Crimean Tatars and my grandparents

Hubby and I jokingly tend to blame all our good habits to our strong characters and all the bad ones to our genes or more precisely to a lousy great grand parent who had been forgotten long time ago..

However when it comes to certain issues, I think that, this great grand parent blaming theory of ours is quite true. In my case it is about forced emigration..

Up to this time I have lived a fairly comfortable and secure life and chose to live in houses and places where I really love.  It was always my wish and later the decision to move from one place to another, but whenever I see people on TV or on the news who are forced to leave their homes, a deep melancony wraps me and I usually cant stop myself and shed couple tears. The same thing is also true with poems, songs, movies, that are telling about that beloved country that has never been forgotten and missed deeply everyday until the assigned days in this world are over.

Well, I believe that this emotional state of mine and all those sorrow coded to my genes long time ago.. Once upon a time both my maternal and paternal  great grandparents were living in Crimea..The dates are not very clear but my maternal grandparents had to leave Crimea about 150 years ago when the land was occupied by Russians and emigrated to Romania which was Ottoman Empire at that time. Then in 1935 when my grand mother was a young woman with 4 children, they again had to emigrate to Turkey and this time escaped from communism. Among all my grandparents, I only knew my maternal grandmother who had lived close to 100..She was an extremly strong lady and built a totaly new life to her family. However it was a strange feeling for me to watch her in her last years while she was under the influence of dementia and lived in her mind as a young girl in the house she raised in Romania. It was so heart breaking to listen her daily routine and detailed and loving description of the house, its garden and the surrounding fields. She never had the chance to return to her beloved Romania..

The other side of my family my paternal grandparents forced to leave Crimea after the Crimean war as young teenagers.They left everything there and came to Turkey with very few possessions as they mainly had to walk..They came from the villages of Bakhchisaray, a wonderfully green and lush place, to the large and empty steppes of Anatolia. It should be a very traumatic experience..
As I wrote before their sorrows coded to my genes as well as their great survival skils. I am always proud of my adaptation skills as well as appreciating about the things and people in my life and my ability to find small ways to be happy under almost every condition.

look at the shapes of our eyes:))

During our Crimean visit we had the chance to attend circumcision and wedding ceremonies of Crimean Tatars.The photos in this posts are from those celebrations. The older generations lived the terror of Stalin and deported from Crimea to Uzbekistan on a single night -May 18,1944. Many died during the train journey where 100s were filled to a single wagon designed to carry the cattles. Unfortunately world knows much about the atrocities of Hitler but not Stalin. Today the survivors of that generation as well as their children are slowly finding their ways to home and starting all over again.

 a different generations of Tatars- my mother on the right and my aunts

and finally a happily dancing hubby with the Tatar tunes...

Simferopol - Crimea

Well, I have to admit that I have been cheating on my blog with my new Kindle a lot recently. I have so many books to read which were pretty hard to get before..But I am also willing to show you some of my photos from our recent Crimean trip. So I will start will Simferopol today..

Simferopol is the capital of Autonomous Republic of Crimea in Ukraine and you have to stop there as the only airport of the region is located in this city. As it is a rather small country we stayed in a hotel in Simferopol in the first 4 days of our stay and made the daily trips to the different part of the country from there..

I do not know much how it was during the communist period, but I had a strong feeling that not much has changed since then....buildings, cars, roads and even people. Most of the people working in the service sector are quite rude and acting as they are doing you a great favor when you ask something as simple as your room key.And beware of closing hours of the stores..As soon as the clock tics, they are not hesitating you to lock inside the store..It happened to me twice...

All the Tatar population in Crimea deported to Uzbekistan in a single night with the orders of Stalin on May 18, 1944 . After the collapse of the Soviet Union, they mainly returned to Simferopol area and trying to establish a new life at the outskirts of the city. They are struggling hard to establish a new life in their old lands without obtaining any of their previous rights. More on them later...

Champions are back !!!

Yes, we are back from Crimea...Today its all about de-packing and re-packing. Tomorrow we are leaving for our beach house. Photos of our trip are coming soon..

Flying

In a couple hours of time, we are flying to Crimea- the land of my ancestors. They never had the chance to see their beloved country again, that they had forced to emigrate, during their lifetime. I believe they all died with great homesickness...Now I will see that country with my own eyes. Promise to post if I find any internet connection..See you all soon...

photo: from a statue in Tashkent-Uzbekistan

Old and New İstanbul (2) - Historical tram in İstiklal Avenue

İstiklal Avenue on the European side of İstanbul is probably one of the most well known pedestrian street in İstanbul. It is full of old Ottoman buildings and an old tram runs back and fort all day..Lovely place to spend a day. So here are two tram photos from the unpublished National Geographic archives,I mentioned on my last post.

Photos are dated 1928 and taken by Maynard Owen Williams

Trams started to operate in İstanbul at 1871 and the one on İstiklal Avenue became active at 1883. Until 1914 all the trams were pulled by horses. Later they were all electrified..

and today..

Old & New İstanbul (1) / Eminonu Galata Bridge

Last month National Geographic magazine celebrated its 10th year in Turkey with a beautiful exhibition, with the photos taken in Turkey but have not been published before..They also gave a small album of these photos with the April issue. As I am always crazy about old photographs, it was such a big treat for me..

Now I will try to show you some places of İstanbul with the help of these photos..
Photo of Yeni Cami from the Galata bridge. Taken by Maynard Owen Williams in 1928

another one from 1925 by Branson de Cou /Ewing Galloway

and today...

Galata Bridge is the bridge that spans the Golden Horn and the very fist bridge constructed at this place  in 1894. The one in NG photo was the 4th bridge built in 1912. The current and the 5th one opened in 1994.

The Ottoman imperial mosque behind is called the New Mosque, but it was finished in 1665!!!

Championship Night..

We heard on the TV that the Fenerbahce football team has entered the Baghdat Street, so we ran to the street and we started to wait.....

our little one wearing the team's jersey was quiet patient and the team was coming with a bus and they only have to cover about 6 km to reach where we were waiting but nobody was on the horizon and we kept waiting...

 Finally about 3 hours later they came and along with thousand fans we cheered and Hera barked..

There are 3 big football clubs in İstanbul and champion of this year Fenerbahce considered as the football club of Asian side of the city.

Baghdat is the main street in an upper-scale residential area of Asian side of İstanbul . The one-way avenue with old plane trees is full of shopping malls, department stores, fashion garment stores, restaurants of international and local cuisine, pubs and cafés etc. Its an excellent place for walk and window shopping..