Here’s the full set of our photos from the Black Sea Coast
If I had followed the tourist trail strictly we should have gone to Sinop next, the start of the interesting bit of the Turkish Black Sea Coast. As it was I couldn’t find a direct bus from Safronbolu to Sinop and it seemed much simpler to go to Samsun, a larger town further east along the coast which would get us closer to the eastern half of this very long country. Even with almost two months here it’s impossible to see everything in Turkey and as we always say at such moments, it’s good to leave some things to come back for.
Samsun was much better than we expected. The guide book painted it as a transport hub and not much more but it has a vibrant feel thanks to a large university population and a well developed harbour foreshore. We stayed in a small room and had a cheap but delicious pide for dinner. I could eat pide every day, fresh out of the oven with a crispy skin and fresh fillings. They were universally good during our travels.
In the park opposite our hotel we found exercise equipment that seems to be in almost every park in Turkey. Plump older women in tracksuits and headscarfs submit themselves to these devices that would make a chiropractor lick their lips in anticipation. You can twist, swing your legs with abandon or twirl steering wheels with each hand. Sarah got quite taken with the walking exerciser but woke up the next morning with a buggered back. To be fair, that could also be due to lots of sitting on buses, rigorous hammam massages and the 50 kilometre cycle we did in Gokceada.
Also in the park and a feature of many in Turkey is the statue of Ataturk riding a rearing horse with large testicles. I mean to say that the horse is depicted with large testicles but the inference is clear. Ataturk is still revered in Turkey which is interesting for a dictator whose party was summarised as :”For the people, in spite of the people”. Ataturk really arrived on the political scene after the First World War where he was one of the few military heroes to emerge during his handling of troops during the Gallipoli campaign. As the Ottoman empire teetered he drove Turkish nationalism forward with an iron will, fighting campaigns on many fronts to secure the lands of what is modern day Turkey. This would be impressive enough on its own but he didn’t stop there. He saw Europe as modern and thought that Turkey should become modern like Europe. He ended the sultanate???, banned the caliphate and turned Turkey into a secular state. He banned the wearing of the fez and vastly reduced the power of the whirling dervish sects, not banning them outright but turning them into a society rather than a religious and political force. He wore suits and European style hats and encouraged everyone else to do the same. Women were given more equal rights and access to education. Arabic script was changed to a new Turkish language which was based on the Latin alphabet with some additional characters. Some Turkish towns were so small that people only had one name. Ataturk forced everyone to take a surname and books with suggested names were sent to everyone. Ataturk himself, previously named Mustafa Kemal adopted the Atuturk name, which immodestly translates to “Father of the Turks”. All of this was enforced on the Turkish people with a ruthless single-mindedness. Opposition was not tolerated.
Incredibly all of this upheaval seems to have happened relatively peacefully. Turkey withdrew from international affairs and despite some advances from Communist Russia, Ataturk felt that this style of politics would not suit the nature of Turkish people. His reforms did modernise the country but have left some unwanted legacies. While an authoritarian state was necessary to make all these changes, the oppressive tendencies of the Turkish state have remained. Freedom of the press is still a major issue. A strong political opposition in Turkey has also been rare with the military intervening numerous times to remove unpopular governments which it views as straying from Ataturk’s vision. The generals in Turkey have been the power behind the government in not-so-subtle ways with a military committee needed to approve parliamentary decisions. Despite the popularity of Islamic parties some see secularism as more important than democracy and fight these opposition parties for fear of Turkey’s government becoming too religious . Still, with the scope of Ataturk’s vision and the success of his implementation it is incredible that a figure whom Churchill described as a genius is not better known outside his homeland.
We rented a car in Samsun and Sarah braved driving the Turkish roads, my licence having conveniently expired. Turkish drivers hit the road at speed, never indicate and have this odd habit of drifting halfway into the other lane which was also a feature of driving in Jordan so perhaps is an Arabic style? We did manage to get off the main roads as we’d rented the car specifically to drive along an old highway that winds around a portion of the Black Sea coast (having being bypassed by a new freeway with tunnels). The old highway twists along the water with sections carved through the hills, which head steeply down to the water. New bright pink blossom was everyone – the region is famous for its cherries, something we took advantage of daily with a sour cherry juice and sour cherry jam at breakfast.
This section of road contains a beautiful, small, old church dedicated to Jason and the Argonauts who as legend has it travelled along this coast in his search for the golden fleece. The fishermen would come here to pray for a successful trip to sea. Also nearby is reputedly the best beach on the Black Sea coast, which is not saying much for the others. Sarah will claim to have swum in the Black Sea but this is a vast exaggeration, she barely got her ankles wet. Even that was a chilling experience. The Black Sea is not as ominous looking as the name suggests but it would still take a long and powerful summer to make it an enjoyable place to swim.
We ended up in Ordu for lunch, another fish special on the pier with some Russian looking gentlemen puffing away like chimneys at a nearby table. This part of the world has a definite Russian feel which is hard to attribute to any one thing. The urban architecture of blocky apartment buildings and tractors next to cars on the roads is part of it, as is the cooler climate and dark pine trees on the mountains. But maybe it was just knowing that Russia and the Ukraine were just over the waters. Ordu improbably has a chairlift which takes you up a nearby mountain for a better view of the coast.
The towns along the coast are much bigger than we were expecting and development seems to have taken precedence over style, but the scenery was beautiful and it felt like we were heading further into the ‘real’ Turkey.
Here’s the full set of our photos from the Black Sea Coast
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