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Kayaköy (Greek: Levissi) is a village 8 km south of Fethiye in southwestern Turkey where Anatolian Greeks lived until approximately 1923. The ghost town, now preserved as a museum village, consists of hundreds of rundown but still mostly intact Greek-style houses and churches which cover a small mountainside and serve as a stopping place for tourists visiting Fethiye and nearby Ölüdeniz.
It was built on the site of the ancient city of Carmylessus in the 1700s. It experienced a renewal after nearby Fethiye (known as Makri) was devastated by an earthquake in 1856 and a major fire in 1885. After the Greco-Turkish War, Kayaköy was largely abandoned after a population exchange agreement was signed by the Turkish and Greek governments in 1923.
Its population in 1900 was about 2,000, almost all Greek Christians; however, it is now empty except for tour groups and roadside vendors selling handmade goods and items scavenged from the former village.
Kayaköy is presumed to be the inspiration behind "Eskişehir", the imaginary village chosen by Louis de Bernières as the setting of his 2004 novel Birds Without Wings.
Kayaköy (Karmylassos), Greek people used to live in peace under the rule of the Ottoman Empire. There used to be about 3000 buildings, 5 doctors, 3 pharmacies, 1 school, 2 big churches, more than 10 small monastries. The settling of this village (the Greek settlement) date the 15th century. The small church downtown, dates 1888. The other church (the bigger one up the hill) said to be built before the small one.
In January 30 1923, there was a population exchange agreement between Turkish-Greek governments. According to this agreement, the Greek people living in Turkey would be sent to Greece and the Turkish people in Greece would be sent to Turkey. The Greek people here, by this agreement, went back to Greece; but the Turkish people living in Greece didn't want to come back to Turkey, because the Greek government did not want to pay the indemnity for any of the goods, lands, or the houses they owned in Greece. So that, the houses which were reserved for the Turkish residence, waited for a long time with allowing noone in.
Later on, the big earthquakes that shaked Fethiye Region (especially the one in 1957), really damaged the houses, and the local people used the damaged parts of the houses in their own buildings. That's why the old city is now looking like a ghost town. A long time noone allowed to use the houses, and the local people built their own houses, keeping the old ones empty. Kayaköy is not a far place from Fethiye.
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