Kayaköy (“kaya-“ = rock, “-köy” = village) is an abandoned village 8 km south of Fethiye in southwestern Turkey. Formerly part of the ancient province of Lycia it was known as Livissi.
Records state that the village was a thriving community until the early 1920s. That Greek Orthodox Christians but also Anatolian Muslims had lived here mainly in harmony since its origins in the 14th Century. The Muslims, who lived on the surrounding valley floor of the Kaya Valley, tended to be farmers, while the Christians, who inhabited the hillside, were mostly craftsmen. The two communities were closely linked by trade and helped each other in times of need. Christian and Muslim women exchanged food and sweets at weddings and religious festivities, Muslim musicians played at Orthodox festivities and took part in wrestling matches during Easter celebrations, children played together in the lanes, and men of both religions congregated at local cafés, rolling their “tesbih” (beads) between their fingers, smoking water pipes and cigarettes, and playing backgammon.
Following the Greco-Turkish War between 1919–1922, and the subsequent Treaty of Lausanne in 1923, the Greek-Turkish population exchange began. The treaty required that any Orthodox Christian citizens of Turkey leave their homes for Greece and, vice versa, that Greece's Muslim citizens leave Greece, their home, for Turkey. The treaty also permanently barred any of the exchanged citizens to return to their homes.
The Greek Orthodox residents of Livissi were exiled. The Muslims, who were exiled from Greece and settled in Livissi, found the land uninhabitable and soon decamped, leaving the hillside village abandoned for a second time.
In 1957, a 7.1 magnitude earthquake gave Kayaköy its final blow, destroying most of the town’s buildings.
Today the ruins are a historical monument and serve as a museum. There are around 500 houses, including two Greek Orthodox Churches (1st and 8th slide). There is also a private museum on the history of the village.
The poignancy of Kayakoy is a “bittersweet reminder of the fragility of harmony between cultures – and in many ways, of the fragility of existence itself.”