![]() ![]() The Çifte Minareli Madrese whose name meaning, “double-minareted,” derives from the two thirty-meter-tall towers that flank the building’s wide façade. ![]() Passersby include parents with small children pedaling their tiny bicycles and toy automobiles.Įrzurum has several monuments of note along or just off the city’s main thoroughfare, and I’ll mention just one other that has become a kind of civic icon. Surrounding these historical monuments on the edges of the park are benches where old men wearing skullcaps sit chatting and drowsing in the morning sunshine. ![]() If so, it is not one of his greatest works. The central area contained a gift shop and a small cafe that were lovely spots to browse and relax.īehind the medrese the squat mid-16th-century Lala Mustafa Paşa Camii or mosque is said to have been built by the great architect Sinan. Each item was identified and explained in both Turkish and English. Stooping to enter these through low doorways, we found some very attractive displays of traditional men’s and women’s dress and accessories along with ceramics, tools, weapons, and measuring devices. Inside is a large central space surrounded by chambers that were once student cells. Though it was built long ago as a Koranic seminary, today it houses the Museum of Islamic and Turkish Arts. Surrounded as it is by urban sprawl, this building’s appearance commands attention. The Yakuts are a Turkic-speaking people that live somewhere in Central Asia, and the exotic-looking medrese with its single minaret covered with a knotted lattice of tile work has a Central Asian or Persian look. In fact, in Erzurum, there is only one square, an immense concrete platform that takes its name from the eponymous, 14th-century medrese that stands at its center. These streetscapes are rarely relieved by municipal parks and squares. Their broken sidewalks are often difficult to negotiate and their principal streets are lined with nondescript buildings whose facades are covered with enormous signs and banners that fight with each other for attention. ![]() As it happened, we would need their help under special circumstances a couple of days later.Īpart from some great mosques, fortresses, and other historical sites, Turkish towns are often rather ugly by Western standards. Most importantly, the staff was welcoming and helpful. Our sleeping room had a desk and a chair where I could write in the mornings. Our hotel, the Dilaver, was worn and charmless but comfortable enough. Our taxi into town was a thrill ride, as our driver wasted no time gitting us to our lodging. The tiny men’s room’s single urinal was out of order and several men ahead of me stood in line to use the two remaining Turkish toilets. In the airport terminal, I had an immediate reminder of how the quality of provincial life differs from what I am used to. However, we had arrived in June, on the seasonal cusp a day or two later we would feel the daytime temperatures climb to an uncomfortably warm extent. This is the region that routinely reports Turkey’s coldest winter temperatures. Some of the distant mountains were still streaked with snow. As Kay and I stepped off our Onur Air flight onto the tarmac accompanied by our visiting American friends Larry and Susan, we were immediately struck by an air temperature at least ten degrees cooler than Istanbul’s. The city of Erzurum is situated on a vast plateau 2,000 meters above sea level. These are the borderlands where the landscapes of mountains and steppe remind us that over the centuries it was through here that the waves of Selcuk and Ottoman Turks and the Mongol hordes from Central Asia passed to conquer and settle Asia Minor. the northeastern section of the country, especially the districts containing the cities of Erzurum and Kars, are an excellent choice. That’s why it’s good from time to time to rebalance our perspective by spending a few days in a different part of Anatolia, one far from the cosmopolitan delights of the seaside towns and cities. Living in our middle-class Moda neighborhood, surrounded by the beauty of the sea and indulged by the delicious varieties of food and drink so near at hand, tends to cloud our view of Turkey as a whole.
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