Before the Turkish invasion of 1974, Chrysochou was a Turkish Cypriot (TC) village just south of Polis. This is a view of its mosque, taken from an old graveyard on the other side of the main Paphos - Polis road.

We first visited here eight years ago, and you can read about that in the link below. Recently, we noticed that the area had been cleared a bit, so we returned to check the graveyard was still ok.

Read our original article on Chrysochou Cemetery

We parked where we parked in 2018. Initially, not a lot had changed. Compare these two pictures. The above is now...

In 2018 it didn't look much different. Don't worry, the graveyard is a lot bigger than this, and there is some new stuff to see. You might be puzzled as to why the graveyard is so overgrown though. This is because after 1974, the inhabitants of the village were moved to the Turkish-controlled area of Cyprus. The following comes from the PRIO database which tracks displacement.

Chrysochou or Hirsofu (for Turkish Cypriots) is a village in the Chrysochou valley of Paphos district, located four kilometers south of Polis. According to Goodwin, Chrysokhou was named after its first settler, a goldsmith. Chryso means “gold” in Greek. The name of the village could also be interpreted as “golden land,” (khrysoskhous). Turkish Cypriots adopted the alternative name Altıncık in 1958, meaning “little gold.”

Historical Population:

...Chrysochou was a Turkish Cypriot village from the Ottoman period. Throughout the British period the village’s population fluctuated constantly, but did not really increase.

Displacement:

No one was displaced from this village either during the emergency years of 1950s, or during the intercommunal fighting of 1963-64. However, the village received many displaced persons from nearby villages such as Loukrounou/Olukönü(318), Lapithiou/Bozalan(316) and Polis(332). Richard Patrick recorded 35 displaced Turkish Cypriots still residing in Chrysochou/Altıncık village in 1971. He also put the total population at 367.

Following the division of the island in 1974, all the villagers of Chrysochou/Altıncık and the displaced persons living in that village fled to the north. This movement took place in two phases. In the first phase, almost 140 of the villagers fled secretly over the mountains to the Turkish-controlled north in late 1974 and early 1975. In the second phase, the remaining 222 villagers were evacuated to the northern part of the divide under UNFICYP escort on 12 August 1975. They were mainly resettled in Katokopia/Zümrütköy(048) and Nikitas/Güneşköy(075) in the Morphou/Güzelyurt area. Some of them were also resettled in Masari/Şahinler(068) village and Famagusta(140) town. The number of the original Chrysochou/Altıncık Turkish Cypriots who were displaced after 1974 was around 320-30 (308 in 1960 census).

Current Inhabitants:

After the departure of the Turkish Cypriots, the village was used for the settlement of some displaced Greek Cypriots from the island’s north. The 2001 census put the total population of the village at 52.

So that is why the graveyard hasn't been maintained. All the original inhabitants were shipped away. Unlike a lot of old Turkish Cypriot villages, which are now abandoned and in complete ruin, Chrysochou itself has survived and the population (according to the 2021 census) is now at 116.