Different hamam, different universe
Exhausted by recent trips and stood up by a friend who preferred to visit an ageing relative in an the old people’s home, I opted for a quiet, inactive Sunday and went to the Omeriye Hamam to have a soak in its medieval ex-Augustinian monastery surroundings. The move proved wise. The place, apart from its hot room, was cool and empty, and I spent six hours there, reading a book on journalists and spies (an excellent topic for Cyprus), having green tea and chilled cherries, and, obviously, from time to time, soaking and sweating.
I was alone (everybody else headed for the beach), wasn’t bothered by any phone calls since I had left both my mobiles at home, and surrounded by new age, ocean-like, slightly pukeable music that, nevertheless, did the job. Sophistication, comfort, luxury – it was a bliss. Frankly speaking if I was less selfish I would write a letter to the Cyprus Tourism Organisation suggesting that the hamam be put on a must visit list for tourists coming from Protaras or Ayia Napa to the capital (especially if they want to up the profile of tourists visiting the island). But since I like the space and emptiness of the present venue, I won’t do it. Let the place just be.
Still, I must say all of the above factors were in stark contrast to the ‘no-zen no-nonsense’ hamam that I visited about a month ago in Istanbul that was so crowded you had to queue to get in to be greeted by water, steam and whispers. For a while after entering it, I wandered around blindly, lost in the middle of tens of naked women of various colours, ages and nationalities, talking about their lovers, husbands and children, while being soaped vigorously. Finally I placed myself next to two ancient Turkish matrons who looked like Chinese centenarian twins, and an Italian fashion journalist visiting the town because of a wedding.
“We have been coming here since we were ten,” one of the Chinese twins told me while the journalist assessed the venue.
“Vogue-style it isn’t,” she said at the end pointing towards several very fat bath attendants wearing huge white cotton knickers and pouring cold water on some Israelis. “But definitely very authentic.”
After a while we were both taken into the massage room where a masseuse looked at me inquiringly. “Wy gavaritie pa ruski?” she asked and when I nodded, poured out her Armenian soul to me. A graduate of Erevan’s Physiotherapist Institute, she was in Istanbul specifically to work in the hamam, and had been doing so for the last six months, six days a week, twelve hours a day, twenty to twenty five massages daily.
She had a son, was planning to move into the European Union zone as soon as possible and believed she would make it. Unlike Turkey that, she said, wouldn’t.
“Are there many Armenians in Istanbul?” I asked.
“Plenty,” she said. “There is a lot of work for us here.”
I remembered this conversation when at the Omeriye I saw the diploma of one of its masseuses hanging on the wall – all in Polish. “Damn it,” I thought. “Here you are. Where is your patriotism? You have been massaged by a Pole and haven’t noticed.”
I asked if it was the case and it wasn’t. My compatriot had a day off and I was massaged by a Bulgarian but yes, they had physiotherapists of various nationalities, like Poles, Bulgarians and sometimes even Chinese, and yes, they all had good old communist massage training, the one that used to be applied to the Soviet Union weight lifters and Romanian gymnasts.
“Yes, the world is not the same any more,” I sighed nostalgically and remembered what my left-wing, AKEL-voting bank manager had told me the previous day.
“We have lost our battle and become slaves to capitalism,” he said. “We all work and work and work and have lost all the joys of living freely. If you want my advice, the best way forward is to get yourself a social insurance.”
I left the hamam and cycled across the Ledra Palace checkpoint towards the other side of the buffer zone, wondering about his words and determined to check what was going on in the Buyuk Hamam that was established more or less around the same time as the Omeriye on the remains of the 14th century church of St George of the Latins. Maybe, I speculated, some heartless capitalists had finally started renovating it, and Nicosia soon would have two of the nicest hamams in the world. But, as usual, before even getting close to it, I bumped into a friend who, when told about my mission, looked at me as if I was a lunatic.
“Are you crazy?” he said. “Nobody goes there but soldiers and gays from both communities. Forget it. Let’s go for a drink instead.”
So there you are: three hamams and three entirely different universes.
