In southwestern Turkey, on the Aegean coast, lies an unusual town where time seems to have stood still more than a century ago. Kayaköy, once known as Levissi, is today a ghost town with around 2,500 stone houses, narrow alleys, churches and abandoned buildings, which bear witness to the painful history of a vanished community.
Situated on a hill in Muğla province, Kayaköy was a lively settlement in the early 1920s, with at least 10 inhabitants, mostly Greek Orthodox Christians. Many of them engaged in crafts, trade, and shoemaking, while maintaining relatively peaceful relations with the area's Muslim Turkish population.
But the Greco-Turkish War, which ended in 1922, forever changed the fate of this city.
As part of the forced population exchange agreement between Greece and Turkey, thousands of Orthodox residents of Kayakoy were forced to leave their homes and move to Greece. They were replaced by Turkish Muslim families from Kavala, a city in what is now the Eastern Macedonia and Thrace region of Greece.
However, life in the new settlement did not turn out as the newcomers had imagined. A large part of them did not adapt to the conditions and environment of Kayaköy, so they gradually left. Thus, the city remained almost abandoned and the buildings began to collapse over the years.
Only a few Turkish families of Greek origin decided to stay. Among them was Aysun Ekiz's family, whose grandparents settled in the area. Today, she runs a small restaurant near the entrance to the city and sells handmade jewelry to tourists.
But behind this tourist spot lies a painful history, passed down from generation to generation through family memories.
"The Greeks were crying because they didn't want to leave," says Aysun Ekiz, relaying her grandparents' stories to CNN.
According to these testimonies, some Orthodox families, convinced that they would one day return to their homes, entrusted their children to Turkish friends, in the hope that they would be taken back when they returned. But this return never happened.
Today, Kayaköy remains a living testament to the human consequences of wars and political decisions. Behind the ruined walls, silent churches and roofless houses lies the story of thousands of people who were forced to leave behind not only their properties but also the lives they had built over generations.
