On your way from Agios Nikolaos to Paphos, through the valley of Diarizos and then the Kidasi village, you will find two huge rocks. The road passes through them thus getting a lot narrower. These rocks have a very interesting history.
The area in which they are found is one of the most beautiful part of the valley of Diarizos. It has rich plantation with high trees on which it climbs.
The river has created a magnificent landscape for all of us and it can welcome dozens of excursionists. You will see groups of young people camping on the shores of the river all year round.
The highest rock with its vertical slopes receives hundreds of daring people for climbing.
We almost lost this truly fantastic place a few years ago. The government, under the pressure of the European Union planned and started executing widening works on the entire road, that leads from Kouklia to Paphos to Troodos, so that the European citizens could move easier, thus being indifferent about the environmental and historical destruction that would occur from this project.
The bulldozers and the machinery for the coating of the asphalt had gone a few metres from the rocks, and there, they found chained up activists that did not allow them to blow up the rocks, neither the cutting of hundreds of trees. The plans of the new road also demanded the transfer of the riverbed, a few hundred metres more to the south, that would result to the complete destruction of the biodiversity of the ecosystem that was formed by the river itself in millions of years.
The same government that did not succeed to create the Arminou dam in the unique for its beauty gorge of Diarizos and was obliged to change place by the same activists, thus saving a unique ecosystem for Cyprus, came to the same valley to destroy another ecosystem of unique beauty and importance.
The activists’ action after many days of manifestations, obliged the government to leave the place as the river and nature created it for us all to enjoy it today, as well as the future generations of Cypriots and not only.
It would be unfair if we did not express our thankfulness as world citizens to Mr Georgios Perdikis, who was the main factor of saviour of the rocks of Chasampoulion and the whole area.
What is the story behind the two rocks? Why are they so important apart from the great ecological importance they have and why did a certain amount of people fight for their non destruction?
The answer is given by the history of a Turkish Cypriot family from the Limassol district and the village of Episkopi, that after the transfer of the island from the Turks to England, they moved to the Mamonia village belonging to the district of Paphos.
This family had 3 boys and one girl, all thieves. With their actions, they terrified the population, Greeks and Turks, by robbing them and in some cases they continued with murder.
Their purlieu was on the greatest rock and from there they surveilled from far away the road that lead from and to Paphos. When they saw the passers, they got down from the rock, they violated them and robbed them.
Their action stopped when an English gendarme met the elder brother and after an exchange of bullets the thief was killed. Later on both of the two brothers were lead to jail.
From then the rocks were named after this family’s name “The rocks of Chasampoulion” and are part of the history of this island.
Watch the video of our visit:
