Then I glanced at the calendar and noticed the date. Of course it was Feb. 14, St. Valentine’s Day, that quintessentially Western celebration of love, newly adopted by the Turks. These days Lovers Day is a familiar fixture in the İstanbul calendar, and shop windows are full of gift ideas. But in the same way that Western Christmas traditions that mean nothing to Muslims have migrated to the New Year, so, St. Valentine being a mystery to most Turks, his feast day has turned into the blander but altogether more intelligible Sevgililer Günü (Lovers’ Day).
Here in Cappadocia the idea has been slower to catch on. It’s true that young Göremelis, especially those with foreign girlfriends, appreciate the importance of flowers and chocolates. But otherwise this is one Western tradition too far for the locals. In Nevşehir the florists are as quiet as ever. Likewise the sweet shops. The only red balloons in evidence are those welcoming a new driving school to the town.
In Beğendik I spot sales staff casting doubtful eyes over their Lovers’ Day display. They’ve erected a veil and tied a big bow of ribbon over a basket of toiletries, but still it lacks a certain something, not least because the crucial explanatory words, Sevgililer Günü, are nowhere to be seen.
The trouble is that until recently most Cappadocian marriages had little to do with romance, and even now many Göreme partnerships are still arranged by the couple’s family. These days most people tie the knot in their late teens or early twenties, but there are still many older villagers whose nuptials took place when they were little more than children. One grizzled villager told me how he had become engaged when he was just 14: “My wife was only 13. When I went to visit her, she was so scared that she hid under the table.” Another reminisced about how his father had been allowed to look at his fiancée’s face for only as long as it took for a match to burn down.
In such circumstances love is something that grows over time, not the bedrock of marriage as is thought of in the West. But television advertising has a lot to answer for, and now middle-aged Göremelis, whose idea of romance would stretch no further than the offer of a sunflower seed, find their wives demanding to know what they will be receiving for Lovers’ Day. They’re joking, of course, but it’s an edgy kind of joking because all of them have heard about the exceptional husbands, the ones who’ve wised up to the new ways of the world and returned home clutching bouquets for their spouses.
Pat Yale lives in a restored cave-house in Göreme in Cappadocia.
