By Athena Karsera
THERE will be dancing in the streets this New Year’s Eve thanks to Nicosia’s seven municipalities banding together to organise a cheery alternative to expensive nightclubs and hotels. Announcing the municipalities’ plans for the festivities yesterday, Nicosia mayor Lellos Demetriades said the aim was for the festive crowds to enjoy a party atmosphere in Eleftheria Square.
“There will be organised amusement but what we really want is for the people themselves to be having a good enough time to be entertaining themselves.”
Demetriades said the 12-piece Vivat Petersburg orchestra from St Petersburg had been engaged to begin playing at 9pm, continuing until “everyone has gone home.”
Visual entertainment will be supplied by a dance and gymnastics troupe, again from St Petersburg, and two giant video wall units with links to New Year celebrations all over the world.
A DJ will provide contemporary music during the band’s breaks throughout the celebration while the Eldyk military band will play traditional Greek music as we enter the new millennium with a spectacular firework display. There will also be acrobats on stilts performing amongst the crowds.
The mayors and their families will join the party by 11pm. After midnight, Demetriades said that, as in past years, he and a number of representatives would be visiting the Green Line at the end of Ledra Street.
“We are not going there to cry, I do not believe that it what we should do. We are going there to show that even though we will be having a good time, we remember that our capital is divided.”
Refreshment will be provided by Keo, the £30,000 event’s sponsors, with five kiosks on the square providing free Keo drinks.
Pieces from traditional Vassilopitta cakes will be handed out by each of the municipalities, with a valuable prize hidden in one slice from each cake. The mayors did not say what the prizes would be, saying that would depend on the municipality.
Traditionally, a coin is put into a Vassilopitta and the person who finds it is said to have good luck for the New Year.
Demetriades and his fellow mayors said the event had been organised to give a party to those who may not otherwise be able to afford it, “Young people for example or families.”
The event will also provide those who do not have anywhere specific to celebrate, such as foreign workers, a place to go, Demetriades said.
The mayors also suggested that the event would give a message to venues trying to take advantage of millennium celebrations with hiked up prices.
While this is the first time the municipalities of Nicosia have joined forces on this scale, Demetriades said that it would not be the last.
He noted that the municipalities of Nicosia, Strovolos, Lakatamia, Latsia, Aglandja, Ayios Dhometios and Engomi had organised their own decorations, including “27 kilometres of lights.”
