Avgolida is a small Turkish community in the occupied district of Ammochostos. It lies 26 kilometres north of Ammochostos, at an elevation of 70 metres, in the west of the Karpasia, five kilometres north of Bogazi, on gently rolling ground cut by streams.¹ In the 1960 census it had 115 inhabitants, all of them Turks.

Name

The British architect George Jeffery, who recorded the monuments of Cyprus in 1918, and the 1931 census write the name “Avgolidha”.²

Churches and monasteries

The Greek Orthodox church of the village is dedicated to Saint Marina and is an Ancient Monument of the Department of Antiquities. Jeffery already noted it, in a village he found almost entirely Muslim.³ According to Cyprus Religious Heritage, it was probably built around 1800 and stands at the eastern edge of the village.⁴

Economy and society

According to the Great Cyprian Encyclopaedia, with an average rainfall of about 425 millimetres a year, the village produced mainly cereals, some pulses, fodder crops, olives and carobs, and its stock-raising was fairly well developed before 1974.⁵

Population

According to the Great Cyprian Encyclopaedia, the village had 47 inhabitants in 1881, 67 in 1891, 77 in 1901, 97 in 1911 and 104 in 1921.⁶ In 1931 Avgolida had 121 inhabitants, 117 Muslims and 4 Christians, and in 1946 156, of whom 155 were Muslims (the censuses of 1931 and 1946 recorded religion only). In 1960 it had 115 inhabitants, all Turks, and in 1973 around 120 Turkish inhabitants (estimate).

The Turkish invasion of 1974

During the Turkish invasion of 1974 Avgolida was occupied by the Turkish army. According to Cyprus Religious Heritage, which visited the church of Agia Marina in 2022, its condition is poor: part of the wall near the western door has collapsed and much of the plaster inside has fallen.⁷