Their impending arrival focused my thoughts on who else lives locally. The tiny Cappadocian expatriate community bears little resemblance either to its İstanbul counterpart or to the likes of Alanya (”Little Germany”) and Fethiye (”Little Britain”). By virtue of its size İstanbul gathers up all sorts of foreigners, many of them professionals who come and go with their job contracts. The same, to a lesser extent, is true of Ankara and İzmir. In contrast most of the yabancıs who are snapping up homes along the coast probably have their eyes fixed on sunny sea views and the relatively low cost of living.Of course no one comes to Cappadocia for the sea, which is a good six hours away by bus. Nor do they really come for the sun, which may blaze down on us in summer but not in a way that encourages much toasting. This is, after all, still an agricultural area at heart, where locals walk around even in high summer wearing more clothes than most Europeans would put on to venture out to Siberia.
Instead foreigners are drawn here primarily by love, be it love of a local, or love of Cappadocia itself. I fall firmly into the latter camp, having been attracted to settle in Göreme by its complex history, glorious landscape and wonderfully welcoming people.
So who else can be found here? On the surface Göreme’s expat community looks impeccably mixed, with one German, four Dutch, three Americans, two Canadians, one Australian, one New Zealander, one South African, one Swede and two or three Japanese women in fairly permanent residence. Closer inspection, however, reveals that it is the Brits who are in the majority, with at least eight of us at the last count. This is particularly remarkable since the British barely feature when it comes to the local tourism industry.
There used to be two French women in the village, but they have since moved on, and were, in any case, anomalies in a strictly Anglophone community. Elsewhere in Ürgüp, Ortahisar, Avanos and Uçhisar the picture is similarly pick and mix, although the French beat the British into second place in Avanos and Uçhisar.
As for how many of us there are, it depends when the count is taken. At the height of summer there may be 150 foreign residents in Cappadocia. In winter, however, the community shrinks to a hard core of perhaps 50, most of them women and most of them married to locals.
As usual the influx of foreigners has forced up house prices with as yet uncalculated consequences for younger Cappadocians, but for the time being the community is still too small to threaten the local lifestyle. Long may it stay that way!
Pat Yale lives in a restored cave-house in Göreme in Cappadocia
