Marathovounos (Greek: Μαραθόβουνος, Turkish: Ulukışla) is a village in the Famagusta District of central Cyprus.
[2][3] Marathovounos was built on a hillock called Vounos (Greek for hill) on the northern edge of the Massaoria plain.
In the early 1820s Greek Cypriots found refuge in the caves around the hillock of Vouno from Agia Paraskevi a nearby village to the north which had been established in 1571.
[5] This was after a wave of massacres that were inflicted on the Greek Cypriots throughout the island by the Ottoman administrators who feared that there would be a similar uprising for independence as it occurred in Greece in 1821.
[8] The pressure on the Greeks from the Turkish authorities forced young couples to take the decision to shift to spare themselves the vilification and oppression.
[10] The main income of Marathovounos’ was from agriculture through the growth of wheat and barley and the farming of sheep and cattle.
[citation needed] In 1976 and 1977 Turkish families immigrated from the Kozan and Feke districts of the Adana region of Turkey.
[16] People from Marathovounos who have found international fame include the modern painter Christophoros Sava (1924-1968)[17] and the late Archbishop of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of Thyateira and Great Britain, Gregorios.