Vatili (also Vatyli) is a large, mainly Greek community in the occupied district of Ammochostos. It lies 26 kilometres west of Ammochostos, at an elevation of 50 metres, on the plain of the Mesaoria, on the old Nicosia–Ammochostos road.¹ In the 1960 census it had 2,691 inhabitants, of whom 1,973 were Greeks and 718 Turks.

Name

According to the Great Cyprian Encyclopaedia, which cites Simos Menardos, Vatilis was a Greek surname, and the village originally also bore the name of its first owner: it was called “Stefanou Vatili”, that is, Vatili of Stefanos.² In this form, “Stefano Vatili” in the French edition, it is mentioned by the 15th-century Cypriot chronicler Leontios Machairas.³ In a Venetian list of the end of the 15th century it is written “Vatelli”.⁴

Founding and first records

The British architect George Jeffery, who recorded the monuments of Cyprus in the early 20th century, noted about one and a half kilometres north of the village the site of medieval Vatili, where among heaps of stones the plans of several medieval churches could be traced. In his view it was most probably the village held under Frankish rule by the Montolif and de Nores families.⁵

Antiquity

The 19th-century Greek scholar Athanasios Sakellarios records, three quarters of an hour north of Vatili, the estate of Apalaistra, where a Greek inscription had been found: with it the “Palaistritai” honoured the gymnasiarch Jason, son of Aristokreon. The gymnasiarch was the head of the gymnasium, an institution of the Greek cities; the inscription shows that in ancient times there was a Greek community with a gymnasium in the area.⁶

Frankish rule, Venetian rule

In the 14th century the village belonged to Marguerite de Nores, daughter of the turcopolier, that is, the commander of the kingdom’s light cavalry, Jean de Nores, as her dowry, and to her husband of the Montolif family. Machairas calls her “lady of the village”.⁷

At the end of the 15th century, shortly after Cyprus passed to the Venetians, Vatili was a royal village, that is, it belonged directly to the state and not to a feudal lord. In a Venetian statistical memorandum published by the 19th-century French historian Louis de Mas Latrie it is recorded in the bailiwick of Assia, together with Assia, “Stephani” and Asomatos.⁸

Turkish rule

In the property survey made by the Ottoman administration in 1832/33, which recorded only those who owned property, Vatili is described as a mixed village, with 87 property-owning households, one of the highest numbers in the Mesaoria, and a church. They had cotton fields, irrigated gardens with waterwheels, threshing floors and much barren land, only six olive trees, more than eight hundred sheep and goats, oxen and beehives.⁹ In 1890 Sakellarios writes that Vatili was the seat of the Mesaoria district and had a Greek elementary school.¹⁰

Churches and monasteries

The Greek Orthodox parish church of Vatili, in the centre of the village, is dedicated to Saint George. Its foundation stone was laid in 1856, and it is an Ancient Monument.¹¹ The second church of the village, of Agia Varvara, lies about three hundred metres further south and was built in 1954–55.¹²

Economy and society

According to the Great Cyprian Encyclopaedia, before 1974 the inhabitants grew mainly cereals and fodder crops, melons and vegetables, a few vines and almond trees; of the 26,000 skales of village land only 316 were irrigated. Stock-breeding was well developed. According to the same encyclopaedia, Vatili had a police station from 1905 and a district doctor from 1902, and in 1922 it was the first village in Cyprus to light its streets at night, with kerosene lamps.¹³ According to the government publication of 2019 on the displaced municipalities and communities, Vatili was the main producer of clover in Cyprus, and many inhabitants were craftsmen or worked in Nicosia, Ammochostos and Larnaca.¹⁴ The Second Co-operative Credit Society of Vatyli was founded in 1959.

Education

According to the Great Cyprian Encyclopaedia, which cites the Cypriot scholar I. K. Peristianis, in 1840 the schoolmaster Chatzigeorgoudin taught about ten children in his house, who paid one piastre a week and brought him a wheat loaf every Saturday. In 1869–70 a community school was built at the expense of the church of Agios Georgios, and in 1880 a monitorial school was founded with a grant from the Cypriot Brotherhood of the Greeks of Egypt; it operated for about three years.¹⁵ In the school year 1973–74 the Greek elementary school had 351 pupils and eleven teachers.

Population

According to the Great Cyprian Encyclopaedia, Vatili had 866 inhabitants in 1881, 1,051 in 1891, 1,255 in 1901, 1,437 in 1911 and 1,751 in 1921.¹⁶ In 1931 it had 1,836 inhabitants, 1,249 Christians and 587 Muslims, and in 1946 2,249, of whom 1,553 were Orthodox and 694 Muslims (the censuses of 1931 and 1946 recorded religion only). In 1960 it had 2,691 inhabitants, 1,973 Greeks and 718 Turks, and in 1973 2,250 Greeks and around 900 Turks (estimate).

National struggles

In the 1950 Enosis plebiscite 872 inhabitants of Vatili signed. The Register of EOKA Fighters records 81 Greek inhabitants of the village who took part in or assisted the Struggle. According to the biographies of the EOKA Liberation Struggle Foundation, the fighters Fotis Pittas of Frenaros, who was arrested there in January 1957, and Ilias Papakyriakou of Lythragkomi were active at Vatili.¹⁷

The Turkish invasion of 1974

During the Turkish invasion of 1974 Vatili was occupied by the Turkish army and its Greek population was ethnically cleansed. Since then the Turkish occupation forces and the illegal occupation authority prevent the inhabitants from returning.

Four inhabitants of Vatili, one civilian and three soldiers, were recorded as missing. One disappeared in the area of the village and the other three in the area of Mia Milia, at Agios Georgios of Keryneia and in the area of Lapithos. The remains of all four have been located and identified. Two more inhabitants, both soldiers, were killed in the area of Agios Pavlos in Nicosia and at Koutsoventis.

The 2009 list records the church of Agios Georgios as looted and desecrated. According to Cyprus Religious Heritage, the church of Agia Varvara fell into ruin after 1974 and its roof collapsed; it was repaired around 2010 and now appears to be used as a social club, without its crosses and bells. In the cemetery the wall has largely collapsed, its chapel is in ruins and the grave crosses lie scattered.¹⁸