Since the founding of the republic in 1923 as the successor state to the Ottoman Empire, Turkey has been secular and Kemalist in orientation. The country's founder, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, initiated a modernization of Turkey through social and legal reforms modelled on various European nation states.
The current President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has been at the helm of the country since 2003. Since around 2012, he has led the country in an increasingly authoritarian manner. Freedom of expression and freedom of the press in particular are considered to be severely restricted. The currency and debt crisis triggered by its economic policies as well as high inflation have continued since 2018, which makes Turkey quite attractive from a tourist perspective.
The culture of today's Turkey is a fusion of the ancient Turkish nomadic culture of Central Asia and Siberia, the Greco-Roman era, the culture in the Ottoman Empire with its Byzantine, Persian, Arabic, Caucasian, Armenian and Kurdish influences, as well as the strong European direction since the founding of the Republic Ataturk. The cultural centre of the country is the metropolis of Istanbul.
With the political changes, the content of Turkish literature also changed. Early representatives include Fakir Baykurt, Sabahattin Ali, Sait Faik Abasıyanık and Yaşar Kemal, who put ordinary people at the centre of their work. With the turn to describing living conditions, social and political criticism of the state is inevitable. The state reacts with censorship and political violence. Authors like Nâzım Hikmet, Yaşar Kemal and Aziz Nesin spend many years in Turkish prisons because of the persecution of their publications. Kemal therefore referred to the prison as a “school of Turkish literature”.
Turkish cuisine has also influenced Greek and the rest of the Balkan cuisine - including etymology. For example, tzaziki comes from the Turkish cacık, and Ćevapčići comes from kabapcik. Yogurt also comes from Turkish Yoğurt. Doner kebab is made from beef, veal or poultry. In Turkey, but also in other countries, the kebab is also served on a plate.
Having been involved in the activities and surroundings of Karaman city lately and as we tried to learn the history of the city, we discovered that there is an ethno/religious side to her name "Karaman".
UNESCO-World Cultural and Natural Heritage Cappadocia is located at the centre of a region which used to have intense volcanic activity and it added a lot of value to the lay of the region. While Anatolia basically consists of big lakes and tropical swamps, it can be seen that animals, plants and carnivores dating to very old times were dominant in the region.
After we returned to our vehicle from the venture we made into the stream, we came to “Keşlik Monastery”, which is also known as “Archenclos”, residential area of stone houses near Cemilköy.
These rocks were partially carved out and only thin walls were left.
If you keep going through the alleyway after passing the Karakuş facilities through the Mustafapaşa Road at the west of Ürgüp, after a while you can reach Üzengi Stream which runs in parallel to the valley and where the water level isn’t so high. The valley also has an entrance from the direction of Ortahisar.
Eskisehir (in ancient times it's name was Dorylaion) has got about 706.000 inhabitants and because of that is one of the biggest cities of Anatolia and as well capital city of the region of the same name. Today there is a well known university called Anadolu University and a huge air craft base of NATO.
The eastern part of the Taurus Mountains consists of massive rocks stretching from the West and increasing in height to the East.
Really wonderful landscapes when passing through the Taurus Mountains
During the main season or on a Turkish public holiday, when all the resorts are bursting at the seams, the lakes of Beysehir, Egridir and Burdur,lying just behind the mountain range, offer quietness and relaxation.
During our extensive tours through southeastern Anatolia and the multiple visits to the now world-famous excavation site of Göbeklitepe, we also visited other excavation sites, including the one at Karahan Tepe, which is located around 55 kilometres to the southeast.
In addition to the underground cities in Cappadocia, archaeologists have recently discovered another huge underground city in Turkey that researchers believe could be the largest underground city complex in the world to date.
For thousands of years, people have been communicating through language, passing on knowledge and techniques through oral transmission of what they have learned, with all the erroneous distortions of meaning by omitting or adding details of the original content.
The myths surrounding the Rum Kalesi Castle in the Yavuzeli district of the Turkish province of Gaziantep reach far back into history. Various epochs of up to 3,000 years are known to date. Archaeologists have only begun to extensively explore the ruins in recent years.
The small town of Şırnak (known as Şirnex in Kurdish) is located in the triangle formed by Syria, Iraq and Turkey.
In the past we have reported several times about the Mor Gabriel Monastery in the south-east of Turkey and the problems of the expropriation of some monastery areas. Now the property is back in Syrian Orthodox hands.
The current day-to-day politics in the Syrian conflict has caused further problems in the province of Şırnak and thus its provincial capital of the same name due to the common border with Syria after the long-standing Kurdish conflicts, in a downright tragic way, because thousands of Syrian refugees sought their salvation by fleeing the country.
Once founded by the Hittites with the name Kummulu, Samosata later became the capital of the Assyrian Empire.
A few kilometres north of the newly built Birecik dam, two larger settlements faced each other on the banks of the Euphrates in ancient times: Apamea on the left and Seleukeia / Zeugma on the right bank.
Kilis is a city in South-Central Turkey on the border with Syria and capital of Kilis Province. It is generally associated with the city of Kilisi, noted in Assyrian texts. The Öncüpınar Syrian border crossing is 5 km (3 mi) to the south and the large city of Gaziantep is 60 km (37 mi) to the north.
In the long history of the Siirt region, there were a multitude of peoples who settled the country or only appeared as occupiers just to be replaced by history.
Every country, including Turkey, needs energy in the form of electricity in immense amounts.
Batman, known under the name Elih in the Middle Ages and up to the 1950s, is the capital of the Turkish province of Batman in southeastern Turkey.