Turkish Village
Copyright 1965, 1994 Paul Stirling. All rights reserved.
Paul Stirling
CHAPTER TWO
THE SETTING
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Page 14
Kayseri and the Two Villages
Turkey is almost all mountains. From the Aegean coast the land rises rapidly to about three thousand feet (1,000 m), and thence the bumpy, arid plateau stretches eastward for some five hundred miles till it merges into the eastern mountain ranges. High mountains guard the northern and southern coasts, stealing the rain before it reaches the plateau. The rain that does penetrate falls unevenly, sometimes in cloudbursts which destroy standing crops and wash away top soil. Capricious weather often undoes the farmer's work, and disappointing harvests are frequent. Summers are hot and dry, winters intensely cold, with snow sometimes lying up to three months. As one goes east, this tough climate grows tougher.
Kayseri lies in the centre of Turkey, in one of the large plains sunk in the plateau. It had been and still was in 1950 a central point in Turkey's transport system, since the main railway and roads1 from Istanbul and Ankara to both east and south ran through or very close to it. Besides its commercial, agricultural and administrative importance, Kayseri had in 1949 the largest textile mill in Turkey, built in 1935 with Russian help under the first five-year plan. In 1950 it had a population of 65,000 (Ann. Stat. 1951).
Immediately south of the town, the land rises towards the solitary, volcanic peak of Erciyas, 12,860 feet high, but otherwise the country is typical plateau in all directions. The broad valley in which Kayseri lies runs north-east from the town, carrying the main road and railway to Sivas and the east. This
- The new roads which now link Ankara with eastern Turkey and with Adana do not pass through Kayseri.
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