Peloton Apologizes and Pulls a Halloween 'Varosha Ride' After Greek American Group Says It Treated a Cypriot Ghost Town Like a Haunted Park
The company calls the class 'an oversight that does not reflect our values' and promises a stronger editorial review. The district has been fenced off since 1974.
Peloton has removed a Halloween scenic ride set in Varosha and apologized, Breitbart News reports, citing a report published Friday.
The ride. The 15-minute class, with no instructor, was added on Oct. 28 to Peloton's Halloween collection, a run of 21 themed workouts marketed as "Too good to ghost." Any class in the collection counted toward a badge available through Halloween. Another ride in the same rotation featured Bran Castle in Romania, a Savannah cemetery, Goli Otok prison island, a Colorado mine and a storm at sea.
The complaint. Endy Zemenides, executive director of the Hellenic American Leadership Council, said Thursday the ride made light of a Cypriot city emptied by Turkish troops in 1974. "Varosha is not a haunted amusement park," he wrote. Families lived there before the invasion, he said, and the residents who fled have never been allowed back, so the homes and hotels "are not Halloween props." He noted that other scenic classes open with a short narrated introduction, and that this one could have explained why nobody lives there. He suggested Greek Cypriot-side locations such as the Akamas Peninsula, the Troodos Mountains and Paphos.
The response. Lena Argiri, Washington correspondent for Greek broadcaster ERT and Kathimerini, posted Peloton's answer: the class was "an oversight that does not reflect our values," and the company would strengthen its editorial review process.
The background. Famagusta's fenced-off suburb has sat empty for 52 years. Breitbart says the U.N. Security Council has named it in two resolutions, 550 in 1984 and 789 in 1992, and called settlement by anyone other than its original residents "inadmissible." The district is part of current talks: Cypriot President Nikos Christodoulides wants the fenced zone handed to the U.N. and Famagusta's port opened to direct trade under EU supervision, and Turkish Cypriot leader Tufan Erhurman said Oct. 21 he rejected the package as unbalanced.
Note for readers: Breitbart's page links this story to the Alaska Senate race through its tags, but nothing in the report connects the two, and we do not either. The criticism comes from one advocacy group; Peloton's statement was relayed through a journalist, not a published release.