THE ROAD sign for the capital’s most infamous street, Soutsou, has gone missing. It’s been pulled down many a time by drunken youths crawling out of nearby bars and clubs but this is the first time someone’s actually taken home the street name synonymous with “the oldest profession in the world”.
Half a century ago, Soutsou, a narrow street behind the Hamam Omerye in old Nicosia, was the place to go for a rare peek at “ladies of the night” or for the more serious business of paid sex.
Many boys of 14 or so would have passed through those paint-peeled wooden doors to get their “experience” before adulthood and marriage, usually courtesy of an uncle, older cousin or father. When you consider the number of virginities sacrificed in the dingy rooms behind the narrow curve of road, it’s a wonder the street sign wasn’t snatched up earlier.
“These are premium signs, collector’s items, I’d like to have one,” said a resident who first spotted the missing sign.
Like it or not, sex is not just about good times, romance and babies, it’s also a thriving business which has been bought and sold in Cyprus for as long as there have been buyers and sellers.
Today, the sex trade brings to mind images of neon-lights, seedy cabarets and foreign pole-dancers brought here to sleep with paying punters: to the knowledge of the state but not always the women.
But before the ubiquitous cabarets and brothel bars opened up across the island, the sex trade was mainly dominated by red-light districts in each town, complemented by the odd sex worker in the village. The women were almost all Cypriot, unlike today, where prostitution is considered the sole occupation of “foreign” women from specific regions of the world like Eastern Europe and parts of Asia.
In Nicosia, the ‘red-light’ arc began at Soutsou Street, no more than 40m long, where back then the younger women would work. As you moved passed the old Electric Power House to the streets of Pendadaktylou and Tempon, the sex workers got older and as the crude dictates of economic principles applied, cheaper.
These streets and the women who worked in them have become cultural reference points in the history of Cyprus. When you go to a football match and you hear hordes of fans screaming “Lella” to a referee, they are referring to one of the better known ladies of Soutsou, the implication being that the referee has been bought out. One television channel is currently running a soap based on the lives of two women on the street.
The Sunday Mail asked five random men aged between 21 and 53 whether the word Soutsou had any resonance with them. The result was surprising in that, despite the age gap, every single one of them had been to Soutsou, either for sex, or to do what once seemed natural for most young boys in the capital, go tease and throw stones at the social pariahs.
“At the age of 10, we knew all about Soutsou and what’s happening. We’d start skiving off school to run through the streets and see the girls. At 13 or 14, a father or uncle would give your cousin some money and say ‘take him down to gain some experience’. It was accepted that you had to go through that process,” said Christos, a 53-year-old father of four.
“They were all Cypriot women. You felt that they were not human, something different. You never felt they were your mother or sister, but more like a third or fourth class citizen and you would treat them that way, shouting abuse, calling names, running away. We never had sense to understand,” he added.
Christos first had sex at 14 with a prostitute, after his uncle decided it was time for him to be “shown the ropes”. He highlighted that in the 1950s and 60s, it was very rare to have sex with somebody outside of marriage: “It was either Soutsou or your friend’s mother.
“Our only other hope were the English and German women. We weren’t too successful there either, but that didn’t stop us bragging about it.”
According to Christos, the street was always busy. “There were always hundreds of customers a day, and more who walked through out of curiosity or to build up the courage to walk through the door and say ‘how much?’. Not just young boys, but people of all ages.
“There was a myth that only losers would go, but the whole of Cyprus are losers then because they all used to go there,” he added.
Prices would vary based on age but also reputation. “You could barter. I went with 17 friends once so we could get a discount. Lella was always a fixed price though, 22 shillings (£1.10). She used to scare me. I really don’t know why.”
“The older prostitutes would go to Tempon. They would charge as little as five shillings,” he said.
Panicos, a 48-year-old from Nicosia, was also familiar with Soutsou, and recalled some of the names of the women.
“When we were 14, we used to go down there with our Chopper bicycles to take the piss. In the 1970s, we would swear at them and race away. No one could swear like Aliki could. She was the Greek from Egypt. There was also Kokou and Ourania who I heard got electrocuted.”
One film student made a short documentary on one of the sex workers, now in her 60s. “She was forced into it by her husband who used to beat her. Now, the arm which used to beat her is paralysed and she has to look after and feed him.”
Another woman told the young director that she has always been a pariah in the neighbourhood, and has to rely on her neighbour, a transvestite, to supply her with life’s necessities.
“She said she didn’t mind the lonely life but wished she could have chosen it herself instead of it being forced on her. She paid for her kids’ education through prostitution but they don’t want to know anything about her,” he said.
On further inquiry it transpired the women of the area have been a target of abuse and curiosity throughout the history of the street. Petros, a 35-year-old photographer remembers going down there with friends on their mopeds to see what was happening. John, 21, used to throw water balloons at them just a few years back, while Kyriacos, 22, lost his virginity there nine years ago.
“Five of us wanted to have sex before our 14th birthday because my dad’s friend had lost his virginity at 14. To be fair, one woman declined to do it, saying we were too young, but the next woman in her 40s agreed. It was £20 for sex.”
“I went first. When I came out of the house, a bunch of soldiers passed by in a car, shouting ‘man, you went with the transvestite’. I froze,” said Kyriacos.
According to Christos, there was only one cabaret in the 1950s called the Arkadi cabaret, behind the Nicosia Airport, with English and Arab sex workers. By the 1980s, Rigenis Street in old Nicosia filled with cabarets, and Asian women.
“It was 100 per cent disgusting. They would abuse the women and force them to go with customers. They were legitimate brothels with the protection of the police. The majority of the clients were English soldiers.”
Meanwhile, Christos claimed that young Cypriot women were still in the trade in the 1980s, though many had moved to the brothel bars of Athens. “I went once and saw them there. I felt sorry for them.”
He says Cyprus never had street prostitutes, like he sees today. “You can see Asian women standing today on certain streets in Nicosia, selling sex. Even in Soutsou, the women used to sit on the porch,” he said.
Given the personal histories above, it seems that the commodification of sex has a very long recent history in Cyprus. And while sex before marriage was frowned upon for any couple, the social pressure was on the groom to come prepared and experienced to any union. To do that, of course, required a willing partner, a sex worker. The Cypriot sex
worker was accepted as a necessary member of society, though she remained an outcast in every other social context.
Today, sexual relations between young men and women are nowhere near as conservative as they once were but that has not stopped the popularity of the cabarets nor curbed the sex trade and the trafficking of women that it invites.
I was curious as to whether the trade was still being plied in the old streets of Nicosia. Given the competition both on and off the streets and changing social behaviour, did we still have our own outcasts? So, I took a walk tracing the red-light arc of old Nicosia.
Soutsou at 10pm was dead. All doors closed, empty porches, street sign missing. A trendy bar just opening its doors revealed the semi-gentrification of the historic street.
Walking towards Tempon, we passed the beautifully renovated Electric Power House and Archbishopric where someone had sprayed the words: “We are many and we are crazy. The Gay.”
On Tempon, the doors to a dimly-lit small cove were open. Inside the old room sat four old women amid the shadows of this frozen place, knitting, chatting and watching noises on a box set. It could have been 1950s Cuba.
“Hi, I’m a journalist looking to find out about the history of this place. Would you have a moment?”
A woman in her late 70s with frizzled hair replied on behalf of the rest: “I can’t tell you anything. I’m a Turkish Cypriot. I know nothing.”
Repeated efforts to extract information met with the same solid response.
Two hours later, one chatty sex worker down the road told me that the granny has been there since the 1960s and that she was responsible for coordinating activities that went beyond knitting for her three friends in their 50s.
Further down the road, a more modern looking hole in the wall with the doors wide open and pinkly-lit had two younger ladies sitting on a couch waiting for customers. The friendly industry insider who I met later told me that these women were Cypriot who spoke with mainland Greek accents to enhance their product.
A few doors down we met a lady from the Asian sub-continent sitting on a chair, wedged between a door and a narrow façade. Gossip on the street told us that she shares the space with a transvestite who likes to spend her money on casinos in the north.
While talking to the middle-aged Asian, a number of men in cars and motorbikes passed us by, slowing down and occasionally stopping to have a word with the woman. One young man with a 1000 mile stare and a less than friendly aura drove passed us three times as we chatted to the woman.
“Cypriot men like foreign women because we don’t make noise. We don’t make trouble. And when I do, my husband tells me, ‘shut up, you are black’,” she said.
Two hours of walking around, and no one would talk to us about prostitution, yet it was all around us. Making one last round, we walked down a side street off Pendadaktylou, where some bright Christmas lights were hanging over a house. Drawing nearer, we saw three red hearts spray-painted on the outside and a lady with a white mini-skirt sitting in a chair.
“You went to Soutsou at this hour? They’re all asleep. Try the afternoon, they’re all still there, working, though in their 40s and 50s now,” said a very talkative Persephone, who looked to be in her 40s.
Persephone also spoke with a mainland Greek accent, though when asked said she came from Limassol and Morphou. I apologised when I got in the way of one car which slowed down in the narrow lane in front of the house.
“Don’t be silly. What you think I’m going to give the time of day to anyone who slows down,” she said, before shouting at another car coming from the opposite direction: “And it’s a one-way street you know.”
Most of the motorists were men in their 20s, 30s and 40s. Occasionally curious groups of young men and women also drove by.
Inside the house, sitting on a salmon-pink couch was the 24-year-old Maria, wearing white-lace lingerie. She sat watching some soap on TV while listening to the soft pop on the stereo. Cheap magazines with cheap adverts, a make-up mirror and ashtray sat beside her while a tacky landscape print adorned the wall behind.
“She’s half Latin. Do you know you can build a house for €3,000 in a Latin country,” informed Persephone.
Maria has two children in Greece. She is half-Greek, half-Venezuelan and clearly very popular among the night-time punters. Our conversation was interrupted by one man in his late 30s who arrived at the door with an air of familiarity.
Eight minutes later, the two emerged from behind the red curtains and the man left. A Yorkshire Terrier with two topknots bounced about the living room, seeming more at ease with his departure.
“I bought that for €800 after a neighbour poisoned my last dog,” said Persephone. She’s taking the neighbour to court who, she says, ripped her top off when she confronted him about the poisoning.
Persephone tells me eagerly, and with a slightly competitive edge about the lives and histories of all the other girls in the neighbourhood, informing on prices and genders. “Those two are transvestites and the other one only charges €10, €20. Do you think she could charge any more looking like that?”
While talking, she stops a neighbour on a motorbike to ask him the gender of one woman working down the road. “Oh, she’s a woman. I thought she was a tranny,” she said.
Before leaving, Persephone lets us know that her and Maria always use condoms.
“What you mean others don’t?”
“There are many who ask to do it without,” she replied.
As we walked away towards the old municipality, now filled with archaeological findings, firmly painted graffiti on the wall left us with a parting message: “Respect prostitutes.”
It seems my initial thoughts were wrong. This place has not reached the end of its history and the women made to work here, for whatever reason, remain outcasts.
