Who were the people who named the two crossroads of Nicosia?

The toponymy of Nicosia still preserves the surnames of its two prominent residents - Gabriel Gavriilidis and Kostas Kalisperas. We tell you why these two people remain in the memory of Cypriots.

Locals call the intersection of Nikis, Griva Digeni, Spirou Kyprianou and Themistokli Dervi avenues “Gavriilidis Crossroads”. And the Kalispera intersection is the entrance to the capital, that is, the intersection of Athalassas and Lemesou avenues.

The future outstanding Cypriot entrepreneur was born in the city of Mersin in Asia Minor (southeast of modern Turkey) in 1910. At the age of 11, he and his family fled Mersin from the Kemalist government, which persecuted the national minorities of the former empire.

The family settled in Smyrna, a city with a huge Greek community. However, ethnic cleansing soon began there too. This is how the Gavriilidis ended up in Cyprus. My father, a pastry chef by profession, managed to quickly get on his feet and launch a successful sweets production business. Thanks to this, he was able to send his son to study in the UK.

Gabriel Gavriilidis studied at the University of Glasgow and lived in the UK for a total of 10 years. After returning to the island from the UK, Gavriilidis got a job at the Nicosia Electricity Company. But then he decided to start his own business. His areas of activity were electronics and electricity, import of household appliances.

Soon after his return to Cyprus, Gavriilidis married Lukia Hadjikyryakou. The story of his matchmaking was anecdotal for that time. One afternoon, Gabriel Gavriilidis walked past a private house, on the veranda of which he saw a young girl with beautiful legs (as Lukia herself told the story of their acquaintance). The determined young man went straight to her father and said that he intended to marry his daughter. He replied that things are not done that way in Cyprus. And if the young man has serious intentions, he and his father should come to their house and woo them. The young man in love compromised, and soon Lukia became his wife. In their marriage they had four children.

As a dowry, her father gave her a piece of land in the area of ​​Agia Omologites. On it in 1962, Gavriilidis built the famous building, which gave its name to the intersection of Nikis, Griva Digeni, Spiru Kyprianou and Themistokli Dervi avenues (Gavriilidis intersection on the map).

Gavriilidis was well-known among the British elite of Cyprus, whose representatives he often invited home and treated to drinks. The British could not even imagine that their counterparts were actually in close contact with the EOKA partisans and were leaking all the information they received over a glass of whiskey. One of his houses even had a safe house for EOKA members. Gavriilidis was also personally acquainted with President Makarios and supplied him with exotic fruits, which he grew on his plot near Paphos.

After Cyprus gained independence, he was appointed head of the Cyprus Electricity Company. Died in 1975.

The intersection at the entrance to Nicosia (on the map) still bears the name of Kostas Kalisperas, one of the first Cypriot property developers. He was born in 1911 in Nicosia, and his whole life was connected with Cyprus.

It is to him that the residents of the capital owe the name of one of the districts - Dasupoli. In the 1950s, Kalisperas acquired a huge plot of land, which was then a landfill and wasteland. There you could easily see a griffon vulture eating a dead cow. The visionary Kalisperas called this dull place “forest city”, or “forest city” (as Dasupoli is translated from Greek). In order for his vision to correspond at least a little to reality, he and his eldest son went to the wasteland every day, cleaned it and planted it with acacias, which he bought with his personal money from the Athalassa forestry. Tree seedlings often became victims of goats and sheep, but Kostas Kalisperas did not give up. He was an entrepreneur first and foremost, and he had big plans for this piece of land.

When the former wasteland was finally greened up, Kalisperas divided it into several plots and began selling them for 70-80 pounds each. To attract customers, he agreed with the Ford dealership so that each of his customers would receive a serious discount on a new car.

His son Ramon designed a ten-story residential building in the Dasupoli area. It was for this reason that the intersection at the entrance to Nicosia began to be called the “Kalisperas traffic light” (“ta fota tu Kalispera”).

Along with the improvement of the urban environment, Kalisperas became seriously interested in football, playing as a goalkeeper for the Trust football club. In 1931 he was among the founders of the Olympiacos Nicosia football club, and in 1948 of the Orpheas and Omonia clubs.

Died in 2005.

The text was prepared based on materials from Offsite and “Mihani tu hronu”

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