Sunday’s Zaman, Turkey
Dec 6 2009
Return to Diyarbakır
I first visited Diyarbakır, in southeastern Turkey, in 1992. In those
days it was a brooding place barely clinging to a small tourist trade
in the face of its political problems.
Visitors were advised to stick to the main streets and not to ask too
many questions; the great basalt walls that ringed the old city only
added to the air of tension. It was much the same, if not worse, when
I returned in 1994 to find a tank guarding the main intersection in
the old town, not far from the Ulu Cami. In 1998 I employed a guide to
steer me through the warren of tight-knit streets behind the mosque.
His primary task was to keep at bay the crowds of children who jostled
my every footstep. I knew that it would be unwise to press him to talk
about what went on after dark.
Two years ago a flying visit to the city lasted just long enough to
tell me that at least on the surface things had changed considerably,
so it was with great pleasure that I returned there recently to find
the old quarter a great deal more relaxed and welcoming, at least to
outsiders.
This is especially good news because Diyarbakır has enormous potential
as a tourist destination. For most visitors the Ulu Cami remains the
first port of call. Screened from the main square by a wall with a
deceptively small arched entrance cut through it, the mosque runs
along one side of a spacious courtyard and immediately evokes the
Ummayad Mosque in Damascus, albeit without the glittering mosaics.
Built in 639 on the site of the ancient Mar Thoma church, the Ulu Cami
is the oldest mosque in Anatolia, and you could pass several happy
hours here simply inspecting the carved inscriptions on its facade,
and the ancient columns and capitals reused in the surrounding
buildings.
Despite having been restored several times over the centuries, the Ulu
Cami has a timeless quality about it, which is hardly the case with
the Hasan PaÅ?a Hanı facing it across the road. This magnificent stripy
structure focused on a wide courtyard dates back to 1573, but by the
mid-1990s it was in a sad state, abandoned by all but a couple of
carpet dealers. Now, however, a facelift has restored its former joie
de vivre. Cool music attracts a youthful crowd of students, and what
were once the rooms in which trade goods would have been stored while
their owners slept upstairs have been converted to house unexpectedly
chic souvenir shops. You’ll have trouble dragging yourself away from
the inviting teashops ringing the courtyard and the first-floor
gallery.
The han and the mosque are readily accessible from the main road, but
to get a real feel for old Diyarbakır you need to plunge into the
medina-like back streets, which harbor intriguing small museums,
ancient churches and lovely old mosques with extraordinarily beautiful
minarets. The snag is that the streets are narrow and winding, rarely
wide enough for a car to pass, and once you’ve got lost in them it
won’t be easy to find your way back out again (the tourist office in
the DaÄ? Kapısı [Mountain Gate] provides a good free map).
Easiest of the museums to locate is the Cahit Sıtkı Tarancı Müsezi,
which is very close to the Ulu Cami. Although the house was once home
to one of Turkey’s finest romantic poets and exhibits some of his
belongings, you come here primarily to admire the exquisite local
architecture in which flowers of white stone are incised into the
heavy basalt to picturesque effect. The house in which Turkish
nationalist Ziya Gökalp was born in 1876 is similarly beautiful in
design, if a little harder to find. Likewise the Esma Ocak Evi
(house).
Several churches are grouped together near the striking, stand-alone
Dört Ayaklı Minare (Four-Footed Minaret), in front of the much more
conventional Å?eyh Mutahhar Cami. Most interesting is the Meryemana
Kilisesi (Church of the Virgin Mary) which is still used by
Diyarbakır’s tiny Syrian Orthodox community, although the Mar Petyun
Keldani Kilisesi (Chaldean Catholic Church) is also surprisingly
large. The Armenian Surpagab Kilisesi stands in ruins, but if you go
to send a postcard from the post office near the Four-Footed Minaret
you’ll find yourself unexpectedly queuing for your stamp inside
another church that has been given a new lease on life.
No one could visit Diyarbakır and overlook the extraordinary walls
with which it’s ringed. Built from basalt, these date back to the days
of the Roman occupation, although every successive ruler of the city
appears to have felt the need to stamp his mark on them by adding a
tower or tweaking a length of the wall. Recently some stretches have
been spruced up to appeal to visitors with the addition of landscaping
and children`s play areas. In theory you can walk right round the
walls, certainly at the bottom and in some places along the top of the
ramparts. In reality, however, gecekondus (shanty towns) still cling
to parts of them, and you will probably feel very conspicuous, not to
say uncomfortable, venturing into these on your own. Unfortunately
this means that two of the most photographed towers — the Yedi KardeÅ?
Burcu (Seven Brothers Tower) and MalikÅ?ah Burcu (Shah Malik Tower) – –
continue to be largely off-limits for the time being.
On the other hand the easing of tensions here means that what used to
be the closed military zone of the İç Kale (Inner Citadel) is now open
to the public, who access it by passing under an impressive
high-arched bridge dating back to 1206-7, the time when the Artukids
held sway from here to Mardin. A project to restore all the buildings
inside the fortress seems to have ground to a halt, but this is still
a peaceful and evocative place where you can inspect the remains of an
old prison and of the Kara Papaz Kilisesi (Church of St. George).
What’s more it’s right beside the 12th-century Hazreti Süleyman Camii,
where several early Islamic heroes are buried, attracting crowds of
worshippers no matter what the time of day.
But this is a town with almost limitless attractions to detain its
visitors. There is, for example, the glorious Gazi KöÅ?kü, a stripy
stone summer house dating back to the 15th century that sits out in
the fields overlooking the Dicle River (Tigris) and now houses a
lively restaurant and tea garden. Then there’s the local archeological
museum, the Deliler Hanı (now converted into the Otel Büyük
Kervansaray), the Selim Amca restaurant that dishes up delightful
kaburga dolması (stuffed lamb ribs shredded onto rice), innumerable
glorious mosques that rarely see a foreign tourist and a cheese market
that is a mouth-watering feast for the eyes.
Finally, there’s the Dengbej Evi, a wonderful new venture housed in
one of the better-signposted of the old houses in the back streets.
Dengbej is a style of unaccompanied music in which the great sagas of
Kurdish history are recorded. Sitting in the enclosed courtyard,
admiring the exquisite stone architecture and listening to the old men
relaying their songs back and forth, you have to pinch yourself to
remember that this is still Diyarbakır and that not all its problems
can be so easily airbrushed away.
06 December 2009, Sunday
PAT?YALE DÄ°YARBAKIR