Southeastern Anatolia or Mesopotamia – a remote area in Turkey where you can find many different cultures, which are particularly noticeable in the musical styles: Arabic instrumental music, Syrian Orthodox church chants, Kurdish songs. A journey with many musical impressions and encounters, for example with the Kurdish singer Sakina Teyna, who talks about the sometimes harmonious, sometimes complicated coexistence of the ethnic groups.
Mesopotamia is the name given to the land between the two rivers Euphrates and Tigris. The name brings to mind a mythical past and ancient civilizations. But even today the region is still an area where many ethnic groups, languages, religions and cultures meet.
Southeastern Anatolia is primarily Kurdish, and you can also notice the Arab influence. But it is also the area of the Assyrians and Arameans, i.e. the followers of Syrian Christianity.
The Grotto of Abraham's Birth in Şanlıurfa, over which a large mosque was built, is one of the most important pilgrimage destinations in Islam. According to legend, Abraham was sentenced to death at the stake at the nearby carp basin because of his faith. However, the fire turned into water, the logs into fish, and Abraham was saved. Since then, the pool and the carp have been considered sacred and are visited by pilgrims not only from Islam, but also from Christianity and Judaism.
For centuries, the city of Mardin and the surrounding Tur Abdin region have been the territory of the Assyrians or Aramaeans, i.e. the Syrian Orthodox Christians, and a small community still lives here, which celebrates services every Sunday in the churches and monasteries and visits the historic buildings fills life.
Diyarbakir is the secret capital of the Turkish Kurds, perched on a hill on the banks of the Tigris. Dynamic, energetic, hospitable and full of life.
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.