Greek American Group on Peloton’s ‘Varosha Ride’: ‘Not a Haunted Amusement Park’

Hellenic American Leadership Council (HALC) executive director Endy Zemenides said Thursday that Peloton’s Halloween-themed “Varosha Ride” trivializes a Cypriot ghost city emptied by Turkey’s 1974 invasion, according to a thread he posted on X.

The 15-minute scenic ride arrived in Peloton’s Halloween collection on Wednesday with no instructor attached. Classes in that collection count toward a badge challenge that runs through Saturday.

Peloton promoted the season with the line “Too good to ghost.” The company rolled out 21 Halloween classes between Oct. 21 and Saturday, among them six scenic rides and runs.

Zemenides, who leads the Chicago-based Greek American advocacy group, said the fenced-off suburb of Famagusta has stood empty since Turkish troops advanced in 1974.

“Varosha is not a haunted amusement park,” he wrote.

The abandoned homes, hotels and streets “are not Halloween props,” the HALC executive director added. He said real families lived in those buildings. They fled, and none have been allowed back.

Varosha also appears as one of six stops in a 30-minute scenic Halloween ride released the same day, alongside Romania’s Bran Castle, a Savannah cemetery, Colorado’s Last Chance Mines, a stormy sea, and Goli Otok, a former Yugoslav political prison.

“It wasn’t Disney or Six Flags that made Varosha a ghost town,” the advocate wrote, attributing the city’s condition to the invading Turkish army.

The HALC director said the fix is straightforward. Peloton opens other rides with an introductory note, he said, and this one could explain why the city emptied. He named alternatives too, among them the Akamas Peninsula, the Troodos Mountains, and the coast at Paphos.

Two Security Council resolutions name Varosha directly. Resolution 550 passed in 1984, Resolution 789 in 1992. The council has called any attempt to settle the area with people other than its inhabitants “inadmissible.” In 2021 it called for the reversal of every step taken there since October 2020.

Cypriot President Nikos Christodoulides has called Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan the “great obstacle” to a settlement, saying the Turkish leader insists on terms outside the U.N. framework.

Varosha is live in the talks right now. Christodoulides has proposed handing the fenced-off area to U.N. administration and opening Famagusta port under European Union control. Turkish Cypriot leader Tufan Erhurman rejected the package as unbalanced.

Rep.

(R-NY) cited Cyprus in July in opposing the sale of F-35 fighter jets to Turkey, saying Erdogan “continues to illegally occupy part of Cyprus.”