Barsky Routes: Bridging Cyprus’ past and present through SMART heritage Tourism

BARSKY ROUTES is a 24-month research and innovation project coordinated by Citizens in Power (CIP) and funded by the Research and Innovation Foundation (RIF) of Cyprus under the EXCELLENCE HUBS programme of RESTART 2016–2020, with the co-funding of the European Union and the Republic of Cyprus. It brings together Social Sciences and Humanities (SSH) research, digital technologies and tourism innovation to develop a new model of narrative-based smart heritage tourism for Cyprus. 

The project starts from a remarkable historical source. Between 1734 and 1735, the Eastern Orthodox pilgrim-monk Vasilij Grigorovic Barsky (Vasyl Barsky, 1701?–1747) travelled on foot across Cyprus, visiting more than fifty monasteries and recording landscapes, sacred sites, communities, rituals and traditions in text and in drawings. His account is the most complete early-modern documentation of the island, yet it has never been systematically digitised, thematically annotated or integrated into a spatial-narrative framework. 

BARSKY ROUTES transforms Barsky’s textual and visual testimony into a structured, research-grade Digital Humanities corpus, reconstructs the routes he walked as an integrated cultural map of 18th-century Cyprus, and translates this material into an early-stage (TRL 4) smart heritage tourism prototype and an open knowledge platform. With Barsky as their interpretive guide, today’s visitors and residents can “see together” with a traveller who walked the same landscapes almost three centuries ago – reading, listening and seeing their way through the island’s layered heritage. 

The Challenge 

Tourism is one of Cyprus’s most important economic sectors, but it remains concentrated in a few coastal hubs and in the summer peak. This geographical and seasonal imbalance places pressure on infrastructure while leaving rural and mountain regions under-visited. The National Tourism Strategy 2030 of the Deputy Ministry of Tourism responds by envisioning Cyprus as a year-round, high-quality and digitally smart destination, prioritising slow and sustainable travel, stronger community engagement and the revitalisation of rural and mountain areas, and calling for new narrative-based and experiential forms of tourism. 

The digital tourism tools currently available in Cyprus do not yet meet this ambition. They remain largely site-centric and informational: they orient visitors and deliver facts, but they rarely interpret, and they seldom integrate historical voices, sustained narratives, emotional engagement or intangible heritage. “Experience” is often reduced to structured activities or paid workshops rather than encounters embedded in cultural landscapes, memories and personal stories. 

A parallel gap exists in research. Scholars have long recognised Barsky’s Cyprus corpus for its unusual empathy and precision, yet it has been approached almost entirely in fragments – passages or drawings extracted as isolated evidence. No study has treated his text, drawings, movement and observations as one coherent cultural-landscape narrative, and no Digital Humanities project has modelled them as a single interoperable dataset. BARSKY ROUTES addresses both gaps at once, demonstrating how humanities research can drive digital innovation and sustainable smart tourism. 

What the Project Does 

The project follows one integrated methodology in which scholarly interpretation, digital structuring and user-experience design reinforce one another, mirroring the multimodal character of Barsky’s own account. Work advances from TRL 1 to TRL 4 through five interconnected phases. 

Corpus preparation and scholarly analysis (WP3, led by the Archaeological Research Unit of the University of Cyprus). Barsky’s Cyprus account is segmented into 100–120 micro-narratives, each linked to a specific site or landscape feature, and annotated with a controlled vocabulary of 15–20 thematic tags based on the Getty Art & Architecture Thesaurus and aligned with CIDOC-CRM. Metadata records are created for his fifteen preserved Cypriot drawings and linked to the narrative, producing a FAIR-oriented, reusable SSH dataset. 

Narrative-based mapping and route reconstruction. At least fifty places described by Barsky are identified and geolocated, his itinerary is reconstructed as simple routes using narrative cues such as sequence, direction and walking times, and 30–40 intangible heritage elements – rituals, legends, crafts, foodways – are linked to the mapped sites. The result is the Cultural Mapping Dataset: the first integrated cultural map of Cyprus as recorded in the 18th century, compatible with standard mapping libraries. 

Prototype development (WP4, led by Green Horizon). The structured content is translated into a lightweight, user-friendly digital prototype offering an interactive map with three to five reconstructed routes, geolocated micro-narratives, digitised drawings, 10–15 audio segments, 8–10 short narrative videos, thematic filters and a simple, moderated participatory layer for visitors’ photos and comments. The prototype is refined through three iterations – Alpha, Beta and a TRL 4 validated version – and is complemented by an open knowledge platform giving web-based, map-driven access to the entire dataset. 

Pilot testing and evaluation (WP5, led by CIP). The prototype and platform are tested in three structured pilot cycles at four sites along Barsky’s reconstructed routes – one urban, one coastal, one rural and one mountain – with 40–60 tourists, residents, students and cultural stakeholders. The associated partners facilitate access to communities, cultural walks and bi-communal contacts. Findings on usability, interpretive clarity, landscape immersion and emotional response feed the final refinement of the prototype and a policy-oriented evaluation report. 

Dissemination, exploitation and legacy (WP2, led by CIP). Scientific dissemination, creative public outreach, Open Science and IPR management run throughout the project, ensuring that the Barsky dataset, the prototype and the methodology remain accessible and reusable well beyond the project’s duration. 

What the Project Will Deliver 

A structured multimodal Barsky corpus. The first semantically structured, FAIR-aligned dataset of Vasilij Barsky’s Cyprus material, combining annotated micro-narratives, drawing metadata with text–image links, and the Cultural Mapping Dataset of places, routes and thematic layers, released as open data wherever permissible. 

A TRL 4 validated smart heritage tourism prototype and an open knowledge platform. An immersive, multi-sensory digital experience built on layered storytelling, audio narration and visual interpretation, together with a long-term web platform for map-based exploration of the corpus, licensed for non-commercial cultural, educational and research use. 

Evidence for policy and practice. A Pilot Evaluation and Policy Recommendations Report addressed to the Deputy Ministry of Tourism and cultural authorities, a User Feedback and Behavioural Analysis Report, and a Best Practice Guide for Digital Cultural Routes explaining how historical travel accounts and multimodal heritage data can be turned into digital cultural routes. 

A transferable methodological framework for SSH-driven digital tourism innovation, documenting how narrative analysis, thematic tagging, visual-heritage metadata, cultural-landscape interpretation and user-centred design can be combined, and scalable to other historical travel accounts (such as the Excerpta Cypria) and to other regions. 

Scientific outputs. Four peer-reviewed publications, presentations at major international conferences in Digital Humanities, archaeology, heritage and cultural tourism, and a hybrid Final Scientific Event in Cyprus. 

Public-facing outputs. The “Across Cyprus with Barsky” micro-documentary series (8–10 short films), a travelling exhibition for schools, small museums and communities, the social-media storytelling campaigns #Barsky&Me and #CyprusThenAndNow, and participation in Cultural Heritage Days, Researchers’ Night and local tourism festivals. 

The Partnership 

BARSKY ROUTES is implemented by a compact interdisciplinary consortium of three Cypriot organisations that deliberately spans the research, industry and societal sectors, supported by four associated partners rooted in the island’s regions and communities. 

Citizens in Power (CIP) – Host Organisation and Coordinator. A research-performing non-profit organisation specialising in social innovation, cultural mediation, community engagement and inclusive educational design, CIP leads project management, dissemination and exploitation, and pilot testing, and acts as the bridge between SSH research, tourism actors and local communities. 

University of Cyprus – Archaeological Research Unit (UCY–ARU) – Scientific Lead. One of the island’s foremost centres for archaeological and heritage research, the ARU implements the project through its ArtLandS Lab, directed by Prof. Athanasios Vionis, which specialises in landscape archaeology, settlement history and the long-term interaction between people and their environment. UCY–ARU leads the creation of the structured Barsky corpus, metadata design, mapping and scholarly validation, and leads academic dissemination. 

Green Horizon (GH) – Technical Lead. An educational and research SME based in Nicosia with expertise in digital innovation, inclusive education, sustainability and community engagement, GH leads the technical development of the prototype – database, mobile interface design, UX/UI and the integration of narrative, spatial and multimedia components – and supports testing and refinement. 

Associated partners. The Larnaka Tourism Board contributes expertise on visitor needs, smart-tourism practice and regional dissemination; the Larnaka Archives – Phivos Stavrides Foundation provides historical depth and socio-cultural insight, linking Barsky’s account to the cultural memory of Larnaka and supporting bi-communal engagement; the Susko Foundation brings the Ukrainian community into the heart of the project, supporting cultural diplomacy, translation and outreach; and the MountMed Institute anchors the initiative in the Troodos mountain region. Together they support pilot testing and community engagement across urban, coastal, rural and mountain areas.