A WORLD WITHIN ITS WALLS TURKEY’S CITY ON THE TIGRIS
Today’s Zaman
18 August 2009, Tuesday
A street in Diyarbakir with the city castle in the background
A man with a smiling, open countenance hails me in the
street. "Welcome, welcome to my city. Where are you from, my
friend? How can I help you?" As a teacher of English, newly retired
from one of the city’s state schools, he’s delighted to learn that
I am from the UK.
When he finds out what I’m doing here (updating a well-known guidebook
to Turkey), he invites me into a nearby hotel, and we sit drinking
coffee and exchanging pleasantries. After checking out his friend’s
hotel (which gets a thumbs up, by the way), he leads me down the
city’s main north-south thoroughfare, then a short way up a narrow
side street. Dusk is rapidly slipping away into night, and the old,
black-stone houses lining its cobbled length accentuate the alley’s
darkness. Seconds later, I’m sitting, sipping sweet, black tea in the
atmospherically lit courtyard of a building which, my host assures,
dates back 400 years. Now a cafe, this substantial place was once
home to a wealthy Armenian merchant family. Middle-class couples sit
chatting and eating around the courtyard’s central pool, home to a
motley crew of hapless terrapins.
Then a friend of my friend turns up, with a gaggle of young foreigners
in tow. They’re exchange students from Germany, taking a break from
their studies in distant Eskiþehir. Soon we’re all whisked off to
a wedding taking place in a brightly lit barn of a building just
outside the ancient city walls. We don’t know the bride or groom,
or any of their friends or relatives — nor does my newfound teacher
friend. He was, however, acquainted with the manager of the wedding
reception hall, and that’s enough. A formally dressed singer, backed by
a vast array of musicians, belts out wedding standards from the stage.
The girls from the group of visiting German students were soon up on
the dance floor, linking little fingers with the other female guests
to form a shaking, shimmering line. My friend’s friend receives a
gentle rebuke for standing on a chair and strutting his stuff, though
it’s hard to imagine things getting out of hand when the strongest
stuff on offer is cola. Around 11 p.m. I bid farewell to my friend,
his friend and the German students and trace my way back through the
quiet, dark streets of the old city to my hotel.
The casual hospitality described above is not unusual in a country
noted for its generosity to travelers. But this is no ordinary
Anatolian city: this is Diyarbakýr. For many in the western parts
of Turkey, this ancient walled city is associated with (occasionally
violent) dissent, whose predominantly ethnically Kurdish inhabitants
stubbornly refuse to play by the rules laid down by the founders of
the Turkish Republic.
Prejudice against the city is not confined to modern times either. In
the mid-19th century, visiting British clergyman George Percy Badger
quoted an Arab proverb that ran, "In Diarbekir [sic] there are
black stones, black dogs and black hearts." In theory, however, this
atmospheric old trading center, perched on a bluff above a graceful
curve of one of the world’s most famous rivers, the Tigris, should be
one of Turkey’s premier tourist attractions. According to some sources,
as well as its spectacular location, within its 5.5 kilometers of
medieval city wall, Diyarbakýr boasts the biggest concentration of
historic mosques, churches, hans (basically a caravansary within a
town) and mansion houses in Turkey — bar, of course, Istanbul. Yet
despite its undeniable attractions (and excellent air, road and
rail links with the rest of the country), relatively few travelers,
either domestic or foreign, make it out to a city once so cultured
it was known as the "Paris of the East."
Back in 1990, British travel writer Diana Darke, author of a pioneering
tourist guide to eastern Turkey, wrote perceptively, "Diyarbakir
is special in the way that Avila in Spain, Aleppo in Syria and Fez
in Morocco are special, all cities that have until recently been
bounded within their walls." So, you may still be wondering, is it
actually safe to visit a city so fascinating that it rivals Aleppo
and Fez? The answer, of course, providing you follow a few basic
precautions, is a resounding yes. The caveats are much the same as in
any other big city — when walking around keep your valuables secure
(pick-pocketing and bag-snatching are not unknown) and avoid walking
down the narrow back alleys or along the fabulous city walls at dusk,
as the occasional street urchin may decide to take a pot shot at you
with a stone. Bearing this in mind, a mazy wander through the cobbled
old streets of the Sur Ýci (Inside the Walls) is an unforgettable
experience, where the worst that will !
happen is that you’ll temporarily lose your bearings.
Most people who do make it out to Turkey’s city on the Tigris tend to
stay in one of the many hotels close to the Dað Kapýsý (aka the Harput
Gate), one of the four huge gateways that breach the crenellated black
basalt walls of the city. Just south of the gate, on the right-hand
side of the main street, Gazi Caddesi, is the charming Nebi Camii,
a 15th century Akkoyunlu mosque constructed from alternating bands
of black basalt and white limestone — giving it a most attractive
appearance. To the left of the mosque is Ýzzet Paþa Caddesi, leading
in a couple of hundred meters to the Ýc Kale (Inner Castle). Until
recently, this was an army base and off limits to visitors; now it
is open to the public, and the fascinating collection of buildings
inside it is under various stages of restoration. It’s possible (with
care) to scramble up onto the walls and look east over the green and
fertile valley of the Tigris just below. The main building of interest,
though, is the substantial,!
twin-domed early Byzantine church of St. George, later used as a palace
by one of the Muslim dynasties who succeeded the Christians. Close
by is the Artukid-era mosque of Hazreti Suleyman, built in 1160,
each Thursday thronged by largely female pilgrims praying for their
wishes to be granted.
If you need a break from you explorations, a natural choice is the
atmospheric Hasan Paþa Han, built in 1572. Built (like the Nebi Camii
and many other historic buildings in old Diyarbakýr) from contrasting
bands of black and cream stone, the double-story aisles running around
the courtyard are home to a collection of jewelry, antique and souvenir
shops as well as a number of quaint cafes specializing in clotted cream
and honey breakfasts. Down from the han on the right is the city’s
most important building, the Ulu Camii (Great Mosque). It boasts an
austerely beautiful prayer hall, enlivened by arched arcades and a
decoratively carved wooden ceiling, but most (non-Muslim) visitors
are more interested in the elaborately carved late-Roman capitals
and frieze-work reused in the ornate courtyard of the mosque.
Down a side street to the left is the curious Four Legged Minaret,
detached from, but a part of, the adjacent Kasým Padiþah Camii. This
Akkoyunlu mosque is pretty but not exceptional, but the square minaret
is built atop four columns, so it’s possible to walk underneath the
structure. Local lore says that if you circle the minaret seven times,
your wish will be granted. Just along the alley from here is an early
16th century Chaldean church, though unfortunately the last remnants
of the community in Diyarbakýr moved to Ýstanbul last year. A little
further along the alley a charming Kurdish family holds the key to the
Armenian church of Surp Giargos. They told me that the sizeable 19th
century church would soon be restored, with money raised by diaspora
Armenians, but for the moment, you’ll have to be content with viewing
a roofless shell of a building, where swifts wheel between the stone
arches. There are several other Armenian churches under restoration
in the old city, bu!
t the town’s only "working" church (apart from the American evangelical
church opposite) is the Syrian Orthodox Church of the Virgin Mary,
over to the west and not far from the Urfa Gate.
Diyarbakýr’s ruling pro-Kurdish Democratic Society Party (DTP)
municipality is working hard to promote the city’s multi-faith,
cosmopolitan heritage (head to the municipality tourism office west of
the Dað Kapýsý for lots of attractively produced literature about the
town). It seems a little late, given that only one Armenian couple
remains in the city and just five Syrian Orthodox families. But
late is, I suppose, better than never, and at least the buildings,
if not the communities, will survive as reminders of when, as late
as the early 20th century, at least a third of the population of
Diyarbakýr was Christian. The Church of the Virgin Mary dates back
to the third century and has been beautifully restored. On Sundays,
it may be possible to attend a service, given in Syriac, a language
closely related to that spoken by Christ, Aramaic, but it’s best to
see the priest the day before rather than just turning up.
There are literally dozens of other things to see in Diyarbakýr, from
its famous cheese bazaar to eastern Anatolia’s most impressive Ottoman
mosque, the Behrem Paþa Camii, and from the culinary institution that
is Selim Amca’s Kaburga Sofrasý (home of tender lamb ribs stuffed with
fragrant pilaf rice) to the beautiful courtyard former home of Ziya
Gokalp, one of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk’s ideological mentors. But let’s
finish up at the city’s famous walls, just to the left of the Mardin
Gate and a fraction south of the noted Deliler Han (now a boutique
hotel). Here is one of the best vantage points in the city, the Keci
Burnu (Goat’s Nose). Well restored, this mighty tower was first built
by the Romans, then like the rest of the walls, was bolstered by the
successive conquerors of the city — from assorted Arab dynasties to
the Selcuk and then Ottoman Turks.
Look out across the Tigris below you, wriggling through its shallow
valley en route to the distant Persian Gulf. The land beyond the river,
untouched by its life-giving waters, is barren and inhospitable. Then
you realize what an oasis this city is, the last navigable point on
the Tigris and astride the ancient trade routes across Anatolia. In
conventional "tourist" terms, Diyarbakýr may not be pretty, but it
is endlessly fascinating and has an atmosphere all its own. Don’t be
put off by the city’s bad press — come and see it for yourself.