By Engin Dervişağa…….
I am delighted together with my colleague Qossay Eleyan to bring you our interesting report on “Discovering North Cyprus” from the ancient city walls of Lefkosa/Nicosia, which is the capital city of Cyprus.
In 1567, the Venetians commissioned the Italian military engineers, Giulio Savorgnano and Francesco Barbaro, to design and build new fortifications for the city to protect the inhabitants from imminent Ottoman attack.
The new walls replaced the old-style medieval fortifications which engineers thought were inadequate to defend the city. At the same time, the Pedieos River was diverted outside the city either in order to protect the residents from flooding or in order to flood the moat, which encircled the new city walls.
The Venetian walls around the capital city has a circumference of 3 miles, and contains eleven pentagon-shaped bastions named after eleven families who were , pillars of the Italian aristocracy of the town and donated funds towards the construction of the walls and the three gates. These gates were Porta San Domenico (Paphos Gate), Porta Guiliana (Famagusta Gate), and Porta del Proveditore (Kyrenia Gate).
These fortifications were unsuccessful and the city fell to the forces of the Ottoman admiral, Lala Mustafa Pasha in 1570 before the Venetians had completed their construction. The Ottomans captured the bastions almost intact, and they remained almost unchanged untill the British era.
This show will be transmitted on BRT2 on Monday 10th April at 19.00pm and repeated on Sunday 16th April at 12.20pm.
To go direct to BRT2 TV to watch these shows by live streaming on your PC at Cyprus local time click here and select the BRT2 channel in the viewing screen.
I also produce the Vox Pop TV show which features interviews with many people living in North Cyprus and this is screened on BRT2 on Sundays at 15.oopm and again on Tuesdays at 18.30pm If you wish you can also watch a number of my past Vox Pop shows which can be selected for viewing by clicking here
For Radio Lovers do also tune in and join me on BRT Radio on Saturday at 19.00pm for my programme Top Twenty which is compiled by DJ Bora and this show is repeated on Sunday at 15.00pm. We are transmitting this on 6.150 MH/z. Short-wave, 87.8 and 105 FM Stereo.
You can also tune in to live streaming of this radio show on your PC by clicking here and select FM105 Bayrak International.
