By Chris Elliott…….
We have received news from Oya Kutsal of a book-signing event which will be held on 24th January at the Pia Bella hotel at 17.00pm where there will be a guest speaker from Turkey, Serif Yenen, who 
is well known for his lectures on Turkey’s history, culture and tourism. He is a writer and a tourism expert. The sponsors for the book signing event are TEKNOGOLD and the Pia Bella Hotel and the book was sponsored by Civic Space which is financially supported by the EU.
This book “A Country with Abandoned History” which is free, is part of a project Oya formed which is in 3 parts and consists of the book which includes the abandoned historical monuments in Northern Cyprus together with an Exhibition called “Tanti’s Bath” and a documentary film and the sponsors were Kyrenia Municipality, TEKNOGOLD and the Ministry of Tourism.
The presenter of the book and documentary evening is Yonca Kani Oguz.
Oya Kutsal told us “What is so special about this project is many volunteers took part in it by doing what they are best at. The book event will be arranged by Ayperi Pasaoglu who is an architect from Kyrenia. Whoever I went to for support people happily accepted it and about 60 volunteers contributed to this project”.
The exhibition was first held on 24th November at the Lefkosa, Bedesten and the historic Tanti’s Bath was chosen as a studio where professional photographers used to give messages about historical monuments in the north of Cyprus. The bath represented all the monuments. The participants were all well known people of North Cyprus.
The book was created by a team that includes Oya Kutsal, Sibel Ozmenek, Mehmet Altuner and Plumer Osman with photographs by many photographers whose work includes historical monuments contributed to the book.
The documentary film was prepared by professional volunteers and led by the director Ferhat Atik, with narration by a famous Cypriot actor who lives in Istanbul, Huseyin Koroglu. The original music of the documentary has been composed by the world famous guitarist Okan Ersan and English subtitles are by Peral Onuralp.
Tandi’s Bath is an Ottoman hamam in Nicosia built in the early 1900s and there is more about it including a 3D navigable model created by Marios Avraamides of the buildings site to help a group of volunteers, led by Oya Kutsal, to raise awareness about this true gem of cultural heritage and voice the need for restoring it to its original condition. Please click here to view.
For Facebook users there is also more information and pictures of the people involved in the preservation project to be found on the Tantisbaths Facebook page by clicking here .
