📰 North Nicosia · page 3

Nicosia Turkish Municipality founded its Lefkoşa Municipal Orchestra[100] in 1987.152 Since then, the orchestra has grown and developed several branches, including the Children's Choir, Folk Music Choir, Pop Orchestra, Latin Orchestra and the Chamber Music Orchestra, with about 90 participants, most of whom are volunteers.153 The orchestra frequently delivers concerts and participates in big musical festivals held in the country.154 At times, the orchestra delivers concerts at open spaces, such as parks and squares.155 It also holds composing contests.[101]156 The Presidential Symphony Orchestra of Northern Cyprus, founded in 2015, is based in North Nicosia and as of 2018, the works for building a concert hall and headquarters for the orchestra are underway.[102]157 The city is home to the annual Nicosia Walled City Jazz Festival, at which both local and Turkish jazz musicians take the stage.[103]158

The city hosts several folk dance groups, which organise annual festivals to perform Cypriot folk dances.[104]159 The foreign students or delegations visiting universities perform their own traditional dances.[105]160 The city hosts folk dance shows of children from other countries in the annual children's day on 23 April.[106]161 North Nicosia annually hosts the Nicosia International Folk Dance Festival, where groups from various countries perform all around the city in parks and squares.[42]162

Several modern dance activities also take place in the city, where several dance schools are established.163 Internationally renowned musicals and dance shows are performed in front of crowded audiences in the Atatürk Culture and Congress Centre.[107][108]164 In 2010, the city was part of the international Earthdance activity, which was witnessed by thousands of locals.[41]165

Education

Nicosia is the seat of four Turkish Cypriot universities, namely the Near East University (NEU), Cyprus International University (CIU), University of Mediterranean Karpasia and the American University of Cyprus.166 It also hosts a campus of the Turkish Anadolu University, along with two vocational schools (Atatürk Academy of Teachers and the Police Academy) that are equivalent to universities.167 As of the 2014–2015 educational year, North Nicosia was home to a student population of over 34,000; Near East University is the largest university in Northern Cyprus with 25,068 students; Cyprus International University has 8324 students and the University of Mediterranean Karpasia has 632.[109]168 The universities are home to great diversity, with the Near East University and Cyprus International University having students from 96 and 64 countries respectively.[110][111]169

The Near East University was founded in 1988 and its campus is a few kilometres away from Nicosia proper.[112]170 The Cyprus International University followed in 1997 with a campus that is located at the Haspolat region, outside the proper city of Nicosia.[113][114]171 The University of Mediterranean Karpasia was founded in 2011, and is located at a building in the Küçük Kaymaklı region, within the city of Nicosia.[115]172

The Near East University owns a supercomputer that ranks the 13th in the world and the first in the region in terms of computation speed and capacity, used to help universities from Turkey in their research along with the university itself, and has participated in the Large Hadron Collider experiment at CERN, as well as Ebola virus disease treatment research.[116][117][118]173 The NEU has also locally developed and manufactured a completely solar energy-powered car[119] and has research centers in topics ranging from tissue engineering to history.[120]174 The Cyprus International University is home to eight research centers.175 Examples of research conducted include excavations that have uncovered the earliest human bones that have ever been found in Cyprus and possible devices that could be implanted on the human body to facilitate communication.[121]176

The Grand Library of the Near East University is home to over 1 million printed and 150 million electronic resources and is visited by more than 7000 people daily, and agreements have been signed to share these resources with Turkish institutions.[122][123][124]177

In the North Nicosia urban area there are 21 state-owned institutions that offer primary education, along with three special institutions for children with disabilities.[125]178 The city hosts three kinds of high schools: state-owned highschools (lise) that teach in Turkish, state-owned "colleges" (kolej) that teach in English and private high schools.179 The Türk Maarif Koleji is a state-owned high school with over 1000 students that teaches in English, was established in 1964 and prepares students for the British educational system.[126]180 The private high schools in Nicosia are the Near East College, the Levent College and the TED College.[127]181 There are also the state-owned Anadolu High School of Fine Arts[128] and four vocational high schools.[129]182

Transport

North Nicosia is a major transport hub in Northern Cyprus, where the highways from the other major cities of Northern Cyprus, Famagusta, Kyrenia and Morphou intersect.183 It is connected to the other cities with modern, four-lane highways: the D-30 highway from Morphou to Famagusta passes through Nicosia, D-25 to Kyrenia.[2]184 Ercan International Airport has been used for international flights.185 There is no train or metro system nor plans to develop one.186 In 2011, plans to build a tram system were put forward but rejected, yet the popular opinion is strongly in favour of establishing one.[130]187

North Nicosia has seen the construction of new highways and roads recently to solve its traffic problem, including the construction of two ringroads in the 2010s.188 One of these links the Metehan area and indirectly the Dereboyu region to Alayköy and indirectly the highway to Morphou, and was completed and opened to public traffic in 2014.[131]189 The other one, the Nicosia Northern Ringroad, is currently under construction and will connect D-30 from Famagusta to Morphou directly to D-25 from Kyrenia, preventing the entry of vehicles from Kyrenia going to the airport and from Famagusta to Kyrenia, Gönyeli or Morphou into the city.190 While the construction stalled for a time due to land disputes, the work on the project recommenced in 2018.[132][133][134]191

The company of LETTAŞ provides bus services in North Nicosia.[135]192 Buses are the only form of public transport available, and the system is considered unreliable due to the unplanned city growth, resulting in private cars being the primary means of transport.[136]193 There is a bus terminal in the region of Yenişehir.[137]194 The walled city has been facilitated to be easily navigable on foot, but the municipality has been criticised over the lack of a reliable system of public transport.[59]195

A bicycle-sharing system called Velespeed was introduced by the municipality in 2018.196 The system consists of 410 bicycles and stations for rental or drop-off placed across the city, within 15 minutes of cycling distance of one another.[138]197

Sports

North Nicosia hosts five out of the fourteen teams of the Turkish Cypriot Süper Lig, the top football division in Northern Cyprus: Çetinkaya, Yenicami, Küçük Kaymaklı, Gönyeli and Gençlik Gücü.[139]198 Çetinkaya is the most successful Turkish Cypriot team with 14 titles, and teams from Nicosia have won the majority of the trophies in the league.199 Çetinkaya is also the oldest member of the league, founded in 1930, and holds the distinction of having won the united Cypriot league prior to the division.200 There is also a large following of Turkish football teams in the city, with celebrations in the Dereboyu area for their victories.[140]201

The city annually hosts the Nicosia Marathon, to which over a thousand people participated in 2014, including leading political figures.202 The marathon passes through the city's popular avenues and landmarks with the categories of 4, 8 and 21 kilometres, the 4 km being regarded as a public walk.[141][142]203 Among the other sports events in the city is the Lefkoşa Open tennis tournament.[143]204 Lefkoşa Beach Volley Arena located in the city hosts the annual Zafer Beach Volleyball Cup that are part of the Turkish national cup.[144]205 In 2015, the city hosted the first Nicosia Youth and Sports Festival, encompassing a number of sports activities from 22 sports,[145] including a street basketball event, tennis, handball, shooting, boxing and table tennis tournaments.[146]206

North Nicosia is home to several sports venues.207 The center of sports in the city is considered to be the Atatürk Sports Complex, home of the Nicosia Atatürk Stadium, which is the biggest stadium in the island with a capacity of 28,000 people.208 The stadium is the home of Çetinkaya and Yenicami.[147]209 The sports complex also hosts the Atatürk Sports Hall, which functions as an arena for basketball, volleyball[148] and handball,[149] the Atatürk Indoor Swimming Pool, where popular swimming competitions are held with Turkish teams also participating,[150][151] tennis courts[152] and headquarters of the Turkish Cypriots sports federations of several branches.210 The complex also hosts an athlete training facility, and is accessible to disabled athletes.[153]211 The Nicosia Turkish Municipality is active in terms of building new sports facilities and has done so in the Metehan area,[154] with projects underway in the Hamitköy and Haspolat regions.[155]212

North Nicosia has hosted international sports organisations.213 It hosted the 9th Global Taekwondo Federation World Taekwondo Championship in 2013[156] and the Economic Cooperation Organization University Games in 2013.214 Its prospects of hosting and participating in many international tournaments are hindered by an international sports embargo.[157]215 It was also part of the annual Cyprus Rally in 2014, which garnered huge popular attention and attracted crowds.[158]216

The universities contribute significantly to the sports life of North Nicosia.217 The Near East University has the only Olympic pool in the island with an area of 2700 square meters, and over 12000 people have attended swimming courses in the pool.[159]218 It also has a modern sports hall and a health and wellness campus covering more than 2000 square meters.[160]219 Its synchronised swimming team carries out regular performances[161] and is active in several branches.[162]220 The CIU Arena of the Cyprus International University has a total area of 22,500 square metres and is the biggest integrated sports complex in Northern Cyprus.221 It hosts an indoor sports hall, an indoor swimming pool, tennis courts and other facilities from a beach handball arena to a climbing wall.[163]222 It also has the CIU Foxes teams, whose men's handball branch won the national league two times in a row.[164]223

International relations

See also: List of twin towns and sister cities in Northern Cyprus

North Nicosia is twinned with:224

See also

List of divided cities

United Nations Peacekeeping Force in Cyprus

External links

Nicosia Turkish Municipality website