Kayakoy (Ghost Town)

Kayaköy is a settlement known in antiquity as Karmylassos, and in later centuries as Levissi, inhabited for centuries by Anatolian Greeks. With the Turkish-Greek Population Exchange carried out in 1923 under the Treaty of Lausanne, the village's Greek population emigrated to Greece, and the village was left almost entirely empty. Never resettled, the village suffered further damage in the major earthquake that struck the region in 1957, and over time it came to be known as the "Ghost Village." Today, hundreds of stone houses lined up along the hillside, two large churches (Panayia Pyrgiotissa and Taxiarchis), and small chapels still stand in the village. Although most of the structures are roofless and empty, they carry the characteristic features of Greek architecture into the present day. Protected by the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, the village is open to visitors with open-air museum status. Kayaköy is both a tangible witness to the great population movements of the early 20th century and, with its silent streets offering a thought-provoking atmosphere, one of the most distinctive cultural stops in the Fethiye region.