Our next stop on the trip was Diyarbakır, which I thought was the most interesting place we visited. Diyarbakır is the largest Kurdish city in Turkey, with over 90% of the population identifying as Kurdish. Throughout the city, Kurdish it is primarily spoken though everyone also speaks Turkish, and all the street signs were in Kurdish and Turkish. The city’s name means ‘the land of copper’ in Turkish.
The city sits is on a high plateau on the banks of the Tigris River. The original city walls are well in tact and still standing. The wall, which is almost 6km long, is the second longest contiguous wall in the world, behind the Great Wall of China...which spans thousands of kilometers. Our hotel was a block outside the old city walls, it was a great location to explore the city by foot. There are four main gates into the old city, the Dağkapı in the north, Urfakapı in the west, Mardinkapı in the south, and Yenikapı in the east. Walking through the inner city felt like we took a big step back in time. All the roads were cobblestone, there were horses, donkeys, people carrying items using carts through the streets like the one in the picture below. Nobody seemed to be in a hurry, there were so many men sitting outside at tea shops drinking tea and smoking. It was a bizarre and very interesting sight.
We weren’t planning to do much that afternoon, other than see where the Grand Mosque and a few other places were to visit the next day and to find some food. So we followed our map, which brought us though this area, a maze of alleys where many people were living. Seeing inside some of the open doors we could see how impoverished and difficult the living conditions must be for these people. While we got plenty of looks because we stood out from the locals, people were very friendly towards us. When speaking to other people in Turkish, they would ask where we are from, and most people guessed Germany, and several guessed Switzerland, which I thought was odd. When we told people we were American, they were all surprised. Some said they never met an American or they had not seen Americans there in a very long time. People were interested to talk to us, and everywhere we went on this trip, people enjoyed interacting with our kids.
We made it out of the alley and walked the streets. It was business as usual here, places were busy, very few people were wearing masks (that was the case for every place we visited on this trip). One other interesting thing here is there there was a very large police presence on the street, and you could feel the tension...more about this a little later in the blog.
We finally found some food and it was soooo good! Kebap is famous here...well it’s famous in the entire country, but here eggplant kebap is famous so I tried that, we also got Adana kebap, chicken...the spices and flavors are amazing.
I loved how all the places were visited were the old Ottoman buildings, the architecture was fascinating.
We wandered the streets past dusk, taking in all the sights.
This city is also famous for a traditional dessert called kadayif. We heard about this place before coming and happened to see it while walking around.
So we got some kadayif and baklava for later.
We also heard there was a cafe built into the city walls and we saw it while walking around....so we went to check it out.
The buildings were so old and cozy inside.
Our first stop was the Diyarbakır Castle, which was on the opposite side of the city walls. These walls were built in the 4th century during the Roman period, and it is said that every dominant civilization has renewed, repaired, and expanded the walls for their security needs. Inside the fortress walls was the içkale (inner castle), which is where the city was first established.
Once we found our way out of there, we came to another section of the old fortress walls.
Caleb loves cats and though this looked like a cat :).
Back to the busy streets, heading to the Grand Mosque.
Breakfast did not disappoint! It was a lot of food....
Looking down into the river.
And that was a wrap of Diayarbakır, an incredible city full of history, delicious food, and kind people. We wanted to go to see Batman, because, why not? But it was a couple hours more east and we were already 11 hours away from Ankara, so we headed south toward the Syrian border to the town of Mardin.
There was a large courtyard inside the walls, with several old buildings that are now museums. The Ataturk Museum and the courthouse buildings were used as the Gendarmerie building until 2005, before being converted into museums.
I really liked this bench, it says ‘Diyarbakır Municipality’ on top, and ‘with great pleasure’ on the bottom.
There was even people taking wedding photos. It was a pretty garden area!
On the other side of the wall is a view of the Tigris River.
But it was a very foggy day, so we could hardly see the river.
But it was down there below the fog...
Back inside the courtyard, there was also mosque. This is the ablution area where people wash their hands and feet prior to performing prayers, with the intent of purification and dedication.
Afterwards we went into one of the museums dedicated to Ataturk.
Mustafa Kemal Ataturk is the founding father of Turkey and was the first president from 1923, until he died in 1938. He is best known for modernizing Turkey into a secular nation, which many people will argue is going in a backwards direction over the past 20 years. He is well-loved and his picture is displayed proudly in all establishments around the country.
Next we visited the Church of Saint George. The building was built by the Ottoman Sultan Abdulhamit for the Hamidiye Regiments in 1885, and used as a prison for a long time.
It’s stone structure was beautifully intact...and it was very cold inside!
I love the Ottoman styles arches and the details etched into the ceilings.
This was an old cafeteria, turned into a cafe and museum shop.
We enjoyed gözleme, a Turkish flat pancake with a filling (potatoes, spinach, or cheese), coffee, and sodas, before heading out to explore again.
After leaving the inner castle complex, we passed a few other beautiful mosques from the Ottoman period.
Next, we tried to walk into the center of town to see the Grand Mosque, but encountered some very interesting detours that brought to life some of the difficult history we have been learning about in this part of the country. Diyarbakır has been the main focal point of conflict for many years between the Turkish government and various Kurdish separatist groups, mainly the PKK (Kurdistan Workers Party). In July 2015, there was another wave of severe violence throughout the country, when a 2.5 year cease fire between the PKK and Turkish government broke down. You may recall the couple years of significant bombings that occurred in Ankara and Istanbul, and the retaliation for most of this occurred in Diyarbakır. During this conflict, about a third of the old city was bombed by the Turkish government, and during the fighting close to two thousand people, mainly Turkish soldiers, lost their lives.
I’m not sure we were supposed to be in this area, but we were curious and kept walking. The destruction was massive, it was very sad to see so many homes destroyed.
In some parts of the old city, you could see signs of rebuilding and renovation. There appeared to be some longer term projects to refurbish some of the destroyed structures.
We found some stairs and enjoyed the view of the city.
Stretch of the walls.
The Grand Mosque, or Ulu Camii, is considered the 5th holiest site in Islam, behind the Grand Mosque of Damascus. It was originally a church, then after being conquered by the Muslims in 639, it was converted into a mosque. The arch opened into a large courtyard. Ahead is the ablution area.
You can’t tell from the picture, but there was a steady stream of people going in and out of the mosque, so we weren’t sure if it was ok to enter for a while. We finally asked a police officer and he said it is ok to go inside and look around.
This was the area where women could pray.
Next to the front door of the mosque were beautiful Arabic inscriptions in the wall.
The carpet was a beautiful turquoise color that popped against the old stone and wood inside.
Several people were performing prayers so we only stayed in the entrance way for a few minutes to look around. This mosque is said to hold 5,000 people, but it seems like it could have fit many more.
Looking out into the square from inside the mosque complex.
Next we went down the street to the famous Hassan Pasha Hani, a restored caravansarai from the 16th century, that is now a place famous for Turkish breakfast, rug, jewelry, and other souvenir shops.
Our server loved interacting with the kids and especially enjoyed Eliza...the feeling was mutual :)
We were towards the end of food serving time (3pm), this place is supposedly usually packed to the brim with people.
I enjoyed talking to a shop owner that we bought a magnet from. A man nearby heard me say we were from the US and came up and began speaking to us in English. He said he used to work with US Embassy and military people and asked if we would come see his carpet shop.
He sold copper items downstairs and rugs upstairs.
We looked at some carpets, but didn’t see anything we liked.
But Eliza liked all the attention.
We kept walking around and the boys thought the man selling simit (a Turkish bagel) was very talented for balancing that large plate stacked so high of simit on his head.
Along the Main Street were openings for so many markets, so we explored a few along the way.
There was a restaurant we passed the previous night that we wanted to try for dinner. It was a neat restaurant that had low archways to get to different parts of the restaurant. It was so busy so we were not seated in that section, but it was still a fun experience to be there and as usual the food was amazing!
By 5:00pm many shops begin to shut down and by 6pm the streets were very quiet and more police were out patrolling. It was definitely a different feel in the city, compared to other places we visited on this trip. It did not bother us, since we were used to this having lived in the Middle East the last 9 years, and realized it wasn’t directed towards us. But it was sad to see these people having to live under these conditions.
We stopped at a playground on the way back to the hotel, then called it a night.
Before heading out of town the next morning, we wanted to see Dicle Köprüsü, which means the Tigris River Bridge. It’s a historic bridge that spans over the Tigris River. It was completed in 1065 and has 10 arches, and is also know as the the Öngözlu Köprüsü, which means the 10 arches bridge. It was a very cold and foggy morning, so we didn’t get a good view of the river, but it made for a pretty and kind of eerie sight. Aside from one man warming himself with a fire in the middle of the bridge, we were the only people there.
