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.
Anyone who walks through Niğde Museum of Art History with open eyes will certainly come across the name Tyana several times, an ancient metropolis that has so far been little known from a tourist point of view.
Like so many before us, we are on our way to an increasingly popular destination: the Tinaztepe Caves, because a trip to the Tinaztepe Cave (Tinaztepe Mağarsı) is worthwhile just because of the drive through the wild and romantic mountains of the Taurus Mountains.
Since the current wind conditions on Karadag were not suitable for paragliding, we decided at short notice to take a day trip from Karaman to the Aladağlar Mountains.
Sivrihisar, called Justianapolis in Roman times, is an Anatolian city near the motorway from Eskişehir to Ankara at the junction to Afyonkarahisar and on to Izmir.
The city, like the Çankırı district of the same name, is located about 140 kilometers northeast of Ankara in a wide valley at about 800 meters above sea level.
The Güney waterfall, called Güney Şelalesi in Turkish, is a waterfall in the Denizli province in western Turkey not far from the city of Aydin.
The caves, rock houses and grand stone formations in Turkey's Cappadocia region draw tourists from around the world. Nestled among these natural wonders, however, lies a village where the earth is believed to deliver death rather than rewards.
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.
On our tour through the southeast we also reached Gaziantep, whose mosaics in the Zeugma Mosaic Museum are known far beyond the country's borders.
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.
Like the years before the 14th of July, the day of “Appearance of the great Gods” will be celebrated at Mount Nemrud having some meetings and festivals.
Sanlıurfa as a city is mostly known by the Europeans with her antique name, Edessa. Sanlıurfa is the central part of a city in Turkey with a population of about 390.000 and is located in the hot climate zone in southeast Anatolia. In geographical terms, she is part of Northern Mesopotamia.
We had designated Göbekli Tepe as the most important destination and the highlight of our Şanlıurfa journey. We had as such communicated with an archaeologist, Mr. Klaus Schmidt for this purpose.