Potamia is a village in the north-east of government controlled Cyprus

Cyprus

Cyprus , officially the Republic of Cyprus , is a Eurasian island country, member of the European Union, in the Eastern Mediterranean, east of Greece, south of Turkey, west of Syria and north of Egypt. It is the third largest island in the Mediterranean Sea.The earliest known human activity on the...

 in the district of Nicosia

Nicosia

Nicosia from , known locally as Lefkosia , is the capital and largest city in Cyprus, as well as its main business center. Nicosia is the only divided capital in the world, with the southern and the northern portions divided by a Green Line...

, close to the Green Line

United Nations Buffer Zone in Cyprus

The United Nations Buffer Zone in Cyprus runs for more than along what is known as the Green Line and has an area of . The zone partitions the island of Cyprus into a southern area effectively controlled by the government of the Republic of Cyprus , and the northern area...

 separating it from the area under Turkish occupation. Together with Pyla

Pyla

Pyla is a village in Larnaca District, Cyprus. It is one of only four villages located within the United Nations Buffer Zone, the other three being Athienou, Troulloi and Deneia. Pyla is located in the eastern part of the island, adjacent to the British Sovereign Base Area of Dhekelia...

 and Rizokarpaso

Rizokarpaso

Rizokarpaso is a town on the Karpass Peninsula in the Famagusta District, northeastern Cyprus. It has been under Turkish control since the 1974 invasion....

 Potamia forms one of the few remaining ethnically mixed communities in Cyprus, made up of Greek

Greek Cypriots

Greek Cypriots are the ethnic Greek population of Cyprus, forming the island's largest ethnolinguistic community at 77% of the population. Greek Cypriots are mostly members of the Church of Cyprus, an autocephalous Greek Orthodox Church within the wider communion of Orthodox Christianity...

 and Turkish Cypriots

Turkish Cypriots

Turkish Cypriots are the ethnic Turks and members of the Turkish-speaking ethnolinguistic community of the Eastern Mediterranean island of Cyprus. The term is used to refer explicitly to the indigenous Turkish Cypriots, whose Ottoman Turkish forbears colonised the island in 1571...

.

History

Here lies the remains of the Royal Residence of King Peter II (1369-1382.It was destroyed by the Saracens in 1426.When the site was visited by Rupert Gunnis

Rupert Gunnis

Rupert Forbes Gunnis was an English collector and historian of British sculpture. He is best known for his Dictionary of British Sculptors 1660-1851, which "revolutionized the study of British sculpture, providing the foundation for all later studies on the subject".-Life:Born in Cadogan Square,...

 in 1936 a portion of the walls, a large vaulted room with fragments of frescoes remained.

Prior to the inter-communal conflict and the Turkish intervention

Turkish invasion of Cyprus

The Turkish invasion of Cyprus, launched on 20 July 1974, was a Turkish military invasion in response to a Greek military junta backed coup in Cyprus...

 of 1974 the village had a Turkish-Cypriot majority, however most Turkish Cypriots have subsequently emigrated to Northern Cyprus

Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus

Northern Cyprus or North Cyprus , officially the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus , is a self-declared state that comprises the northeastern part of the island of Cyprus...

, and now the village is mostly inhabited by the remaining Greek-Cypriots. Nonetheless, the village has a history of co-existence between the two communities, and Greek and Turkish Cypriots still live side by side. Recently there has been some lobbying to convince Turkish Cypriots to return, and some have done so.

Culture

There is widespread bilinguality and cooperation between the two communities, and the village has both a Greek and a Turkish-Cypriot mayor who work together.
In line with the bi-communal character of the village, it is the home of Radio Potamia, an FM radio station that broadcasts equally in Greek

Greek language

Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;...

 and Turkish

Turkish language

Turkish is a language spoken as a native language by over 83 million people worldwide, making it the most commonly spoken of the Turkic languages. Its speakers are located predominantly in Turkey and Northern Cyprus with smaller groups in Iraq, Greece, Bulgaria, the Republic of Macedonia, Kosovo,...

. These broadcasts reach both northern and southern Cyprus, with the stated aim of promoting mutual understanding and respect between the communities.