ISTANBUL — The historic city gardens of Yedikule in Istanbul are prone to destruction as soon as once more. After injury in 2013 attributable to the neighborhood municipality of Fatih, the gardens are actually going through additional disruption and potential injury because the larger Istanbul municipality plans extra “restoration” work.
The six-hectare gardens are greater than 1,500 years previous, relationship again to the town’s Byzantine period. They had been first farmed by Greeks and Albanians, then individuals from the northern metropolis of Kastamonu, close to the Black Sea. Now, all kinds of seasonal produce grows within the backyard, together with herbs, forms of lettuce and different greens, crimson turnip, inexperienced onion, cabbage, cauliflower, tomato, pepper, corn, mullberry, fig and pomegranate.
Yedikule is exclusive amongst city gardens around the globe, says Cemal Kafadar, a historian and professor of Turkish Research at Harvard College.
“There are (city gardens) which might be older than Istanbul gardens, resembling these in Rome, however there is no such thing as a different that has maintained continuity all this time with its strategies and particular craft,” Kafadar says. “What makes Yedikule distinctive is that it nonetheless gives crops. You may need eaten (from these gardens) with or with out understanding about it.”
Kafadar spoke at a category within the gardens on Jan. 14, organized by the Yedikule Gardens Initiative, a citizen group working to protect the gardens.
As I listened to Kafadar taking viewers on a visit by means of historical past, these phrases caught with me: “The soil is an archive. It by no means loses its skill to retain data, except it has been ruined.”
As we toured the gardens, we noticed this soil archive firsthand, and heard from individuals who realized to farm this land from their mother and father, who in flip realized from their mother and father. One of the crucial skilled gardeners has been working this plot for 40 years.
Greek Orthodox Patriarchate and Grand Mosques tutelage
Our first cease was the backyard of Recep Kayan, well-known for artichokes. Kayan says he feels nervous after seeing the gardens of his associates demolished. “We earn a residing right here,” he says. “Now we have been preventing right here for eight years, however it’s unsure what’s going to occur. Tomorrow they could have us out.”
We go away Kayan’s backyard and head to a backyard parcel tended by the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate. A lot of the gardens had been at one time owned by establishments, Kafadar explains, together with the grand mosques of Suleymaniye and Fatih.
We wander the gardens, heading for these outdoors of the historic metropolis partitions. As we strategy the Gate of Belgrade, we discover development work between two partitions. Any person closes the door to dam us from photographing injury that the work has brought about.
Prices have risen with the growing price of fertilizer.
On the opposite aspect of the wall, the bottom is wealthy with each shade of inexperienced. We discover gardeners choosing sheep’s sorrel as we exit. Gardener Kadir Kaplan says he has been working right here for the previous 40 years. He sells his product to bazaars within the neighborhoods of Fatih, Zeytinburnı and Esenyurt, however currently his prices have risen with the growing price of fertilizer.
We proceed, strolling although the gardens outdoors of the partitions. Our final cease is the backyard of Dursun Kaplan, chair of the Yedikule Gardeners’ Affiliation. Kaplan says that at one time, the backyard may produce sufficient inexperienced produce to satisfy Istanbul‘s wants.
“The costs on the bazaar are balanced when the greens grown right here. As of now, mint is as little as 5 liras ($0.27). It falls to 1-2 in the summertime. The costs rise once we run out of greens,” Kaplan says.
September 2022. Inside, courtyard and environment of the Yedikule Fortress Museum in Istanbul, Turkey.
Tolga Ildun by way of ZUMA Press Wire
Creep of municipal development
Kaplan makes use of ancestral seeds within the backyard, and used to have a greenhouse and fig bushes contained in the partitions. However work crews from the Istanbul regional municipality demolished the greenhouse and tore down the bushes. We transfer to part of the backyard the place one other municipal development crew is digging up earth with a machine and loading it onto a truck. We poke round till authorities discover us.
The gardeners are seen as “occupiers.”
Bricks with the marking of “Fratelli Allatini Salonicco” entice our consideration. They should be from the Allatini brick and tile manufacturing unit, based within the late Eighteen Eighties in Thessaloniki, then part of the Ottoman Empire. We additionally discover recent injury on the partitions.
The gardeners are seen as “occupiers,” and pay an occupation tax to the municipality. On one hand: a gardener choosing sorrel in a backyard he has tended for 40 years; on the opposite, a municipal development machine, damaging the partitions, tearing up the backyard and destroying historical past. Who’s the occupier?
Let this story finish with professor Kafadar’s phrases from the start of his class: “The political aspect of this has been on our minds for the reason that starting. I’ve heard this from many associates: is it proper to do that in as of late, when the (Istanbul municipality) has sufficient troubles of its personal? It’s not an unfair query. Abandoning criticism can’t be our tradition.”
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