Kayaköy (Livissi) — the ghost town above Fethiye

OVERVIEW

Kayaköy, the Greek Livissi (ancient Karmylessos), is a neighbourhood of Fethiye in Muğla Province, 8 km south of the town. Hundreds of rundown but mostly standing Greek-style houses and churches cover a small mountainside; the village is empty except for tour groups and roadside vendors, with a few restored houses lived in.

HISTORY

Greek-speaking Christians and their Muslim Ottoman rulers lived in relative harmony here from the 14th century until the early 20th. The massacres of Greeks and other Christians in the Ottoman Empire during the First World War almost emptied the town of its 6,500 people, and after the Greco-Turkish War and the Treaty of Lausanne in 1923 its remaining Greek Orthodox residents were exiled. More than 20 churches and chapels had been built in the village and the plain.

REPORTED ACTIVITY

LEGEND. Most Turks and Muslims sent from Greece in the exchange were settled in empty Greek towns, but they would not settle Livissi because of rumours that it was 'infested with the ghosts of Livisians massacred in 1915'. The claim year is the exchange of 1923, approximate. The article records the rumour, not sightings.

VISITING

A museum village and a stopping place for tourists visiting Fethiye and nearby Ölüdeniz.