Şirince village
On Tuesday the 27th, we
visited the Şirince village. While on our way to Şirince, we were told about
the Population Exchange. The Population
Exchange was a Treaty that took place in 1924 between the Turks, Greeks,
English, and Italians following World War I. During this time, they were under
negotiations about where the lines would be drawn for Turkey. The Greeks tried to get a part of Turkey’s
lands for themselves as they had been under the Ottoman’s Empire for several
centuries. In the end, Greece got almost
all the islands. During the time of the
Ottoman Empire, Greeks were free to move about the Ottoman Empire as well as
Turks were allowed to do the same, so some Greeks were at that time living in
Turkey while some Turks were living in Greece about the same time. Anyways, as
the story goes during this population exchange, some of the Greeks had to
return to Greece and some of Turks had to return to Turkey, more or less the
Christian Greeks moved to Greece while Islamic Turks moved to Turkey.
Şirince Village had been one of
these Greek cultures that resided in the Turkey during that time. Ҁirkince was what the town was originally
called, but it was changed to Şirince because of what Ҁirkince meant. It was
named Ҁirkince because the Turks didn’t like the Greeks moving into their
lands. Ҁirkince meant “the ugly people
town” because all the Greeks had moved there, but when the Turks were
populating that village again, the name was changed to Şirince to mean “the
cute people town”. When the town was
originally populated, it had three churches by the Greeks who moved to there
during the Ottoman Empire.
From this forced population
exchange, 1.5 million Greeks had to return to Greece while .4 million Turks had
to return to Turkey. The people that resided there were of the older generation
since the most of the Greek population that resided there had to go back to
Greece so now there were less people in the village so that most of the younger
generation wanted to move to Izmir because Izmir was a more populated area.
Most of the people that live there now are indeed Turkish though some of their
traditions may still have some Greek roots, like the wine production for
example. When we visited on Tuesday, it only had the Church of St. John the
Baptist. The Şirince Village was also known for its production of sweet wines,
as there was a multitude of local fruits and produce in area that they lived. The
wine making productions was one the Greek traditions, but when the Greeks left
the Turks took over their wine making productions.
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| inside of the church |
The village had only one main
street that ran through it, with other, smaller streets branching off of
it. The Church of St. John the Baptist
resided at the top of this singular, main street. The main street was made of cobble stones and
to get to the church you had climb these steep, cobbled stoned steps. There were shopping markets on either side of
you.
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| shops along the main street |
As we rode the bus to the Şirince
Village we got to see a lot of the fresh crops that were grown there. Pomegranates, olives, and peaches were just a
few that we saw in the fields
While Şirince was still a small
village, there was still a lot to look at and purchase from tablecloths to
soaps to hand creams to spices to dresses and list goes on and on. Everything we saw was handmade, homegrown or
home produced; everything was local.
Sarah Trice
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