The View from a Drawbridge

Relocation is in the forefront of my mind these days, as I just moved to Washington State from Florida. This made me recollect something I hadn’t thought of in years, the ghost towns of Turkey. There are many of them. Because of the Greco-Turkish War from 1919-1922, Turkey would like us to believe that there was a peaceful transfer of Greeks and Turks who had settled in each other’s country.

Since there were more Greeks in Turkey than vice versa, a lot of towns were left abandoned and allowed to fall to ruin. Kayaköy is one such town. It’s in Southwest Turkey, not far from city of Fethiye. I visited it about 15 years ago. According to Wikipedia, it’s now a museum and historical monument, but at the time it was just a desolate little abandoned village that was a sad reminder of the more than 6,000 people who clearly took pride in their homes, who had erected two stunning Greek Orthodox churches, and obviously had a sense of community. You could see it in the peeling paint on the walls.

Peaceful transfer my ass. Most of these people were forced out of the area before the war officially started. They were murdered. They were persecuted. Many were forced on a 15 day death march that left the road littered with corpses.

When I stood on the dusty streets all those years ago, I could see that this was once a beautiful place. But the only living things left were the occasional goat eating the weeds inside the crumbling houses. It’s heartbreaking to think that this community was allowed to die, and that even the memory of the people has been revised by the Turkish Government. If I’m ever in the area again, I look forward to visiting the museum in the hopes that they haven’t whitewashed the town as well as its history.

Here are some of the photographs that I took during my visit.