Komi, known as Komi Kepir, is a mixed community in the occupied district of Ammochostos, on the Karpasia peninsula. It lies 33 kilometres north of Ammochostos, at an elevation of 90 metres, at the foot of the easternmost part of the Pentadaktylos, and its land reached north to the sea.¹ In the 1960 census it had 952 inhabitants, of whom 654 were Greeks and 289 Turks.

Name

The official gazetteer of place names of Cyprus (Gazetteer) writes the name “Komi”.² According to the Great Cyprian Encyclopaedia, which cites Simos Menardos, “Kepir”, meaning “great”, was added to distinguish the village from Koma tou Gialou. Its people were called “Komites”, while those of Koma tou Gialou were called “Komiates”.³

Founding and first records

The earliest written record of the village found is the Ottoman property survey of 1832/33.⁴ Its land, however, was inhabited much earlier: near the settlement lie an ancient cemetery and an ancient settlement (see “Archaeological sites”).

Archaeological sites

In 1965 a cemetery of the Archaic ancient Greek period, unknown until then, was found at Ftani, about 800 metres south-west of the village. The Department of Antiquities opened one rectangular rock-cut tomb, which had been partly looted. It held White Painted, Black-on-Red and Bichrome vessels, among them two large amphorae and a cup with an unusual handle, and an iron dagger.⁵

North of the village the digital atlas of ancient places Pleiades, which draws on the Barrington historical atlas, records an ancient settlement of the Ptolemaic Greek and Roman periods.⁶ The British architect George Jeffery, who recorded the historic monuments of Cyprus in the early 20th century, also noted, a little north of the village, the remains of a large ancient villa.⁷

Turkish rule

In the property survey made by the Ottoman administration in 1832/33, which recorded only those who held property, Komi is entered as a mixed village, with 51 property-holding households, twice as many as Koma tou Gialou. The owners had mainly barren fields, and also vineyards, mulberry gardens, gardens with water-wheels, madder fields, threshing floors, almost 400 olive trees, a shop and a smithy, 37 beehives and two mills turned by horses. They had about 290 sheep, 42 oxen and mules.⁸ According to the Great Cyprian Encyclopaedia, the police authorities of the surrounding area had their seat at Komi already in the years of Turkish rule.⁹

British rule

According to the Great Cyprian Encyclopaedia, a police station was set up at Komi in 1905.¹⁰ In the same year, according to Cyprus Religious Heritage, the old cemetery, most probably around the church of Agios Afxentios, was closed as a danger to public health.¹¹

Churches and monasteries

The parish church of the village, in the centre of the old settlement, is dedicated to Agios Georgios and dates from the 17th–18th century.¹²

The church of Agios Afxentios, in the eastern part of the old settlement, is an Ancient Monument. It is not known when it was built; it has parts from different periods, and the oldest may be of the 16th century.¹³ According to a local tradition recorded by the Great Cyprian Encyclopaedia, the saint’s relics were found in a cave at the same time by people of Komi and of neighbouring Eptakomi, and both villages claimed them. To settle the dispute, they put the relics on a cart and let the oxen go where they wished. The oxen took the road to Komi and stopped at the chapel of Agia Mavri, where the saint was buried, and from then on the chapel took his name. The church was renovated in 1859.¹⁴

Also Ancient Monuments are the ruined chapel of Agios Georgios tou Parouzi, of the 15th–16th century, and the chapel of Agios Onoufrios. On the road into the village from the south-west, on a rise, stands the chapel of Agios Loukas.¹⁵ The village also had the chapels of Agios Vasileios, Agia Aikaterini, Agios Fotios and Agios Gerasimos.

Economy and society

According to the Great Cyprian Encyclopaedia, before 1974 the inhabitants grew cereals, fodder crops, olives, carobs, citrus fruit and almonds, and part of the village land was state forest. Stock-breeding was highly developed: in 1973 the village’s 182 stock-breeders, Greeks and Turks, kept about 2,000 sheep and 200 goats.¹⁶ A co-operative credit society worked in the village from 1923, and a co-operative grocery from 1937.

Education

According to the Union of Displaced Communities of Ammochostos, the first Greek primary school of the village opened in 1881, with one teacher and about 30 pupils, and a girls’ school opened in 1926.¹⁷ In the school year 1973–74 the Greek primary school of the village had 66 pupils and two teachers.

Population

According to the Great Cyprian Encyclopaedia, the village had 714 inhabitants in 1881, 740 in 1891, 938 in 1901, 1,167 in 1911 and 1,238 in 1921.¹⁸ In 1931 it had 1,330 inhabitants, 999 Christians and 331 Muslims, and in 1946 1,325, of whom 946 were Orthodox and 379 Muslims (the censuses of 1931 and 1946 recorded only religion). In 1960 it had 952 inhabitants, of whom 654 were Greeks and 289 Turks, and in 1973 562 Greeks and around 200 Turks (estimate).

National struggles

In the 1950 plebiscite for union with Greece 600 inhabitants signed, practically all the adult Greek inhabitants. The EOKA Fighters’ Register lists 87 Greek inhabitants of the village who took part in or assisted the Struggle.

The Turkish invasion of 1974

During the Turkish invasion of 1974 Komi was occupied by the Turkish army. Most of the Greek inhabitants fled, but a good number stayed in the village, enclaved. According to the Great Cyprian Encyclopaedia, in November 1975 there were still 155 Greeks living in the village; in May 1976 their children were allowed to attend the primary school that operated at Eptakomi, but by November 1976 the last twelve had also been forced to leave.¹⁹ The Greek population of the village was thus ethnically cleansed, and since then the Turkish occupation forces and the illegal occupation authority prevent the inhabitants from returning.

Fourteen inhabitants of Komi, all civilians, were recorded as missing. The remains of thirteen have been identified; one is still missing. Nine disappeared in the village itself and five at Galateia. In the village itself three more deaths are recorded, all of them civilian inhabitants, and one more civilian inhabitant of the village, a woman, was killed at an unknown place.

The occupation authorities illegally converted the church of Agios Georgios into a mosque; according to Cyprus Religious Heritage, it later became a cultural centre, and all its crosses have been removed. The church of Agios Afxentios was looted, desecrated and seriously damaged; it was restored in 2015. The new cemetery, about 500 metres east of Agios Afxentios, is almost in ruins: its wall has partly collapsed, and the grave crosses are scattered.²⁰