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Trabzon

Coordinates: 41°00′N 39°44′E / 41.000°N 39.733°E / 41.000; 39.733
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Trabzon
Country Turkey
ProvinceTrabzon
Government
 • MayorVolkan Canalioğlu (CHP)
Area
 • Total4,685 km2 (1,809 sq mi)
Elevation
0 m (0 ft)
Population
 (2006)
 • Total400,187
 • Density58.7/km2 (152/sq mi)
Time zoneUTC+2 (EET)
 • Summer (DST)UTC+3 (EEST)
Postal code
61xxx
Area code(+90) 462
Licence plate61

Trabzon ([Τραπεζούντα, Trapezounta] Error: {{Lang-xx}}: text has italic markup (help)) is a city on the Black Sea coast of north-eastern Turkey and the capital of Trabzon Province. Trabzon, located on the historical Silk Road became a melting pot of religions, languages and culture for centuries and a trade gateway to Iran in the southeast, Russia and the Caucasus to the northeast.[1] The Venetian and Genoese merchants paid visit to the city and sold silk, linen and woolen fabric. During the Ottoman period Trabzon, because of the importance of its port, became a focal point of trade to Iran, India and the Caucasus. Trabzon formed the basis of several states in its long history, and was the capital city of the Empire of Trebizond. The population of the city is 400,187 (2006 census).

History

Ancient and Mediaeval

Originally, it was founded as Trebizond (Τραπεζοῦς) by Greek traders from Miletus (traditionally in 756 BC).

The city was one of a number (about ten) of Milesian emporia, or trading colonies along the shores of the Black Sea. Others include Sinope, Abydos and Cyzicus (in the Dardanelles). Like most Greek colonies, the city was a small enclave of Greek life, and not an empire unto its own, in the later European sense of the word.

Trebizond's trade partners included the Mossynoeci. When Xenophon and the "ten thousand" Greek mercenaries were fighting their way out of Persia, the first Greek city they reached was Trebizond (Xenophon, Anabasis, 5.5.10). The city and the local Mossynoeci had become estranged from the Mossynoecian capital, to the point of civil war. Xenophon's force resolved this in the rebels' favor, and so in Trebizond's interest.

The city was added to the kingdom of Pontus by Mithridates VI Eupator and it became home port for the Pontic fleet.

Walls of Trabzon

When the kingdom was annexed to the Roman province of Galatia in 64–65, the fleet passed to new commanders, becoming the Classis Pontica. Trebizond gained importance under Roman rule in the 1st century for its access to road leading over the Zigana Pass to the Armenian frontier or the upper Euphrates valley. New roads were constructed from Persia and Mesopotamia under the rule of Vespasian, and Hadrian commissioned improvements to give the city a more structured harbor. A mithraeum now serves as a crypt for the church of Panaghia Theoskepastos in nearby Kizlara, east of the citadel and south of the modern harbor. The city was pillaged by the Goths in 258, and, although it was afterwards re-built, Trebizond did not recover until the trade route regained importance in the 8th to 10th centuries. In Byzantine times, the city was the capital of the theme of Chaldia.

After the Fourth Crusade in 1204, a Byzantine successor state was founded there with support of Queen Tamar of Georgia, the Empire of Trebizond, which ruled part of the Black Sea coast from Trebizond until 1461, when its ruler, David, surrendered to Mehmed II, ruler of the Ottoman Empire. Following this takeover Mehmed sent many Turkish settlers into the area, but the old ethnic Armenian, Greek and Laz communities remained. During the late Ottoman period, the city had a great Christian influence in terms of culture, and a wealthy merchant class who created several Western consulates.

Modern era

Uzun Sokak, one of the central streets of Trabzon, at night

In 1901 the harbour was equipped with cranes by Stothert and Pitt of Bath in England. The city was the site of one of the key battles between the Ottoman and Russian armies during the Caucasus Campaign of World War I which resulted in the capture of Trebizond by the Russian army under command of Grand Duke Nicholas and Nikolai Yudenich in April 1916. Trabzon was a major Armenian extermination center during the Armenian Genocide, as well as a location of subsequent trials.[2][3][4] The Russian Army retreated from the city and the rest of eastern and northeastern Anatolia with the Russian Revolution of 1917. Following the Turkish War of Independence and the annulment of the Treaty of Sèvres (1920) which was replaced by the Treaty of Lausanne (1923), Trebizond again became a part of Turkey. After World War I, European publications increasingly adopted local names for Turkish cities rather than traditional forms of Greek or Italian origin, and Trebizond became known to English-language readers as Trabzon.

During World War II shipping activity was limited because the Black Sea had again become a war zone. Hence the most important export products, tobacco and hazelnut, could not be sold and living standards degraded.

As a result of the general development of the country, Trabzon has developed its economic and commercial life. The Coastal Highway and a new harbour have increased commercial relations with Central Anatolia, which has led to some growth. However, progress has been slow in comparison with the western and the southwestern parts of Turkey.

Trabzon is famous throughout Turkey for its anchovies, which are the main meal in many restaurants in the city. Major exports from Trabzon are hazelnuts and tea.

The city still has a sizable community of Greek-speaking Muslims, most of whom are originally from the vicinities of Tonya and Of. However, the Pontic Greek language (known as Ποντιακά, Pontiaka) is spoken mostly by the older generations.[5]

Geography and climate

The province has a total area of 4.685 km² and it is bordered by the provinces of Rize, Giresun and Gümüşhane. The total area is 22,4% plateaux and 77,6% hills.

Rivers

The Değirmendere (former Piksidis), Yanbolu, Fol, Karadere, Koha, Sürmene (former Manahos), Solaklı, Baltacı and İyidere (former Kalopotamos)

Lakes

Çakırgöl, Uzungöl, Serra Gölü

Climate

Trabzon has a typical Black Sea climate, with rain the year round and temperatures reaching up to around 29°C in the summer. Winters are cool and damp, and the lowest temperature is around 5°C in January. The water temperature fluctuates between 10°–20°C throughout the year.

Climate data for Trabzon
Month Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec Year
Source: [6]

People

Greek has been spoken in the region since early antiquity. The local dialect developed along its own lines and is today partly intelligible to speakers of Standard Greek. It was spoken mainly by a Greek Orthodox population up until the population exchange; nearly all speakers are now Muslim. Laz people also live in Trabzon.

The Chepnis, an Oghuz tribe that played an important role in the history of the Eastern Black Sea area in the 13th and 14th centuries, live in the Şalpazarı (Ağasar valley) region of the Trabzon Province.[7]

There was an Armenian community in Trebizond as early as the 7th century.[8] During the Mongol invasions of the 13th and 14th centuries, numerous Armenian families fled here from Ani.[8] According to Ronald C. Jennings, in the early 1500s, Armenians made up approximately 13 percent[9] of the city's population, and they numbered roughly equal to the Muslims in the city in that period.[10] In the late 19th century the Armenian community was persecuted during the Hamidian massacres.[11][12] Prior to WWI, a sizable Armenian community of 30,000 was present in the city.[8] During the Armenian Genocide, most were killed or deported.[8] Following the Russian capture of Trabzon in April 1916, some 500 Armenian survivors,[8] as well as monks of the local Armenian monastery returned.[13] They remained there till after the war.[8]

Trabzon has a sizeable Russian minority, who began emigrating to the region after the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Russian language shops and facilities can be found in the town. Russians are generally subject to stereotypes and suspicion. A subset of Russian women work in the local prostitution industry and are thus derisively known as "Natashas" by Trabzonites.

Because of the presence of Karadeniz Technical University, Trabzon hosts students from all over Turkey, especially the East and the Black Sea region, as well as students from Central Asian states.

Origin of the Pontic Turks and Greeks

Very little has been written on the Turkification of the area. There are no historical records of any considerable Turkish-speaking groups in the Trabzon area until the late 15th century, with the exception of the Chepnis. The original Greek (and in some regions Armenian) speakers imposed features from their mother language into Turkish. Heath W. Lowry's[14] work about Ottoman tax books[15] (Tahrir Defteri) with Halil İnalcık claims that most Turks of Trabzon city are of Greek origin.

It is possible that the majority of the population of Trabzon and Rize (and other ancient Greek colonies in the Pontus region) — except up to the time of the Chepni Turk immigration waves — consisted of indigenous Caucasian tribes (the Colchians and the Laz) who had been partly Hellenized religiously and linguistically.[16] Michael Meeker stresses the cultural resemblances (e.g. in village structure, house types, and pastoral techniques) between the Eastern Black Sea coast and the areas in the Caucasus proper.[17]

Tourist attractions

Hagia Sophia

Trabzon has a number of tourist attractions, some of them dating back to the times of the ancient empires that once existed in the region. In the city itself, one can find a hub of shops, stalls and restaurants surrounding the "Meydan", a square in the center of the city, which includes a tea garden.

  • The Hagia Sophia (Turkish: Ayasofya Müzesi), a stunning Byzantine church, is probably the town's most important tourist attraction.
  • Trabzon Castle ruins are visible in the town but cannot be visited as they fall in a military zone. The outside wall of the castle now serves as the back wall of a military building.
  • Atatürk Köşkü is a lovely Victorian-era villa, which was given to Atatürk when he visited Trabzon in 1924. It houses period rooms and acts as a shrine to the memory of the Turks' beloved great leader.
  • Boztepe Park is a small park and tea garden on the hills above Trabzon that has a panoramic view of nearly the entire city. The terrain in Trabzon is such that although the view is far above that of the buildings below, it is still close enough to be able to observe the flow of traffic and the people moving about in the city.
  • Trabzon Museum is located in the town center and offers interesting exhibits on the history of the region, including an impressive collection of Byzantine-era artifacts.
  • Trabzon's Bazaar District offers interesting shopping opportunities on ancient narrow streets, continuing from Kunduracilar Street from the Meydan (town square).
  • Kostaki Mansion is located ob the north of Zeytinlik near Uzun Sokak.
File:Ortahisar2.jpg
The historic Ortahisar

Within Trabzon Province, the main attractions are the Sümela Monastery and Uzungöl. The monastery is built on the side of a very steep mountain overlooking the green forests below and is about 50 km south of the city. Uzungöl is famous for the natural beauty of the area and the amazing scenery.

Other important sites of interest include:[18] Kaymaklı Monastery, Kızlar (Panagia Theoskepastos) Monastery, Kuştul (Gregorios Peristera) Monastery, Kızlar (Panagia Kerameste) Monastery, Vazelon Monastery, Hagios Savvas (Maşatlık) Cave Churches, Hagia Anna (Little Ayvasıl), Sotha (St. John), Hagios Theodoros, Hagios Konstantinos, Hagios Khristophoras, Hagios Kiryaki, Santa Maria, Hagios Mikhail and Panagia Tzita churches, Fatih Mosque (originally the Panagia Khrysokephalos Church), Yeni Cuma Mosque (originally the Hagios Eugenios Church), Nakip Mosque (originally the Hagios Andreas Church), Hüsnü Köktuğ Mosque (originally the Hagios Eleutherios Church), İskender Pasha Mosque, Semerciler Mosque, Çarşı Mosque, and the Gülbahar Hatun Mosque and Türbe.

Culture

The 10th century Trebizond Gospel is a testimony to the ancient artistic traditions of the city.

Being open towards other cultures and religions plays a significant role in life styles of Trabzon populace. Muslims and Christians lived together in past as well as today, making the city proud heir to a rich cultural heritage. Folklore is still a living tradition in Trabzon and Black Sea region. Known as horon in Trabzon and surrounding areas is a famous folk dance peculiar to the region, and it is performed by men, women, young and elderly people in festivities, local weddings and harvest times.[19] Trabzon culture has a reputation for being religiously conservative and nationalist. Many Trabzonites generally show a strong sense of loyalty to family, friends, their religion, and Turkey.Atatürk selected the presidential guards from neighbour city of Giresun because of their fierce fighting ability and their loyalty.

The Black Sea region has a myriad of village and local folk culture, especially evident in folk music, folk dances, and local cuisine specialties. One of the more spirited folk dances in Turkey comes from the Trabzon region. While similar to Russian Cossack dances, the Trabzon folk dance is unique to Turkey and the region.

Outside of the relatively urban space of Trabzon proper, and within it as well, rural traditions from Black Sea village life are still thriving. This includes traditional gender roles, social conservatism, hospitality and willingness to help strangers, and all the trappings, both positive and negative, of an agrarian lifestyle, such as hard work, poverty, strong family ties, and a closeness to nature.

The city's fame was increased in the English-speaking world by Dame Rose Macaulay's last novel, The Towers of Trebizond (1956), which is still in print.[20]

Cuisine

Trabzon regional cuisine is traditionally reliant on fish, especially Hamsi (fresh European Anchovies similar to British Sprat or American Smelt). Trabzon, which meets 20% of total fish production in Turkey, has an important potential in the fishing sector in Turkey. Food in the Trabzon region [21] represents the hearty lifestyle of the Turkish people who live on the shores of this Black Sea city. While not a gourmet-food center, there are some delicious regional dishes such as Akcaabat kofte (spicy lamb meatball from the Akcaabat district), Karadeniz pidesi (canoe shaped bread, often with ground beef, cheese, eggs), Sucuk (Turkish sausage and pastirma), kuymak (a Turkish fondue made with cornmeal and plenty of fresh butter and cheese), Vakfikebir ekmek (large country style bread), tava misir ekmek (deep dish corn bread) and kara lahana corbasi (bean and cabbage soup). Don't miss the Taflan kavurmisι (a cherry laurel dish served with onions and olive oil) and Kalkan (Flounder). Trabzon is famous for its hazelnuts and the traveler should experience them in any form. The Turks feel they are exceptionally good for your health. The best way to experience real Trabzon cuisine and culture is to get yourself invited to a local's home.

Sports

Football is by far the most popular sport in Trabzon, as Trabzonspor is the only Turkish club in Anatolia to win the Turkish Super League (6 times) apart from the "Big Three" of Istanbul (Fenerbahçe, Galatasaray and Beşiktaş). Due to Trabzonspor's success, the decades-old term "Big Three" which defined the largest clubs of Turkey had to be modified into the "Big Four". Trabzonspor is also one of the most successful Turkish clubs in the European Cups, managing to beat numerous prominent teams like Barcelona, Inter, Liverpool, Aston Villa and Olympique Lyonnais.

Trabzon hosted the First Edition of the Black Sea Games in July, 2007 and will host the 2011 European Youth Summer Olympic Festival.

Notable natives

Sister cities

See also

Notes and references

  1. ^ Port of Trabzon and Silk Road
  2. ^ Eitan Belkind was a Nili member, who infiltrated the Ottoman army as an official. He was assigned to the headquarters of Camal Pasha. He claims to have witnessed the burning of 5,000 Armenians, quoted in Yair Auron, The Banality of Indifference: Zionism and the Armenian Genocide. New Brunswick, N.J., 2000, pp. 181, 183. Lt. Hasan Maruf, of the Ottoman army, describes how a population of a village were taken all together, and then burned. See, British Foreign Office 371/2781/264888, Appendices B., p. 6). Also, the Commander of the Third Army, Vehib's 12 pages affidavit, which was dated December 5, 1918, presented in the Trabzon trial series (March 29, 1919) included in the Key Indictment (published in Takvimi Vekayi, No. 3540, May 5, 1919), report such a mass burning of the population of an entire village near Mus. S. S. McClure write in his work, Obstacles to Peace, Houghton Mifflin Company, 1917. pp. 400–1, that in Bitlis, Mus and Sassoun, The shortest method for disposing of the women and children concentrated in tile various camps was to burn them. And also that, Turkish prisoners who had apparently witnessed some of these scenes were horrified and maddened at the remembering the sight. They told the Russians that the stench of the burning human flesh permeated the air for many days after. The Germans, Ottoman allies, also witnessed the way Armenians were burned according to the Israeli historian, Bat Ye’or, who writes: The Germans, allies of the Turks in the First World War, …saw how civil populations were shut up in churches and burned, or gathered en masse in camps, tortured to death, and reduced to ashes,… (See: B. Ye'or, The Dhimmi. The Jews and Christians under Islam, Trans. from the French by D. Maisel P. Fenton and D. Liftman, Cranbury, N.J.: Frairleigh Dickinson University, 1985. p. 95)
  3. ^ During the Trabzon trial series, of the Martial court (from the sittings between March 26 and May 17, 1919), the Trabzons Health Services Inspector Dr. Ziya Fuad wrote in a report that Dr. Saib, caused the death of children with the injection of morphine, the information was allegedly provided by two physicians (Drs. Ragib and Vehib), both Dr. Saib colleagues at Trabzons Red Crescent hospital, where those atrocities were said to have been committed. (See: Vahakn N. Dadrian, The Turkish Military Tribunal’s Prosecution of the Authors of the Armenian Genocide: Four Major Court-Martial Series, Genocide Study Project, H. F. Guggenheim Foundation, published in The Holocaust and Genocide Studies, Volume 11, Number 1, Spring 1997). Dr. Ziya Fuad, and Dr. Adnan, public health services director of Trabzon, submitted affidavits, reporting a cases, in which, two school buildings were used to organize children and then sent them on the mezzanine, to kill them with a toxic gas equipment. This case was presented during the Session 3, p.m., 1 April 1919, also published in the Constantinople newspaper Renaissance, 27 April 1919 (for more information, see: Vahakn N. Dadrian, The Role of Turkish Physicians in the World War I Genocide of Ottoman Armenians, in The Holocaust and Genocide Studies 1, no. 2 (1986): 169–192). The Ottoman surgeon, Dr. Haydar Cemal wrote in Türkce Istanbul, No. 45, 23 December 1918, also published in Renaissance, 26 December 1918, that on the order of the Chief Sanitation Office of the IIIrd Army in January 1916, when the spread of typhus was an acute problem, innocent Armenians slated for deportation at Erzican were inoculated with the blood of typhoid fever patients without rendering that blood ‘inactive’. Jeremy Hugh Baron writes : Individual doctors were directly involved in the massacres, having poisoned infants, killed children and issued false certificates of death from natural causes. Nazim's brother-in-law Dr. Tevfik Rushdu, Inspector-General of Health Services, organized the disposal of Armenian corpses with thousands of kilos of lime over six months; he became foreign secretary from 1925 to 1938. (See: Jeremy Hugh Baron, Genocidal Doctors, publish in Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine, November, 1999, 92, pp. 590–3). The psychiatrist, Robert Jay Lifton, writes in a parenthesis when introducing the crimes of NAZI doctors in his book Nazi Doctors: Medical Killing and the Psychology of Genocide, Basic Books, (1986) p. xii: (Perhaps Turkish doctors, in their participation in the genocide against the Armenians, come closest, as I shall later suggest). and drowning.
  4. ^ Oscar S. Heizer, the American consul at Trabzon, reports: This plan did not suit Nail Bey…. Many of the children were loaded into boats and taken out to sea and thrown overboard. (See: U.S. National Archives. R.G. 59. 867. 4016/411. April 11, 1919 report.) The Italian consul of Trabzon in 1915, Giacomo Gorrini, writes: I saw thousands of innocent women and children placed on boats which were capsized in the Black Sea. (See: Toronto Globe, August 26, 1915) Hoffman Philip, the American Charge at Constantinople chargé d'affaires, writes: Boat loads sent from Zor down the river arrived at Ana, one thirty miles away, with three fifths of passengers missing. (Cipher telegram, July 12, 1916. U.S. National Archives, R.G. 59.867.48/356.) The Trabzon trials reported Armenians having been drown in the Black Sea. (Takvimi Vekdyi, No. 3616, August 6, 1919, p. 2.)
  5. ^ Trabzon Greek: A language without a tongue, Ömer Asan
  6. ^ Weatherbase.com
  7. ^ Bernt Brendemoen, The Turkish dialects of Trabzon, University of Oslo, 2002 p18
  8. ^ a b c d e f *Ambart︠s︡umi︠a︡n, Victor Amazaspovich (1986). Haykakan sovetakan hanragitaran ("Soviet Armenian Encyclopedia") (in Armenian). Vol. 12. Yerevan. p. 87. OCLC 10431241. {{cite encyclopedia}}: Missing or empty |title= (help); Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)CS1 maint: extra punctuation (link) CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  9. ^ 15.5% of 85%
  10. ^ Jennings, Ronald C. (Jan. 1976) Urban Population in Anatolia in the 16th Century: International Journal of MiddleEast Studies, Vol. 7, No. 1 pp. 21-57.
  11. ^ Hundreds killed at Trebizond; Soldiers joined the mob in looting and in firing on Armenians, New York Times, October 18 1895
  12. ^ Moslems desperate, New York Times, November 3, 1895
  13. ^ The Byzantine Churches of Trebizond, Selina Ballance, Anatolian Studies, volume 10, page 169.
  14. ^ Professor. Department of Near Eastern Studies. Princeton University
  15. ^ Trabzon Şehrinin İslamlaşması ve Türkleşmesi 1461–1583 ISBN 975-518-116-4
  16. ^ Michael Meeker, "The Black Sea Turks: some aspects of their ethnic and cultural background", International Journal of Middle Eastern Studies (1971) 2:318–345
  17. ^ Meeker, 1971: p. 326 "As the mentioned, the villages along the Black Sea coast from Ordu to Artvin are composed of many hamlets, each dominating a hilltop or mountain side on which its own crops are separately planted. This type of settlement pattern is in sharp contrast with the typical nucleated Anatolian village, but its characteristic of many rural settlements of the Western Caucasus notably those of Abkhaz, Circassians, Georgians, Mingrelians and Ossetes…"
    For similar ideas See: Karl Koch, Reise duch Russland nach dem Kaukasis chen Istmus in den Jahren, 1836. vol1. p. 378; W.E.D. Allen, A History of the Georgian People, London 1932. pp. 54–5; Özhan Öztürk, Karadeniz. 2005. p. 35, 757–68. For linguistic influence see: Bernt Brendomoen, Laz influence on the Black Sea Turkish Dialects, 1990 (Proceedings from 32nd meeting of the Permanent International Altaistic Conference)
  18. ^ [1]
  19. ^ People and culture of Trabzon and Black sea region
  20. ^ Macaulay, Rose: The Towers of Trebizond (Collins, London, 1956)
  21. ^ Traditional foods of Black Sea region
  • Princeton Encyclopedia of Classical Sites eds. Richard Stillwell, William L. MacDonald, Marian Holland McAllister: "Trapezus"
  • Özhan Öztürk (2005). Karadeniz (Black Sea): Ansiklopedik Sözlük. 2 Cilt. Heyamola Yayıncılık. İstanbul. ISBN 975-6121-00-9
  • Bryer, Anthony (1985-03). Byzantine Monuments and Topography of the Pontos (Dumbarton Oaks Studies,20) Two Volume Set. Dumbarton Oaks Pub Service. ISBN 088402122X. {{cite book}}: Check date values in: |date= (help); Unknown parameter |coauthor= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)

12. See note 2. Also http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0126/p06s01-woeu.html, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/08/world/europe/08turkey.html?ex=1328590800&en=b1c4ebf924e99da2&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

External links

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41°00′N 39°44′E / 41.000°N 39.733°E / 41.000; 39.733

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