‘Iconic Dome’ documentary
A NOSTALGIC documentary by two Lefkoşa journalists of the chequered history of Girne’s Dome Hotel premiered at the iconic seaside venue on Tuesday.
Bayrak Radio and TV’s Simge Çerkezoğlu and Mehmet Alasya filmed Costas Zambarloukos, grandson of hotel founder Costas Catsellis, interviewed former staff and sourced archive shots.
Billed as a “proud tribute to human endeavour”, the film also pays tribute to current Turkish Cypriot unionworker management as their 10-year Evkaf lease awaits renewal.
Ms Çerkezoğlu said: “We soon discovered that many fear the current arrangement could be trumped by a higher bid from a big Turkish company.”
The Tourism Workers’ Union (TES) and a Dome Hotel workers’ company currently run the hotel under a 2008 agreement.
Mr Zambarloukos reminisced: “My grandfather went to America aged 18, worked in a restaurant and returned with a dream for Kyrenia. Catsellis is slang for a hard worker — ‘like a cow’.
“He started the 12room Sea View Hotel in 1922 before his 1932 dream, the Catsellis Dome Hotel, a design based on Antiphonitis Monastery by his friend, elderly British architect William Douglas Caröe.
“All the rooms were different and guests always came back for their favourite room. It was the place for afternoon tea. Everyone loved
it.”
Former post-1974 hotel manager Mete Hatay added: “It was popular with the British and local society and ready for the start of cruise tourism, but it was the eve of WWII and hotel guests were rich European Jewish refugees en route to Palestine.
“Everyone here has fond memories of the Dome Hotel and it stands for Cypriot self-determination.”
Despite hopes of prosperity in the 1960s, the hotel became home to thousands of Greek Cypriots and foreign refugees in July 1974, just as Mr Catsellis planned a second hotel nearby.
Mr Zambarloukos said: “There were seven or eight to a room, the hotel was crammed but community spirit was good. We had soldiers on guard by the pool but we had a doctor, lessons for the children and Red Cross supplies.
“The Atatürk monument was built where my grandfather hoped to build Dome Hotel 2. Most of the refugees gradually left or were taken to Bellapais. I was the last of my family to leave.”
Retired Turkish naval officer Mesut Günsev remembered taking the young Mr Zambarloukos and his friend away from the hotel in 1975.
The hotel became Evkaf property under the Turkish Federated State of Cyprus and waiter Tansev Erekoğlu, one of many who started work post-’74, shared pictures of himself with customers, adding: “Everyone came to the Dome. It always had its own style.
“We met everyone from Süleyman Demirel to Tansu Çiller and Turkish artists like Hülya Avşar. We used to do a special Sultan’s Dinner and fan people!”
Challenged in the mid-2000s by competition, rising debt and strikes over autonomy or possible privatisation, a 2008 deal for unionworker management won popular support to continue dispensing a 70year-old recipe of Cypriot management and hospitality.
Mr Zambarloukos said: “I am happy that Evkaf saved it and that it keeps going. It is still a symbol and part of the history of the town.”
With Sadness and Pride: The Story of the
Dome Hotel is to be screened in cinemas across the island and in the buffer zone.
‘No secret Dome Hotel deal has been made’