Sunday, May 31, 2015

May 2015

May had been an interesting month.  The weather is lovely one day and cool and rainy the next. The turtles and snakes are out and about in the neighbourhood.  The giant black King bees and swallows are flitting about too. The cherry tree across the back lane bloomed and so did our rose bushes.  Lawn mowing has turned into a weekly necessity. The canola has bloomed and there are some fields of grain just about ready for harvest.  The rice fields on the peninsula have been planted and flooded too. (photos below)

Nicole finished her volunteer work at the English school mid month.  The owner of the school invited us in for tea and cake and to say good bye this week. She wanted some insight into our plans for the fall.  If Nicole and I wanted full time jobs, I think we could easily have them.  Cam's work was a little bit busier with the annual holiday lead up panic from his bosses. We spent a 4 day weekend across the Marmara at Assos. (See photos below) to celebrate my birthday.  Cam located the Russian monument in Gelibolu after two years of looking. (more photos) We spent a day with a Canadian couple, friends of company management,who were on vacation in Turkey.  They have lived in a variety of countries from Borneo to Colombia, so they had interesting stories to tell.  Our experiences of life away from home have been very similar. Nicole and Sam wrapped up their school courses this month and as the month closes we're all getting ready to pack for our annual leave.

White Russians fled Russian between 1917 and 1920 as a result of the revolution.  Some came to Gelibolu, Turkey.  There is a fascinating collection of photographs of Gelibolu and the Russians refugees as well as long lists of Russians at this site.

The monument is fenced and the grounds are only open to the public some days.  The monument is located south of Kipa on a dead end residential street. Put the latitude and longitude into your GPS and you should be able to drive right to it! (N40.414733 E26.662709)


 For my birthday this year, Cam took us to Assos/Behramkale for a few days.  It was lovely and warm and the scenery was spectacular.

 Assos is the name of the ancient pre-Roman town that included a hill top Athena Temple, Roman theatre, agora and harbour.  There are also some ruined Byzantine era churches on the hillside.  There is limited access to the sites and to be honest not a great deal to see - except the amazing feats of engineering and rock moving!

Arches on either side of the theatre used to lead to the seats, but are now blocked off.  Sam's grown a little but this still isn't very spacious.

 This port at Assos, down the hill from the theatre, was the one Paul, the Apostle. used to get a boat to Lesvos (Acts 20). Lesvos or Lesbos is a large Greek island.  There is limited ferry service from Turkey, but you can get ferries to the island from mainland Greece.

Assos Harbour

 We drove around the area for a bit.  In one flatish spot outside a village we happened upon a few of these stone structures.

 I went for a closer look and discovered they weren't empty!
 They were full of sheep trying to stay cool.
 We stayed cool in the hotel's pool.
A village oven.


 Asso - Athena Temple
 Cistern  near the temple.
The Temple of Appolon Smintheus (Lord of the Mice) is located beside the town of Gulpinar.(Gulpinar is about 30 minutes from Behramkale) As usual signs are rare, but we only had to ask for directions once.  The site is enormous and has signs in English and Turkish   The ruins include the temple, (Photos above and below), a bath house and a section of Roman road.  http://www.timeout.com/travel/features/1391/troy-story-r-spending-and-finding-a-penny-inside-apollos-temple

We had a bite of lunch at the "cafe" next door.  They had running water and toilets!  The fellow who served us followed us to the car to ask where we were from and to compliment Cam on his Turkish.

 Cam drove a very scary narrow winding coastal road to get us to Babakale.  The town is located on a cape which is the most westerly point on the continent of Asia. Its refurbished clifftop castle overlooks the Aegean.


We just about had the place to ourselves until a bunch of rowdy school boys arrived with their two "minders".  The boys jumped from spot to spot and raced around the ramparts in herds. Like most Turkish sites, there are no "safety measures" (guardrails, fences etc), just a sheer drop of some tens of feet to rocky ground below.

The view from the ramparts.

After the castle, we went for ice cream right next door and sat in the shade of the castle wall.  As we left the little tea garden area, a waitress offered us certificates commemorating our visit to the village and the most Westerly part of Asia.




 On May 11 I took a few pictures of the rice fields being flooded. When we drove by two days ago (May 29), the rice was already growing above the water level.




The rest of these photos I took while I waiting for Nicole to come from the English school.  There is an area in the centre of the Gelibolu where there are no cars allowed. (but watch out for garbage trucks, scooters, motorcycles, delivery vans and occasionally truck mounted cranes.)

 On the left, the video store.  On the right the candy store - with an ice cream cooler out front. None of these stores have central heating and most have no a/c.  If the door is ajar the shop is open for business.  It's not unusual to go into a shop and find no one else there. The clerk will follow you through the door a few minutes later, because they've been lounging outside or chatting with friends nearby.


 Women dress in a variety of ways.  We occasionally see women in burqas with niqabs, but more often women wear head scarves and long coats. In our area, I think most women dress without  demonstrating any sort of religious affiliation.




There are lots of benches in the area.  The flags are for various political parties.  There is a national election in Turkey June 7.

Wednesday, May 27, 2015

Fabric at the market



Going to the Tuesday market is a bit of a treat (for me at least) because it's bigger and as a result, has a larger variety of vendors. One of my favourite tables sells fabric remnants. I love to sew, so it's probably no surprise that I find it enormously fun to dig through tangled mounds of fabric.
It can be quite frustrating though, you can never find the same fabric twice, and you can't always find (enough of) what you want. I guess that's what makes it so interesting. 
For the past few weeks I've been looking for a certain fabric for one of my cosplays. Today I finally found it, it even looks to be about the right size (double score!!); I also found some blue fabric that I really love. All together it's probably about five or six meters of fabric, I hope you can imagine how excited I was when my purchases came to a grant total of 6TL or $3 Canadian. 
Living here is not totally bad. ;)

- Nicole 

Wednesday, May 6, 2015

The Russian Monument Mystery - Now Solved

Check out the blog post for May 2015 to see my photos of this monument in Gelibolu.

When we arrived in Turkey we had the benefit of a translator/tour guide.  One one of our excursions together, he told us that there was a "new" Russian monument in Gelibolu.  He gave us a vague idea where he thought it was located, but none of us could figure out why there might be a Russian monument in Turkey; that is until I recently found these two articles on line.  So that solved the mystery of why but we still haven't located the monument. We've checked out a couple of cemeteries and explored some back streets but so far no luck. We could ask someone who lives in Gelibolu, but chances are they wouldn't know either.

http://www.russianorthodoxchurch.ws/synod/eng2008/5engallipoli2.html
PARIS: May 29, 2008
Communique of the Society of the Descendants of Gallipoli 
THE RESTORATION OF THE MONUMENT TO THE HEROES OF THE WHITE MOVEMENT OF GALLIPOLI
History:
In November, 1920, after the evacuation of Crimea, parts of the White Movement crossed the Bosphorus on 126 ships and arrived in Constantinople.
The soldiers were then assigned to various temporary camps in Turkey. On November 22, the first parts of the First Army Corps of the Russian Volunteer Army under General Kutepov landed on the northern (European) coast of the Dardanelles (now Gelibolu). Other portions of the military found hospice in other places, the Cossacks on the Isle of Lemnos, while the Navy went to the port of Bizert, Tunis.
The First Corps of the White Army broke camp in Gallipoli by regiment (including the Drozdov Division and the Alexeev Regiment), in a wide hardscrabble plain, where they remained from November 1920 until mid-1923. In 1923, the last White Army soldiers left Gallipoli. During the entire duration of their stay, the Army retained its weapons and stayed with their attachments: this period became known as the Gallipoli Standing. There were some 150,000 persons in exile, in Gallipoli and other places.
On November 15, 1921, a year after landing on the peninsula, Commander-in-Chief General Baron Wrangel had a medal minted to honor the podvig of the Russians of Gallipoli. A week later, the Gallipoli Society was organized.
On July 16, 1921, a monument was ceremoniously unveiled in the Gallipoli cemetery to honor the fallen warriors and civilians of Gallipoli buried there. The memorial took the form of a stepped pyramid, built by the people of Gallipoli, each placing his own stone by hand.
The monument survived under the oversight of the local Turkish population until 1949, when it was destroyed in an earthquake. In 1961, the Gallipoli Society built a smaller replica of the monument in the Russian cemetery of Sainte-Genevieve-du-Bois near Paris.
The Restoration of the Monument
In 2008, at the initiative of private individuals in Russia and with the help of the Russian Government, the monument was restored in its original form and ceremoniously unveiled on May 17. A plot of land was dedicated for it surrounded by a fence, and a memorial museum containing photographs, pictures and a krasniy ugol ["beautiful corner" with icons].
Representatives of the Russian Diaspora were invited to the unveiling ceremony: members of the Society of the Descendants of Gallipoli, who brought with them a painted icon of St Nicholas, Archbishop of Myra in Lycia the Miracle-worker, the Protector of the White Army. The icon bears the following inscription:
      "To the glorious people of Gallipoli, the heroes of the White Army and all the  warriors who laid down their lives for the Homeland, tortured and killed in the  time of troubles and to those who died in peace, Eternal Memory! Glory and  honor to the Knights of Gallipoli! You shall always be our pride! The children,  grandchildren and great-grandchildren of the People of Gallipoli, 17-05-2008."
A delegation of 30 descendants of the people of Gallipoli attended the opening. The icon and monument were unveiled on May 17, 2008, in the presence of His Grace Bishop Michael of Geneva and Western Europe and His Grace Bishop Mark of Egoriev. A male choir from among the descendants of the Russians of Gallipoli sang at the opening and pannikhida that followed under the wonderful direction of Andrei Konstantinovich Malinin.
After the pannikhida, the icon was taken in a procession of the cross under the singing of Christ is Risen to the icon corner of the museum and placed their on an analogion with a burning lampada and lit candle. After the prayers, the choir sang the Hymn of the White Army, Kol' Slaven [Glory to Our God].
The following day, the delegation was invited to a reception and concert with dinner at the Russian Consulate in Istanbul, where the Russian Consul and his wife warmly welcomed them.
During dinner, the President of the SDG, Alexei Pavlovich Grigoriev, gave a speech thanking the organizations participating in the reestablishment of the monument, the members of the Russian Diplomatic Corps, the clergymen of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia and of the Ecumenical Patriarchate. He expressed the notion that it is the fervent love for Russian imparted to us by our fathers and grandfathers that unites us spiritually and binds us to the citizens of the Russian Federation, who are seeking our common roots and our common history. The delegation then sang the Alexeev Regiment March, after which the Vice President of the SDG, Maria Nikolaevna Apraksina, daughter of the Personal Secretary of General Wrangel, NM Kotliarevsky, also expressed her thanks and shared her personal memories of the figures of the White Movement in the diaspora.
So a monument to the White Warriors of Gallipoli stands again, and one can once again pray for them and light a candle to their protector, St Nicholas.
Glory to God!
Sergei S Tarasov
President, French Department of the
Society of the Descendants of Gallipoli
Paris, May 22, 2008

http://www.turkey.mid.ru/hron/pr_e_07.html

OPENING OF MONUMENT OF RUSSIAN SOLDIERS IN GELIBOLU

The ceremonial unveiling of a commemorative monument in memory of Russian soldiers died and buried in 1920-s was held in Gelibolu on May 17. The monument in Gelibolu was restored with the assistance of St.Andrew’s Fund – the Center of National Glory of Russia, and supported by the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Russian diplomatic missions in Turkey in cooperation with the Turkish authorities.
The Russian delegation headed by the Chairmen of the Trustee Council of the Center of National Glory V.I.Yakunin took part in the ceremony. The artists, writers, historians, descendents of Gelibolu settlement arrived to pay homage to memory of Russian officers and soldiers. The musical accompaniment was arranged by the orchestra of the Moscow military-musical school and the Turkish military orchestra of Mehter.
The Chairmen of the Trustee Council of the Center of National Glory V.I.Yakunin marked the symbolism of the White Army monument’s opening in the first anniversary of the reunion of the Russian Orthodox Church. He said this monument is a time machine restoring the connection with the past and an instrument for healing wounds of the country, inflicted by the hardships.
The Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Russian Federation in the Republic of Turkey V.I.Ivanovskiy underlined the monument’s opening is a tribute in memory of our fellow countrymen, died in the difficult times of the Russian history of the XX century. He highlighted the efforts of the Russian diplomats and the Center of National Glory in the monument’s restoration.
The Turkish representatives – the first deputy Minister of culture and tourism, the governor of Canakkale, the mayor of Gelibolu – said that the opening of the monument reinforces the tight and friendly relations between Russia and Turkey.
In conclusion of the ceremony the Bishop of Geneva and Western Europe Mikhail and the Bishop of George Mark served the service for the dead.
May 19, 2008