways of honouring him than changing a historical name that dates back to the Second World War and which will cost many local businesses lining the avenue approximately one million euro in administrative expenses.
Strovolos councillors belonging to DIKO, Papadopoulos’ party, are behind the proposal to rename the avenue, with the backing of their DISY counterparts. The two parties make a majority in the local council. AKEL is against the change, while EDEK has yet to come down on either side. Strovolos Mayor Savvas Eliofotou has also stated his opposition, offering to rename the municipal theatre instead. He chided DIKO and DISY for badly handling the issue, saying a majority vote would not serve to honour the late president.
The committee against the name change said yesterday they would organise a protest at the municipal council next Tuesday evening when councillors meet to vote on the issue. They also reject the compromise proposal to keep both names running concurrently for a two year period.
DISY councillor Andreas Papacharalambous told the Cyprus Mail last month that he had conducted his own survey and found that people were mostly positive about it.
The close co-operation of DIKO and DISY over the name change of a vital road in the capital is seen by some as a testing ground for potential future co-operation between the two parties in the next presidential elections.
Stefanis said the whole affair smelt of politics, which the committee wished to avoid. But if the municipal council changes the name on Tuesday night, then the business community is obliged to take legal measures and seek the cost of change, estimated at €2,000 each business.
“We are concerned about our road. It saddens us that this is being politicised. Everyone agrees, there are much better solutions than changing a historic road and distorting history,” he said, offering a number of alternatives including one of the new airports on the island.
Zacharias Yasoumis, 72, likened the move to the destruction of cultural heritage in the occupied north. “I feel like I did when I saw that the Turks changed the name of my old village Peristerona in Famagusta,” he said.
“When I got married, we wrote on the invite that we lived in ‘the road behind Athalassa’ because the surrounding roads didn’t have names back then. I’ve still got that invite,” said Yasoumis.
The pensioner said he had much love and respect for Papadopoulos but that he would always call Athalassa Avenue by its original name. “I’ve even heard some people say they’ll go at night and change the street sign if they go ahead with this. Not us of course.”
Another committee member, Georgios Potamides, raised the issue of jurisdiction. “Athalassa Avenue comes under the jurisdiction of the Public Works Department because it’s a main artery, so how does the municipality even have the right to the change name?” he asked.
According to the committee, the historic name comes from the ancient Greek word ‘thalatta’. The prefix ‘A’ before ‘thalassa’ suggests that in ancient times there was a sea in the area. The road was built around the time of the Second World War. The British overlords decided they needed a bypass going south of the capital for quick and easy troop access. It was built by prisoners and known as the Athalassa bypass of Strovolos.
