The yearning to leave daily life far behind and take to the road tempts us all occasionally. We dream of driving through the green countryside with a spouse or friend beside us, our favorite music playing, and no particular destination in mind. I hope you will not be too envious when I tell you that […]
My father, an Anatolian village boy, came to Istanbul at the age of thirteen. My mother, from another Anatolian village, also came to Istanbul as a very small child. They had to make this long journey, meet in Istanbul and get married so that I could come into the world. The choice was not left […]
If Nasreddin Hodja was a real person, he lived in 13th century Turkey in and around Aksehir in the Konya area. In his time he was an imam (a religious leader), a judge and a professor in a medrese (Islamic college). But whether he was real or not Nasreddin Hodja embodied the folk wisdom of […]
Among 17 antique cities named “Antioch” in Turkey, only two of them are remembered well by the scholars, one is called “Antakya” (the ancient Antioch in Syria) and the other one is Antioch of Pisidia. Both of them play an important role at the beginning and early stages of Christian history and well-known for their […]
When the Turkish people poured westwards from their Central Asian homelands in the 11th century, they came on horseback into Anatolia, the land which the poet Nazim Hikmet described as stretching like a mare’s head into the Mediterranean. The horse, which played a central role in Turkish life in the Central Asian steppes, was probably […]
Dating from 1718 to 1730, the Tulip Era of the Ottoman Empire was a momentary period that the Sultan and the public celebrated with music, festivals, ceremonies, and dances. Numerous tulips embellished the capital that most of them were poetically named such as Blue Pearl, Light of Dawn, The Divine Throne and Ruby Drop and […]
Nowadays it is recognized by nearly the whole world that cultural and Natural treasures do not belong just to the countries in which they are located but are instead the priceless and common property of all humanity. The question of especially protecting such treasures against the dangers that threaten them became a matter of concern […]
Until the mid-19th century, the angora goat was to be found only in Central Anatolia, particularly the province of Ankara, transcribed by Europeans from the earlier Turkish form Enguru. The export of these valuable animals having been strictly forbidden for many centuries, Sultan Abdulmecit made a gift of 22 goats to Queen Victoria in the […]
Today the Yoruk nomads are confined mainly to the Taurus Mountains, with their mist-shrouded peaks and vast high pastures. A people passionately devoted to their freedom, the Yoruk are like birds of passage. Until the early 19th century thousands of Yoruk nomads lived in the Ottoman territories of the Balkans and throughout western, southern and […]
Also called Mimar Koca Sinan (“Great Architect Sinan”) (b. April 15, 1489, Agirnaz, Kayseri – d. July 17, 1588, Istanbul), most celebrated of all Ottoman architects, whose ideas, perfected in the construction of mosques and other buildings, served as the basic themes for virtually all later Turkish religious and civic architecture. The son of Greek […]
