On the day of Katie Cleridou’s passing, Politis to the Point visited the Centre of Visual Arts and Research (CVAR), located on Ermou Street in the heart of Nicosia’s walled city, for an interview with a Swedish official. Opened in 2014, the CVAR is home to the Costas and Rita Severis Collections, which include paintings, antique costumes, and memorabilia related to Cyprus and its neighbours. Today it stands as one of the island’s finest cultural archives, a place where visitors can walk through history and experience the magnificent views once described by travellers and chroniclers centuries ago.
That day, the walk through history became deeply personal. As the door to a private room opened, we came across the smiling look of Katie, her photograph resting on the desk of her father, former President Glafcos Clerides. On the wall hung his portrait; around him, tokens of a long public life and some three thousand books, his personal library, which his daughter had donated to the Centre. It was a quietly powerful moment, not only because it happened on the day of her death, but because of the humanity that lingered in the room.
Amid the wealth of knowledge -the archives of a country's memory- the most touching sight was also the simplest: a father’s desk, watched over by two photographs, on the left of his wife and on the right of his daughter smiling at him. A silent, timeless exchange between two people who served Cyprus with dignity, intellect, and love for the Republic of Cyprus. May their memory be eternal.