History of the Village

The town of St. Amvrosios is located 20 miles east of Kyrenia. It is surrounded by green valleys, the Pentadaktylos mountain range and the beautiful coast of the Mediterranean sea. Before 1974 it had more than 3,000 residents. The famous apricots (Chrysomila) were its main produce and underpinned the economy and social life of the village.

The village was designed in such a way that all main roads started from the edges of the village, ended up in the massive Village square which was the Heart of Ayios Amvrosios. Here were all the main coffee bars where men would sip their coffees and play cards, there was the main supermarket coop(Sinergatiko), other retail outlets, barber and taylor shops etc. However the most magnificent building was undoubtedly the massive and architecturally brilliant, church of Ayios Amvrosios. The church has two bell towers. The old bell tower with one of the sweetest sounding bells in Cyprus. Click Kambana to hear the original bell. The new tower was build on top of the old one later on  with its own ‘new’ bell, which unfortunately was no match of the old one.

Ayios Amvrosios was a small paradise on earth. It was surrounded by breathtaking nature, the blue sea on the north side and and the ever green pine and cypress forest and rocky cliffs of Pendadaktylos on the north. On either side – South and west of it were many beautiful valleys full of aprico, olive groves and many other trees and plants. The inhabitants, were mostly farmers. They produced almost everything, olives, olive oil, carobs  greins, all types of fruit, wild mashroups, asparagus, green and the list goes on. However the most celebrated of all the produce of Ayios Amvrosios was its apricot. This was famous throughout Cyprus for its unique taste and the many of its varieties were used for different things other than just a juicy fruit, if for jam, conserve, dried etc. Such was its importance to the village and its people both financially and in terms of prestige that the municipality was organising every year an Apricot festival to celebrate this great product. Of course no festival would be complete without a music and folk dancing and the Ayiamvrosites created an apricot song and a unique apricot dance that became the pinacle of the event.

Trizoira

This is the traditional game undertaken every year at Easter.  This was enjoyed by many generations up until 1974, when the Turkish invasion brutally disrupted such activities.  This event was unique to Ayios Amvrosios  throughout the entire Island. The Easter tradition of Trizo-gyra in Agios Amvrosios. Trizogyra is made of Trizogyra is made with a straight pine tree approximately 75 feet long. They cut 8 feet from the thick side of the pine and they bury 3ft underground. Then they make a hole on the tree’s thick side while they narrow the pole edge to fit in the hole. One person is then seated on the thin side of the tree and up to eight on the thick and thus forcing the thin side to elevate. Then they begin rolling the whole thing with extreme speed. The movement produces a very loud sound because of the addition of carbon and petroleum inside the hole.