Migrant labour apart, the range of urban contacts in Elbashï was much greater, both with the local town Bünyan and with Kayseri itself. One past and three existing marriages in the village had brought wives in from Bünyan, and two past and three existing marriages had brought wives from Kayseri. One woman was said to have married out to each of these towns. At least some of the villagers had agnates in Bünyan, and one refugee household head had a brother in Kayseri. Another man who had come as a child with a widowed mother from Kayseri to Elbashï had a brother who was a secondary schoolmaster in Kayseri. Another villager had a house in Kayseri and a post in the administration, and the tax collector's two sons, both doing their military service as officers, were also from the Kayseri administration. Of the more lowly villagers two had lived in Kayseri, one as driver of a horse and cart, and the other in an attempt to survive on a state disability pension. The first gave up, so he said, on health grounds, though his wife's version was different; and the other because it was impossible to make ends meet. Another villager had been employed by the Kayseri town watch, a locally organised adjunct of the centrally controlled police.
The relationships of these two villages with town were typical. Larger, more central villages have a much more developed set of links with town than poorer and less sophisticated ones. The top people in Elbashï had links with the local town and with the local bureaucracy. Sakaltutan had no such links. The most urbanised in Sakaltutan were those with established economic connections as migrant craftsmen. Except perhaps for