To Ulu Kale.

I had an excellent night’s sleep because of the comfortable bed and the quiet room, so was rested enough by 6.30am to walk to the ferry terminal to take more photos of the ferries and the castle. Because breakfast at the hotel was not served until 8.00am, I walked toward the roundabout with the peace sign, but, before getting that far, took a right turn along a dirt road that led toward the centre of Pertek past small apartment blocks, houses in large gardens and farms where families kept sheep and a few cattle. As the road ascended, the views of the reservoir and the castle steadily improved. Every so often, children waited to be picked up in a minibus and taken to school.

Before the reservoir had filled with water, two mosques were dismantled from the slopes on which old Pertek lay and reassembled in the modern town (in other words, the mosques lay on the slopes below the castle. The slopes were now below the level of the water, as were ruins including a church and a hamam). I caught glimpses of both the mosques. They had their origins in the 16th century. Baysungur Camii was a domed cube with a three-domed portico and a minaret. The portico’s walls and the minaret’s shaft were constructed with bands of chocolate-coloured and cream-coloured stone, but the walls of the prayer hall comprised of rubble stone. Celebi Ali Camii had some similarities with Baysungur Camii, but an iwan and a cesme helped to make it distinctive in appearance.

For breakfast, I was directed to the café and lokanta built in the large garden overlooking the reservoir the other side of the road from the hotel. I sat at a table facing the reservoir, the castle and the hills to the south-west and, about 15 minutes later, was given tea and a tray of food. For a hotel expensive by Turkish standards the food was not very imaginative, but, with a generous portion of bread to go with the tomatoes, cucumber, olives, three types of cheese, chips, boiled egg, honey in the comb, cherry jam, tea and water, I had no reason to complain. However, cloud was building up and turning the sun a little hazy. I expected the day to involve a lot of walking, so perhaps the cloud would prove a blessing in disguise.

My destinations for the day were Ulu Kale, about 10 to 15 kilometres from Cemisgezek, and Sagman, about 15 kilometres from Pertek. Both destinations lay off the main road to Cemisgezek, but the previous day’s travels had given me the opportunity to identify precisely where both roads to my destinations diverged. I had resolved to visit Ulu Kale first because it was further from Pertek.

Just before 9.00am, I left the hotel for the roundabout with the peace sign and, ten minutes after arriving there, a quietly spoken man driving an old Tofas offered me a lift to the junction for Dere. When I got out of the car, I was almost as far as the small supermarket where I had bought the ice cream the day before. I walked a short distance, then a car stopped with four men inside. The men were going to Cemisgezek to undertake a day’s work and they each had a small briefcase to confirm they were civil servants or professionals of some importance. Because the junction for Ulu Kale was only 3 or 4 kilometres from Akcapinar near where I had been the day before, I was taken most of the way to Cemisgezek. The journey confirmed that the road from Pertek to Cemisgezek was one of exceptional beauty and interest.

Between Pertek and Cemisgezek.

Because the car in which we travelled was very new and the driver wanted to show off his skills at the wheel, it was about 10.20am when I arrived at the junction for Ulu Kale. The sign at the bottom of the road suggested that the village was only 4 kilometres away, but by the time I arrived in its centre, it felt as if I had walked 5 or 5.5 kilometres. For most of the way, the ascent was merely steady and a lot of time was spent at or near the highest point along a ridge. I therefore secured excellent views of Payamduzu on the way to Akcapinar and Cemisgezek, and north toward snow-smudged mountains in the milli parki. The cloud cover remained quite thick, which imbued many a view with a grey tinge, but at least it was cool and the views extensive, not least over the reservoir. I encountered a few large flocks of sheep and goats. Once, I was worried that large dogs protecting a flock might make their way in my direction  because they had seen me and were barking in a threatening way. However, they decided to stay close to their shepherd instead.

Ulu Kale.

Ulu Kale.

I rounded a corner and was at the westernmost edge of Ulu Kale. In recent decades, the village had shifted from its original position immediately below basalt cliffs crowned by the scant remains of a castle to a more accessible and gently sloping shelf looking south. However, the remains of the original village and the much larger new one lay in a bowl with cliffs and steep slopes rising to the west, the north and the east. Once the houses and other facilities of the village somewhat abruptly concluded, fields, orchards and pasture led toward a river to the south. At the entrance to the village on the west side was a most unusual sight in a Turkish village, identical modern houses arranged in regular fashion along new roads that strictly belonged in a new suburb in one of the large conurbations far to the west. The pitched roofs, brightly painted render walls, satellite dishes and small gardens behind wire fences would have looked perfectly at home in parts of Bursa or Eskisehir. Or, with minor tweaking, in Birmingham in the UK.

View south from Ulu Kale.

Ulu Kale.

Despite Ulu Kale being enclosed by cliffs and slopes immediately to the north, open views existed south-east and south-west, and the hills to the south were far enough away to create a welcome sense of spaciousness. Although the most interesting houses were the ones in the original village (they had been built with stone and were large), only a few remained and they looked as if they had been abandoned. The houses in the new village were of interest because a mixture of stone, mudbrick, concrete, render, wood, corrugated iron and flat sheets of metal have been used to good visual effect. Most houses had a patch of garden surrounding them where trees, flowers and a few vegetables could be grown.

Part of the old village, Ulu Kale.

Part of the old village below the castle, Ulu Kale.

Between the original village and the new one was a turbe with an octagonal ground plan. According to Sinclair, it was built in 1550 for someone called Ferruhsad Bey:

Three courses of a rich red stone run round the trunk. Two large windows in arched recesses to e. and w. Beside the mihrab, which is partly lost, there are niches in the se. and sw. walls of the interior. The brick interior dome is revealed by the loss of the exterior pyramidal cap. There is a small crypt.

The turbe, Ulu Kale.

Not far from the turbe was a ruin described to me as a church. I could find nothing to confirm what the ruin had been, but Sinclair describes a church more or less where the ruin was. He writes that it was:

Single nave, one rib. Semi-circular apse, ruined. Entrance wall mostly fallen. Large blocks used. Probably 17th or 18th century.

The ruined church (?), Ulu Kale.

The ruined church (?), Ulu Kale.

Photos of Ulu Kale on the internet taken a few years ago confirm that many old houses, even then in a very neglected state, had disappeared altogether, and it was obvious from Sinclair’s monumental study of eastern Turkey that very little of the castle survived. However, I was glad I had made the effort to visit the village, not least for its dramatic natural surroundings. I noticed that a road meandered along the river in an easterly direction leading after a few kilometres to Bozagac and, if nothing else, the scenery must be very rewarding. From Bozagac, a road led to the one between Pertek and Cemisgezek. Could this be a round walk for a future visit? Perhaps.

View east from Ulu Kale.

Local wildlife, Ulu Kale.

So little traffic went from Ulu Kale to the Pertek to Cemisgezek road during the day that I had to walk all the way to the junction, but at least I was going downhill most of the time and could enjoy extensive views of the reservoir. Once at the junction, I had to wait only a short time for a lift all the way to the junction for Sagman. I was travelling with a man of local importance (he toured the region to confirm that road works were completed to a satisfactory standard) because he was in a new and very comfortable car with a chauffeur. The chauffeur said that he played professional football for a club in a league two levels below the top-flight clubs and that his job as a chauffeur terminated once the football season began. Both men were Alevis. They combined friendliness with a reflective frame of mind, but warned me that most people in Sagman were Sunni Muslims.

Between Ulu Kale and the Pertek to Cemisgezek road.

To Mazgirt.

During what was to be roughly 48 hours in and around Tunceli, I heard the adhan only once. There was a very ordinary modern Ottoman-style mosque in the town centre, but it was never very busy. Most people who used it were probably not indigenous; the were probably outsiders who had settled in the town for work purposes, either permanently or temporarily.

And it was definitely NOT the adhan that woke me at about 4.00am. I was startled awake by a far more interesting and rhythmic sound, that of an unaccompanied male voice repeating the same or a very similar phrase many times over. But other voices repeated the phrase or phrases after the soloist. The other voices sounded like male ones, but they may have included a few women. At one point I thought I heard drums emphasising the rhythm, but it could have been human voices creating the sound. The chanting, which is the best way to describe what I heard, went on for about 20 minutes and it almost certainly came from a nearby cemevi. Because I did not hear the chanting the following morning at the same time, I assumed it had been something peculiar to the Monday concerned. Alternatively, were Alevis and/or Bektashis marking an important day in their cycle of festivals and commemorations, a cycle that differed significantly from the one important to mainstream Sunni and Shia Muslims? Back home, because I found nothing significant about 25th May 2015 for Alevis or Bektashis, I concluded that what I heard was a routine practice confined to Mondays.

Tunceli.

I knew that a minibus left for Mazgirt, my main destination for the day, at 7.00am, but, if I left that early, I would miss breakfast. As it was, Mazgirt was not a great distance from Tunceli, so an early start was not essential. I ate breakfast, which was neither as good as the best nor as bad as the worst during the trip. I enjoyed in particular the views south, east and north from the L-shaped room in which the food was served. However, a woman prepared the meal and the food included loose butter as white as Lurpak, a local cream cheese, boiled eggs and flat-bread still warm from the baker’s oven. The woman wore casual clothes of European character and no headscarf, as might have been expected in a hotel run by two men who appeared to be socialists or communists.

Tunceli.

The hotel’s breakfast room, Tunceli.

Because overnight I had had an upset stomach, I returned to my room for a fourth and last shit to clear the system (as I knew from past experience with an upset stomach, regular shits were the best medicine and not medicine itself) and instantly felt a lot better.

At about 7.45am I left the hotel, walked to the bridge over the river carrying the road from Elazig to Pulumur and Erzincan, and made my way south toward Elazig and what I hoped would soon be the edge of town. But development persisted for a long way, so much so that I flagged a minibus to Tunceli University’s campus, which I knew was about 7 kilometres from the town centre. The minibus went past many new buildings, most of which were no more than ten years old. Some of the buildings coalesced into a reasonably attractive residential area with apartment blocks rising about eight to a dozen storeys. The blocks were painted bright colours and the apartments looked comfortable. Every apartment had at least one balcony. Shops, offices, lokantas, bakeries and interior design and furniture stores occupied the ground floors, so the locality was almost a self-sufficient suburb. However, there were vacant plots among the apartment blocks covered with litter and building waste.

None of the female students wore a headscarf whether in the minibus or on their way to the university by walking or using other transport. They and their male companions could have been conveyed to almost any campus in the UK and looked very much at home.

I got off the minibus when it turned off the road to Elazig to ascend the hillside to access the campus. I walked a short distance along the main road to where an elderly couple were waiting for a minibus to Elazig that would travel via Pertek and the ferry that crossed the Keban Reservoir. The Elazig minibus arrived and, because it had the space, I went as far as where the road to Pertek branched from the much longer road to Elazig that I needed to follow to get to Mazgirt. Once again, the driver would not take any money for the fare.

I was now about 8 kilometres from the junction for Mazgirt and confident that the next lift would get me at least that far. Five minutes later, a van stopped and the driver and his companion said they were going to Mazgirt. The 11 kilometres from the junction to Mazgirt was through pretty undulating scenery dominated for most of the way by fields, orchards and pasture. In the distance were mountains and one of the mountains was the vast eruption of rock on which stood Mazgirt’s citadel. Mazgirt itself was a small and compact town. It clung to the gently sloping wall of the mountain facing south. From the town were extensive views down the Munzur Cayi valley and over the one occupied by the Euphrates.

Mazgirt.

The citadel, Mazgirt.

On the way to Mazgirt, a car on the other side of the road ran over a puppy, but the driver did not stop to see if it had survived (nor did we stop, but all three of us expressed anger and dismay that the driver running over the puppy could be so reckless and indifferent). The driver of the car in front of the one that ran over the puppy had applied its brakes so as not to do it any harm. Returning to Tunceli later in the day, I saw that the puppy had not survived. Its body remained in the road where it had died.

I was dropped in the middle of Mazgirt, a town with an official population of just less than 2,000. A small square of irregular shape had the Hukumet Konagi on one side and, before leaving for Tunceli, I was invited inside by a police officer with whom I had some tea. Bunting of the different political parties hung from lamp posts and buildings, and the vans of the CHP pulled into town with the usual music blaring from loudspeakers (at one point in the Hukumet Konagi, I had a conversation about Erdogan with a CHP bigwig or fixer. I was surprised that I had a far more negative impression of the president than he did).

Mazgirt.

Part of the square and a nearby street constituted the commercial heart of the town and most premises were occupied by shops, small supermarkets, tea houses, lokantas, barbers, a butcher and a tailor. The dress of the women suggested that Mazgirt had a large Alevi population, so conversation was frequent and relaxed with everyone I met.

Mazgirt.

Although Mazgirt’s most important survival from the past was the citadel, I also examined two very ruined churches, Ulu Camii, a turbe in excellent condition and some attractive old houses utilising stone, timber, render and, to fix holes in the walls or make roofs lightweight but watertight, corrugated iron or flat metal sheets. By the end of my short visit, I liked Mazgirt a lot. I also liked the walk up and partly around the citadel majestically constructed on the mountain high above the town. During the walk, I encountered beehives and wild flowers, the latter of enviable variety. Back in the town centre, I alarmed a police officer when taking a photo of the landscaping that had turned the small square into a building site. He asked if I had taken a photo of an armoured vehicle parked outside the Hukumet Konagi. When I showed him the photos on my memory stick to confirm I had not, he relaxed and we shook hands. Mazgirt and its immediate surroundings had a much larger police and jandarma presence than I would have thought necessary, but some of the jandarma posts had been abandoned.

Mazgirt.

The police officer worried about my photographs was from Istanbul and had to serve in the small town of Mazgirt for two years. He was half way through his tour of duty and admitted that Mazgirt had come as quite a culture shock after living almost his whole life in Istanbul where secular and Sunni dispositions were vastly more apparent than Alevi ones.

Before leaving for Tunceli, I consumed two chilled ayrans in a small supermarket on the main square. By then I was very thirsty and in need of the refreshment.

Mazgirt.

By way of introducing Mazgirt to his readers, Sinclair notes that:

From the line of mountains extends a rocky arm pointing roughly south-west; from this again the delicate but formidable citadel rock breaks off towards the south-east; a remarkable detached tower of rock outlies it to the south-west. A bowl, where until the first world war most of the settlement lay, is thus enclosed on three sides by dark, broken cliffs: previously, part of the town had lain on the beginning of the descent towards the Munzur Cayi. The town has now moved.

Of the citadel, Sinclair writes that:

In its basic shape this is a long platform with a rock rising out of the middle…

Lower platform. There are walls upstanding only at a few points. At the sharp nw. corner they survive to a good height… The facing material of what survives is a reddish and purple block, and the walls that we see are probably near in date to the Elte Hatun Camii (1252/53). Approaching up the e. skirt one finds a small complex of walls…: to the r. is a rather crude but gently rising rock-hewn staircase…

Upper platform… Circular rock-hewn pit (original purpose unknown): the rectangular block of masonry built partly over its w. edge is said to have belonged to a windmill. Just n. of the inner angle starts a rectangular floor created by hollowing out the rock slope, so that the inner rock wall, against which some medieval (?) masonry has been added, is of a substantial height. Perhaps originally a platform connected with a temple elsewhere on the terrace?

The citadel, Mazgirt.

The citadel, Mazgirt.

What I call Ulu Camii, because this was how Mazgirt’s inhabitants designated it now, Sinclair identifies as the Elte Hatun Camii. The mosque:

in which a dark, purplish composite stone was used, was built in 1252/53 by a princess called Elte Hatun… The prayer hall is a rectangle of limited size. The entrance vestibule is against the e. half of the n. wall… Since it is a single-vaulted chamber whereas the vaults of the prayer hall are taken on piers, it had to be built higher than the prayer hall…

Portal. The muqarnas canopy is cut into the back wall of a deep and tall arched recess… Cesme… Simple muqarnas canopy.

The entrance hall has a domical vault and lantern above… The prayer hall’s vaults rest on four solid, fairly low piers. From the piers are sprung thick n.-s. arches, and the vaults, interrupted by wide ribs, rest on arches. There is a lantern dead in the middle of the roof. The mihrab niche is a rectangle inset into the wall, on whose face runs a plain concave moulding.

Ulu Camii, Mazgirt.

Sinclair calls the turbe the Elte Hatun Turbesi, but:

The low quality of the carving makes this almost inconceivable. Perhaps 15th century. Eight-sided, pyramidal cap. Door to n., three windows placed at the other points of the compass… Door frame: roughly executed plain mouldings. Either side, two vertical bands of an extraordinary incised decoration.

The turbe, Mazgirt.

The church in a better state of preservation was the Armenian Church of Surp Hakop. According to Sinclair:

Its ne. and e. sides, apparently lying against the hill, are in reality banked up with gradually accumulating loose earth. The church is a strangely short rectangle. The apse and the side chambers are conceived of as openings dug into a mass of masonry filling the e. end and faced in a clean wall. The nave, not much longer than it is wide, is roofed by a broad barrel-vault steadied by a powerful rib. From the springing-line upwards, the w. wall has disappeared, leaving only the bases of the three windows in this wall. Large cut blocks are used on the sw. corner. Thus the doorway and its relieving arch are executed in this masonry. Note muqarnas-style decoration of capitals of rib and at base of arch leading to apse.

Perhaps 16th or 17th century; however, the church has the appearance of being reconstructed from the ruins of a predecessor whose e. end was of a similar design, but whose nave would have been longer and thus better proportioned.

Church of Surp Hakop, Mazgirt.

Church of Surp Hakop, Mazgirt.

Church of Surp Hakop, Mazgirt.

Church of Surp Hakop, Mazgirt.

Church of Surp Hakop, Mazgirt.

Church of Surp Hakop, Mazgirt.

Not all that Sinclair describes above had survived, but even less remained of the second church, which was also likely to have been Armenian. Nonetheless, I provide in full Sinclair’s brief description so we acquire an insight into what has been lost:

That of the Mother of God. N. side chamber; beginning of apse and apse arch; arch now blocked, which once separated n. aisle from nave, part of vault over nave are left. Probably a basilican church. Date extremely hard (to estimate); possibly medieval. Arches in brick.

Church of the Mother of God, Mazgirt.

Although too small to support a hotel, even a very simple one, Mazgirt was a delightful place in remarkably attractive surroundings and well worth visiting for at least a few hours.

Mazgirt.

As I walked out of the town past a modern school, a driver stopped his car to ask where I was going. He drove me all the way to the centre of Tunceli where he had business to conduct and shopping to do. Until we arrived among the kipple cluttering the south end of Tunceli, the journey was scenically a delight.

Divrigi (part two).

I left Ulu Camii and the Hospital to walk through the pretty residential areas to the south. Although some old buildings had been demolished so that modern houses and small apartment blocks could fill a few of the gaps, a lot of old houses survived. Most old houses were timber-framed and some had overhanging upper storeys supported on wooden corbels. There were also some houses made with stone, but these were fewer in number and more likely to be abandoned by their owners. Most old houses had gardens beside them. Near where the market had set up for the day was a large cemetery containing many old graves and small tombs. Many of the graves had irises in or beside them and they were in bloom. Where the irises clustered together en masse they looked very impressive.

View toward the citadel, Divrigi.

Divrigi.

Divrigi.

Divrigi.

The cemetery, Divrigi.

The cemetery, Divrigi.

I saw three turbes as I walked around, the ones for Sitte Melik, Kamareddin and Kemankes. All three had octagonal ground plans and pyramid roofs, and were austere in appearance externally. On the western edge of the commercial heart of Divrigi was a very large hamam still in daily use. The hamam had an impressive roof broken up by domes. Holes had been pierced into the domes and filled with glass to allow natural light to access the interior. Immediately beside the hamam was a carefully restored bridge that in the old days would have been one of the two or three main routes into the centre of Divrigi. The bridge crossed a narrow river, which no doubt supplied the hamam with its water in the past.

The hamam and citadel, Divrigi.

The hamam, Divrigi.

A turbe, Divrigi.

At the end of my walk, I had a look around the excellent and very extensive market. There were at least a hundred stalls on an irregularly shaped open space not far from the town’s small but attractive pazar, which was no more than a few streets running at right angles to one another overlooked by shops, offices, tea houses, lokantas and workshops for craftsmen. The market was dominated by stalls selling food such as fruit, vegetables, cheese, olives, honey, sweets and bread, but other stalls specialised in clothes, shoes, items for the kitchen, hardware, tools, goods made with plastic, cheap electrical gadgets, live hens and plants for the garden. It was very crowded and remained so for most of the day. Many minibuses had brought people from villages and small towns in the surrounding area and most would not return until about four or five o’clock. Adding to the spectacle and the noise were members of the political parties who were out in force trying to persuade people to vote for them. Vans with loudspeakers toured the streets playing music, speeches or irritating jingles. Outside the party political headquarters, men gave out leaflets or verbal information about the policies their leaders intended to implement if they formed the next government. It was the perfect day to be in Divrigi. Wednesdays must knock spots off all the other days of the week, especially if a general election is soon taking place.

One small thing I liked about Divrigi was that quite a lot of cesmes survived and they still dispensed water. As I walked around, I filled my bottle three times thinking what an asset they must be when the temperatures are at their highest from the beginning of July to the middle of September.

In the market, I bought a half kilo of sweet but juicy and ready-to-eat strawberries of dark red colour for only 2TL, then walked back to the hotel. Not far from the Belediye was a bufe that sold beer for 5.1TL, which was not a bad price, all things considered, especially given the good exchange rate working in favour of people with pounds sterling. I thought of how enjoyable the walk had been, not least because of the cesmes just mentioned from which chilled water never failed to pour. But I had also enjoyed the chats with people I had met: a young female professional photographer at Ulu Camii; student teachers training to work in religious schools; couples, some with children, visiting Divrigi from cities such as Bursa, Izmir and Istanbul; a bus driver very tired during a long day’s shift; and a tour guide from Ankara visiting new places on his own to offer unusual destinations to his tour groups. Divrigi seemed to have a large Turkish and Sunni population. The latter was apparent because most women walked around with headscarves arranged to completely cover their hair and ears. The presence of so many headscarves in an urban environment meant that chats with women were infrequent and very brief, the photographer excepted. Because the photographer came from Istanbul and was a thoroughly modern woman, chat with an unknown male was of no consequence to her. And, because I was old enough to be her grandfather…

The market, Divrigi.

At 3.00pm, I sat on my balcony writing up notes about the day so far. I ate a few of the strawberries with the last of some chocolate, the latter a parting gift from Hilary, and the remains of a packet of Lidl’s crisps, which had survived the train journey from Darlington to Manchester Airport at the start of the trip. Lots of swifts circled just to the south of the hotel and, later that evening, I discovered why. They had built nests in many of the balconies on the top floor of the hotel, the floor above mine. However, one swift flew too close to the ground. A cat scuttled across the patio with the bird struggling in its mouth.

About an hour later, I left the hotel and turned right to examine a nearby park run by the Belediye. From the park were excellent views of the citadel, the railway station, the hills and mountains to the north and the river far below. A few children enjoyed the facilities in a large playground. Young couples had come to flirt on benches and drink tea or soft drinks in a quiet tea garden. Suddenly the horn of a diesel locomotive sounded from the railway track beside the river and a freight train rattled toward Divrigi station from Kemah and Ilic. Dark clouds gathered in the sky and a rumble of thunder suggested there might be some rain, just as in Arapgir the evening before.

The park and playground, Divrigi.

I walked into the centre of the town to look around the market, watch two men in their workshops in the pazar repair metal cooking utensils, examine the large hamam with its many domes and the restored bridge beside it, take photos of some old houses and chat with a few men outside the regional headquarters of the MHP. I spoke in particular with Mustafa, a doctor aged about 40 with long hair who was campaigning on behalf of the party. However, most noise was generated at the AKP headquarters, but whether such noise was attracting or repelling voters I could not say. A picture of Erdogan looking statesmanlike had been transferred to a rectangle of material larger than a bed sheet and it flapped in the gentle breeze. The AKP would probably secure a high vote in Divrigi, but I based this assessment only on the appearance of many of the local people. Conventional Sunni piety seemed to prevail among a majority of men and women of voting age. Hajis’ beards and women’s headscarves were very common.

The hamam and restored bridge, Divrigi.

The MHP headquarters, Divrigi.

The pazar, Divrigi.

The pazar, Divrigi.

I called at a branch of the BIM supermarket chain for a refreshing ayran that was mild and creamy with a hint of salt and sourness, then stopped at a bakery in the pazar for a flat loaf of bread just out of the wood-fired oven. The bread had a brown but soft crust with parallel ridges just like a ploughed field. I ate some of the bread as I walked along and, while doing so, decided not to have a sit-down meal to end the day. Instead, I would finish the remaining strawberries with what was left of the bread. It was good not to stick with too rigid a routine when it came to food.

From the park beside the hotel, the railway station and its associated clutter looked so interesting that I went to look around the area more closely. Only two passenger trains passed through Divrigi each way every day, but the station was kept in very good condition (one of the trains was due in about an hour’s time and two passengers were waiting for it). There was a rarely used bufe on the platform and, some distance from there, a small locomotive works where repairs could be undertaken. Freight trucks, abandoned carriages and old and new locomotives occupied a few sidings, and near the locomotive works was a turntable. A few of the locomotives and carriages looked worthy of sending to a museum. Small apartment blocks between the station and the locomotive works had been built a few decades ago to accommodate families with at least one adult working on the railway, but it was doubtful that all the apartments were lived in by such families now. Although some routes in the west of the country were now high speed and enjoyed a lot of passenger traffic carried in modern trains, most routes east of Ankara, the capital, were starved of resources and could not compete with transport on the rapidly improving road network, although there were indications that some routes in the east will eventually be up-graded. I hope they are up-graded. I have enjoyed every encounter I have had with Turkey’s rail network and one year I will travel some of the routes again.

The railway station, Divrigi.

The railway, Divrigi.

I walked along a siding where grass and wild flowers grew between the wooden sleepers. A few low wagons had been parked on the siding and each wagon carried lots of new concrete sleepers. Here was evidence that some up-grading would soon take place in the region.

I returned to the hotel and sat on my balcony as I ate the last of the strawberries, the bread and an apricot, the latter a gift provided by someone in the market. It was now about 6.45pm and on the patio about eight of the tables were occupied, some by groups of men, some by groups of young women and some by couples. One large table was taken by a Turkish family and another by a French one. Most people had ordered drinks. Beer was popular with males and females, but food was available from the kitchen. This was too good an opportunity to miss, so I went downstairs, sat at one of the tables, ordered the first of two beers and wrote a few notes as I enjoyed the excellent views of the citadel, the ruined church, one of the town’s octagonal turbes, the nearby hills and mountains, a short stretch of railway track, the swifts flying overhead and the views toward the centre of Divrigi. It proved a very pleasant end to a very enjoyable day.

The citadel and Armenian church, Divrigi.

I chatted with the French family. The mother and father were in their late thirties, their daughter was 13 and their son was 11. The children had been taken out of school to have an adventure they were unlikely to ever forget; they were touring eastern Turkey, Georgia and Armenia on their bikes. The family had flown to Ankara and, after one night in the capital, had caught a train to Sivas. After three days touring the area around Sivas, they returned to the city and travelled by train to Divrigi where they were staying for another three nights. Their next destination was Kars from where they intended to cycle to and from the ruined medieval Armenian city of Ani.

“How will you get to Armenia?” I asked. “My understanding is that all border crossings between Turkey and Armenia are closed, to foreigners at least.”

“Yes, that is also our information,” said the mother. “We will go by road from Turkey to Georgia and enter Armenia from Georgia. After seeing some of Armenia, we will return to Turkey via Georgia. It is sad we cannot go directly from Turkey to Armenia, but history and politics are so often problems for many countries and their relations with their neighbours.”

The problem of transit arrangements between Turkey and Armenia was rendered even more insane because growing numbers of Armenia’s citizens were travelling to Turkey to make sense of their family history. Moreover, it was said by some analysts that no fewer than 100,000 Armenian guestworkers now lived and worked in Turkey because the Turkish economy was much more buoyant than the one in Armenia (however, some sources put the actual figure for such guestworkers as low as 10,000. A figure of 50,000 may be more accurate).

The Belediye Hotel was a reminder of the days before economic liberalisation, the dismantling of the state monopolies and the rise of the AKP. A lot of the 1970s and early 1980s persisted in the appearance of the building and the facilities it provided. With its overwhelmingly male-friendly character and complete indifference to religion, the hotel encouraged the idea that Ataturk’s commitments to Turkish nationalism, secularism and public funding for and state management of economic development remained uncompromised. But uncompromised they no longer were because, in the late 1980s in particular, what had come to be known as Kemalism was subjected to long-overdue critical appraisal. However, not everything associated with Kemalism was misguided and, at Divrigi’s Belediye Hotel, I was brought face-to-face with some of its benefits (although the hotel’s male-friendly character cried out for the civilising effect of a female-friendly makeover).

Even the hotel manager looked a left-over from the increasingly remote and discredited era when the secular forces in Turkey ruled the roost. He was overweight, wore a denim shirt and trousers, had thick black hair that looked like a wig and boasted a moustache resembling a large black slug. He lacked a beard because its existence would have implied sympathy with Islam. His somewhat raffish and dissolute appearance reminded me of the very popular 1970s and 1980s male singers of Kurdish origin who could not say they were Kurds because, at the time, Kurds did not officially exist in Turkey. True, the Kurdish male singers of old took more care with their appearance than the hotel manager, but they could afford to because they were rolling in money.

The westbound evening passenger train went by with eight carriages about five minutes ahead of schedule.

Every time I visit Turkey in general and eastern Turkey in particular I think the bubble will burst and I will have no further desire to return, other than to see a few people who have been far more generous with their hospitality than I ever deserved. The Turkey that first got me so excited has largely disappeared due to growing prosperity, improved communications and humankind’s inclination to suppress the things that make us different, but, especially in the villages and small towns where traditional ways of doing things persist the longest, I still get a thrill when I encounter something unexpected or that challenges my preconceived ideas about the country and its people. Also, I now realise that differences will always exist because the process of assimilation can never be total or complete, which is something that fills me with delight because, in Turkey as in so many other nation states, I am drawn to minorities that bravely sustain their distinctive identity in often hostile environments. It always puzzles me why majority populations feel so threatened by minorities that seek merely to preserve from the past some of the things that make them different. Provided such things do not conflict with fundamental human rights, what is the problem? Diversity should be celebrated instead of undermined.

Divrigi.

P.S. Back home on the internet, I accessed “Chronological Index: the extermination of Ottoman Armenians by the Young Turk regime (1915-1916)” on the “Online Encyclopedia of Mass Violence”. The index includes this brief entry about Divrigi:

May 1915, kaza of Divrigi (province of Sıvas). After the arrest of the local Armenian elite, a second wave of arrests is organised on the merchants and artisans of Divrigi, upon which underage adolescents, comprising some 200 individuals, are mobilised. Submitted to torture for several days, these men are finally brought to the outskirts of the town, shackled and forced to march to the gorges of Deren Dere, where they are assassinated with axes (Kevorkian, “The Armenian Genocide”, 2006: 551-2).

The index also describes massacres or deportations that took place in Cemisgezek, Cungus, Diyarbakir, Ergani, Erzincan, Harput, Palu, Pulumur and Sebinkarahisar, all of which I visited during the trip. It also describes massacres or deportations that took place in Adana, Afyon, Aksehir, Amasya, Ankara, Bayburt, Birecik, Bitlis, Bolu, Burdur, Bursa, Edirne, Egil, Erzurum, Eskisehir (the large city in the west of modern Turkey, not the small settlement near Arapgir), Gaziantep, Istanbul, Izmir, Izmit, Kangal, Karaman, Kastamonu, Kayseri, Konya, Malatya, Manisa, Mardin, Mus, Nigde, Odemis, Samsun, Sason, Siirt, Silvan, Sivas, Talas, Tercan, Tokat, Trabzon and Yozgat. These are all places I had visited during earlier trips. I was shocked to see how often the small town of Kigi is mentioned, a place not far from Bingol that I did not have the time to visit. Buried away in the index are passing references to the massacre of Syriac Orthodox and Chaldean Christians in places such as Cizre, Midyat and Nusaybin, yet more settlements I had visited in the past. The full enormity of the genocide directed against the Armenians, and the crimes against humanity perpetrated against the Syriac Orthodox and Chaldean Christians, impressed themselves in a manner more obvious than ever before.