" This place is famous for it's green mountains covered in fogs but only looks this colorful during the summer. When I realized that last month, I threw my other travel plans out of the window and booked a same-day flight from Ankara to Trabzon to explore the region. Needless to say it didn't disappoint at the slightest. My only regret is not having more time to travel to the other isolated spots as I had to move on East and then come back to Istanbul before a deadline. Ayder (in the Rize province) was insane and so was Sumela Monastery (which had an uncanny resemblance with Tiger's nest from Bhutan). Next post will be from the Armenian border " :)
So right now I’m in the gorgeous historic city of Trabzon which is right next to the Black sea behind me, which is why it's
been a major trading center for over 3000 years ,Greek sources claim
that this was a Greek colony "all the way back in 756 bc called Trebizond
and then it was under the Roman and the Byzantine empire. Speaking of
Roman times''. I’m trying to get to the most famous architectural site
from the Roman times but the trick is it's a bit far from the city
so it's a little tricky to get there this goes to Macka and sumaila?
Sumaila -taxi from Macka?
Ok, found a mini bus
that goes to Macka but maybe it'll take me to Sumela ,so it looks like I
worked out an agreement with the Dolmus driver and he's gonna take me
all the way to the monastery, wait for me for one and a half hours and
come back for like a hundred Turkish liras. Okay so I’m very close
to the monastery finally. This last bit takes a little bit of
walking so I’m getting there. It's a lot colder than I expected for sure
but that makes sense because we're literally up in the clouds the driver
is coming with me to take photos. What's your name? Erol? Erol Nadir. Nadir? Yeah it's Turkish name (laughs)
so I’m climbing the steps to the monastery this monastery was built in the 4th
century a.d during the reign of the Roman emperor Theodosius
the great but it didn't really reach the final form up until about
the 13th century ad when it was under the empire of Trebizond. This
was created as a sanctuary or a church for the Virgin Mary and it was
built literally in a cave on the side of this huge cliff overlooking this
valley
"so right now I’m in this area that is called the
backyard of the Sumela monastery". You can pretty much walk through a lot
of what used to be the cathedral and you can see the different
rooms and what they were used for and you can also see a lot of
frescoes that have sort of survived for the last 1000 or 2000 years. So
behind me you see some of the frescoes or artwork from the old
church "sadly a lot of this you'll notice has been heavily defaced
over the centuries this whole"region has been in a lot of
geopolitical conflicts over the last 2000 years
over different ethnicities nationalities and religions
so the people who made the cathedral were not always able to hold on
to it and protect it. Most recently even up until less than a
hundred years ago this whole area of Trabzon was sort of populated with the
Greeks and christians but after the great population exchange that
obviously changed and there was no one to protect this place for a
long long time but the Turkish government
now has put a lot of effort into restoring and
protecting whatever is left of these frescoes found a puppy to play with. He's
so happy! i think that stick might be a little bit too big for that dog
but no one tell him okay so we have stopped again like a little bit
of drive away from the actual monastery because sometimes the best view is
not from the place itself, but from a little further from it
"So I’m back in the city of Trabzon and I’m in the very
city center and this is a really really gorgeous city and if you really
take a look at this place", this place doesn't even look Turkish. because
until not so long ago it wasn't even Turkish. So after the byzantine
empire fell apart the successor state that sort of took over this
area was the empire of Trebizond and that place became really successful
because it taxed all the goods that was exported from here as this
was one of the main ports used to take goods out of Persia into the
Mediterranean sea and into Europe so in 1461, eight years after Mehmed
the conqueror took
over Istanbul, he finally took over Trebizond but even
after this was part of the ottoman empire most of the people remaining
here were Christians. 50 years after Mehmed the conqueror took the city 85
% of the people living here were still Christians and 90 %of them were
Greeks ,which explains all the architecture around here and it sort
of continued to be that exact way for many hundreds of years up until
world war one happened and then after the great war finally ended
there was the big population exchange between Greece and Turkey which is
when finally this place became really Turkish because a hundred
thousand Greek people had to move out of here and into Greece. So I’m just
walking around the city center still and I can't overstate how much
this looks like eastern European city more than it looks like a Turkish
city
Tea? Chai Yes.
Bangladesh yes yes! How did you know??
so the day is coming to an end so I’m going to finish
this off classic Turkish style with a cup of tea this is day two of my
adventures in Trabzon and I signed up for this tour company for this
full day tour to this really cool village called Ayder that's like
up in the mountains and it's supposed to really pretty but we just came to
this like random spot on the way and we stopped for a while I don't
know what's going on. It's like a rafting place I hope we're not gonna wait here too long
so right now I’m at this place called Huser highlands
which is at an altitude of 2400 meters and this is absolutely gorgeous. This is really cool so freaking gorgeous so
the people here living up on the hills have this like mini cable
car system of transporting goods up there from the streets which I thought
was pretty interesting So it's starting to rain so no more drone
shots for right now at least. "So I was actually wrong earlier, this
place is not Huser. Huser is like 5-10 kilometers away".
This place is
Ayder so I guess this is what I came to see, I just got some lunch some good old Turkish beans and rice, okay
so it's day three and I’m at probably one of the more interesting
buildings in Trabzon. So this gorgeous bit of architecture which is
right next to the Black sea behind me is called the hagia sofia. Yes exactly like the hagia sofia in
Istanbul. This place is not quite as old as that hagia sofia but also
has a very very very similar history.
This was built at first in the 13th century as a church
during the empire of Trebizond's reign over this area then it was
converted to a mosque, then it was converted to a museum and then again
more recently in the last decade it was converted back to a mosque
but it's the weirdest mosque I’ve ever seen because it totally 100% looks
like a church from the outside. I mean look at those red tile roofs that
doesn't look like a mosque. On the side of the building, there's this
room where you can see all the christian frescoes from like 800
years ago but then if you go in the main entrance
it's a mosque and people are praying inside It's a very interesting sight to see all right
guys so I want to finish the blog from this very famous tea garden next
to the Hagia Sofia. If you like this post don't forget to hit the
like button. If you want to see more post by me from Turkey
Catch you guys in the next one from somewhere…
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