Dervish Pasha Mension

The owner of this two storey mansion built in the 19th century was Dervish Pasha, the publisher of "Zaman" – the first Turkish newspaper in Cyprus.

The mansion is in the Arap Ahmet region of Nicosia: this is the region of the walled city which has preserved the fabric of the historical environment most intensely. The mansion has two entrances. On the main entrance, the year 1219 of the Muslim Calendar (1807) is visible. The ground floor has been constructed of stone and the upper floor of sundried brick.

The year 1869 is visible on the ornamented ceiling of the main room which is a later addition to the building. The mansion has an ‘L’ shape with a large inner courtyard. The rooms on the ground floor open to terraced pavilions ringing the inner courtyard. A wooden staircase supported by the water reservoir in the courtyard leads to the upper floor where all the doors open to a covered porch.

After the restoration work between 1978-88, the mansion was opened as a ‘museum-house’ or a museum of ethnograpy on 21 March 1988. It includes a main-room, a bride-room, a dining-room, and a section where items of daily use are being exhibited.