Turkey Wonderful
.
A mesmerizing mix of the exotic and the familiar,
Turkey is
much more than its clichéd image of a “bridge between
East and West”. Invaded and settled from every direction since the start of
recorded history, it combines influences from the Middle East and the
Mediterranean, the Balkans and Central Asia. Mosques coexist with churches,
Roman theatres and temples crumble near ancient Hittite cities, and dervish
ceremonies and gypsy festivals are as much a part of the social landscape as classical
music concerts or football matches.
The friendliness of the Turkish people makes visiting
a pleasure; indeed you risk causing offence by declining invitations, and find
yourself making friends through the simplest of transactions. At the big resorts
and tourist spots, of course, this can merely be an excuse to sell you
something, but elsewhere, despite a history in which outsiders have so often
brought trouble, the warmth and generosity are genuine.
Politically, modern Turkey was a grand experiment,
largely the creation of one man – Kemal Atatürk. With superhuman energy, he
salvaged the Turkish state from the wreckage of the Ottoman Empire and defined
it as a modern, secular nation. Following 2011’s record-breaking third
successive election victory by the AKP (Justice and Development Party), largely
supported by conservative Muslims, some secular Turks fear an Iranian-style
Islamic theocracy. This seems most unlikely, however, in a country that has
been a multi-party democracy for over sixty years, and successfully blended
secularism, parliamentary democracy and global capitalism with Islam.
Despite official efforts to enforce a uniform Turkish
identity, the population is remarkably heterogeneous. When the Ottoman Empire
imploded, refugees streamed into Anatolia, including Muslim Slavs, Greeks,
Albanians, Crimean Tatars, Daghestanlis, Abkhazians and Circassians. There they
joined an already mixed population that included a very sizeable minority of
Kurds. Thanks to recent arrivals from former Soviet or Eastern Bloc
territories, that diversity endures. Another surprise may be Turkey’s sheer
youthfulness: more than half the population is under thirty, with legions of
young people working in coastal resorts, and shoals of schoolkids surging
through the city streets.
A huge part of Turkey’s appeal lies in its
archeological sites, a legacy of the bewildering succession of states –
Hittite, Urartian, Phrygian, Greek, Hellenistic, Roman, Byzantine,
Armeno-Georgian – that held sway here before the twelfth century. From grand
Classical cities to hilltop fortresses and remote churches, some still produce
exciting new finds today. In addition, Turkey holds a vast number of graceful
Islamic monuments, as well as intriguing city bazaars, still hanging on amid the
chain stores and shopping malls. Sadly, ugly modern architecture spoils most
coastal resorts, where it’s often hard to find a beach that matches the
tourist-board hype. Inland Turkey, with its Asiatic expanses of mountain,
steppe, lake, and even cloud-forest, may leave a crumbling
kervansaray, mosque or more vivid memory, especially when accented by some
castle.
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