Turkey ? Not the bird for your Christmas Dinner!

Hi there!

I hope you are as excited as I am, and ready to explore Turkey. I cannot wait to share my passion with you so have prepared this blog detailing fun and interesting facts about Turkey.

Turkey is a very large country with 75 million population, 7 different regions and colourful neighbours such as Greece, Bulgaria, Georgia, Iraq, Iran and Syria. Althought the culture is different from those, you can still feel the influence in food and language.

Balloon Ride in Cappadocia

Historical bacrground :

- No idea who came first 

- They discovered settlement of Gobeklitepe in Southestern Turkey and its dated back to 11000 BC ( I hear you say "Wowowow!" because its older than Stonehenge.

- Catalhoyuk is a Neolithic settlement which is close to Konya, Central Turkey so there were people doing agriculture in Turkey in 5000 BC. Dont be suprised but they were doing also brain surgery in Asiklihoyuk which is near Cappadocia again in Turkey. Well, appearantly they were very clever and not sure if we have any blood connection with these people.

Gobeklitepe, Southeastern Turkey

- Then the Hitties came on stage. Have you ever heard about Battle of Kadesh or Treaty of Kadesh? Yes these were Hitties kicked the Ramses II out of Mesopotamia.

- Assyrians, Phrigians (remember King Midas?)

- Of course, Greeks! They created the base of our modern life and democracy but why somebody did not tell them Capitalism and economy will mean everything in 21st century.

- Romans and then Byzantine Empire

- Finally Turks came from steppes of Central Asia passing through Caucasia, Persia and Mesopotamia. Then the challange began between Turks and Greeks which finalized with the conquest of Istanbul in 1453AD. New era started with Ottoman Empire.

Turks & Greeks Forever

- In 1923 Modern Turkish Republic of Turkey founded by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, a national hero and means a lot for Turkish people.

This was the brief history of 13000 years. Of course, millions of books can be written this history but I would not dare this now !