Tuesday ın Safranbolu

I found Safranbolu quite by accident. I wanted to meet Kitty and Claudia in Istanbul on Friday and I needed to find a place to stay for the 3-4 intervening days. So I picked up the Turkey Guide at the hostel and looked at the map for towns between Cappadocia and Istanbul. Someone had previously circled Safranbolu, so I read:
"During the 17th century, the main Ottoman trade route between Gerede and the Black Sea coast passed through Safranbolu, bringing commerce, prominence and money to the town. During the 18th and 19th centuries Safranbolu's wealthy inhabitants built mansions of sun-dried mud-bricks, wood and stucco, while the larger population of prosperous artisans built less impressive but similarly sturdy homes. Safranbolu owes its fame to the large numbers of these dwellings that have survived.
"The most prosperous Safranbolulus maintained two households. In winter they occupied town houses in the Carsi (Market) district, which is situated at the meeting point of three valleys and so protected from the winter winds. During the warm months they moved to summer houses in the garden suburb of Baglar (Vineyards). When the iron and steelworks at Karabuk were established in 1938, modern factory houses started to encroach on Baglar, but Carsi has remained virtually untouched. During the 19th century about 20% of Safranbolu's inhabitants were Ottoman Greeks, but most of their descendants moved to Greece during the population exchange after WWI."

I looked at pictures on the internet and was convinced. I booked the $28 bus trip from Cappadocia to Safranbolu for Monday. The 8 ½ hour ride took me mostly through open plains and farmlands, past numerous small towns with red tile-roofed houses tucked against hillsides or among green pastures. For nearly an hour we rode along the shore a great salt lake, the white shore on the far side looking more like a long, thin white cloud floating above it than land. In the last two hours the land began to undulate, mountains slowly appearing out of plains, forests replacing fields. At last we dipped and turned into a valley. We left the bus and entered a private van. The pavement soon disappeared and was replaced by cobbled roads as we curved 'round and down. The 21st century faded behind us and we entered an old world.

No matter that I had read, "Just walking through Carsi is a feast for the eyes. . . Safranbolu is universally acknowledged to contain the country's single finest collection of pre-independence domestic architecture." I still was not prepared for the feast. Walking Safranbolu's narrow cobbled streets is a walk through the 17th century. Women in colorful head scarves sit chatting on stools and doing handwork outside their picturesque homes; men and women sell their goods from small shops in the old caravanserai, the walkway covered by tarps tied up and across and meeting each other in the middle. Even the one internet shop doesn't disturb the sense of timelessness here. No flashing lights advertising "Internet". Instead, a wooden sign blends into the building's exterior and states quietly "Pasa Internet."

Rather than re-creating the wheel to describe the house I'm staying in, I'll once again quote from the guidebook: "Ottoman wooden houses generally had two or three storeys, the upper storeys jutting out over the lower ones on carved corbels (brackets). Their timber frames were filled with adobe and then plastered with a mixture of mud and straw. Sometimes the houses were left unsealed, but in towns they were usually given a finish of plaster or whitewash, with decorative flourishes in plaster or wood. The wealthier the owner, the fancier the decoration.
"Inside, the larger houses had 10-12 rooms, divided into selamik (men's quarters) and haremlik (women's quarters). Rooms were often decorated with built-in niches and cupboards, and had fine plaster fireplaces with yasmaks (conical hoods). Sometimes the ceilings were very elaborate; that of the Pasa Odasi of Tokat's Latifoglu Konagi, for example, is thought to emulate a chandelier in wood.
"Details to look out for inside the Safranbolu houses include their hayats (courtyard areas where the animals lived and tools were stored); ingenious donme dolaplar (revolving cupboards that made it possible to prepare food in one room and pass it to another without being seen); bathrooms hidden inside cupboards; and central heating systems that relied on huge fireplaces. Sedirs (bench seating that ran round the walls) [where I'm sitting as I type] doubled as beds, with the bedding being stored in the bathrooms, which converted neatly into cupboards during the day."

On the bus to Safranbolu, I sit beside a 24-year-old Turkish woman, a nurse heading home to Kurbuk to visit her family for a week. She speaks halting English and wants to share some of her country's history and culture with me. As is often the case, politics comes up. "Do you like George Bush?" she asks – a common question. "No," I answer. "The Turkish people do not do wars," she tells me, and I reflect on what she is saying. Indeed, the US has troops stationed all over the world, continues to support covert military action and has two on-going active wars, while the Turks have none. "We cry for the Iraqi people and their suffering," she tells me. I assure her that I, too, cry for the Iraqi people, that I don't want war, that the US government does not represent my beliefs nor that of many US citizens, but that we are unable to stop the government. She understands: governments do not always express the will of the people. Though she may be a bit deluded about the extent of her own government's policies – perhaps she has been told a different story than I have been told about the Armenians, the Greeks, the Kurds – I do believe that she and other average Turks share my love for peace in the world. "Read the Koran," she tell me. "You will see that Islam is about loving others. Each day I thank God 5 times a day." Her words confirm my experiences here: over and again I am greeted by warmth, generosity, kindness and friendship.

Turkey has far exceeded my expectations in every way imaginable: the breath-taking landscapes, the fascinating history that is also my history, and the warmth and friendliness of the people who live here.

Wednesday, May 4, 2010 - Today I took a shared taxi with Etty and Sammy (from Minnesota) to the

nearby village of Yoruk Kuyu (Nomad Village). According to the Lonely Planet blip: "[It's] a beautiful settlement of crumbling old houses once inhabited by the dervish Bektasi sect. The government forced the nomads to settle here so it could tax them, and the villagers grew rich from their baking prowess." It truly was a beautiful old settlement. We walked through the village – we were the only tourists there and only some 30 people live there now - and toured an old Ottoman house. The woman who gave us the tour spoke only Turkish. She was so animated in her presentation that life in the households during Ottoman times came alive for us. We could almost see the women hiding behind the wooden wall by the door, placed so that the men could not see them when they came to the door for some reason. She lifted my foot to the stone wash basin to demonstrate the foot-washing technique and took us into the circular cushioned room where the women would do namas and were shown how one wall had a small niche cut in it to indicate the direction of mecca.