The secrets of Sivrihisar

This is a rather strange reaction given that Sivrihisar has two things going for it that one might have thought would have earned it at least a soupcon of brand recognition. The first is that Atatürk passed through during the Turkish War of Independence, thus putting it in a group with Samsun, Amasya, Sivas and Erzurum, all of them perfectly well known. The second is that the main mosque here was once home to some of Turkey’s finest carpets, now on display in the Turkish and Islamic Arts Museum in İstanbul and at the Vakıf Eserleri Museum in Ankara.

It has to be said that Sivrihisar gives the initial impression of a place that has turned its back on tourism. Buses from Ankara dump their passengers unceremoniously on the main road, and while the owners of the solitary town center hotel could hardly be more helpful, there’s no disguising the fact that their hostelry will be way too basic for most tastes. The only alternative, designed with the needs of long-distance lorry drivers in mind, is more comfortable, but stands remote from the main attractions beside a petrol station on the Ankara road.

All of which makes it the more surprising to be able to report that Sivrihisar is a real treasure, one of those increasingly rare towns that retains much of its original Ottoman townscape intact, complete with crooked houses and ramshackle, defiantly non-chain shops. The craggy Yazıcıoğlu Kalesi rocks that rise up sheer from the surrounding plain forming a backdrop to the town only add to its unexpected beauty, as do the myriad Selçuk and Ottoman relics that lurk in the back streets.

The best place to start your exploration has to be the splendid Ulu Cami (Grand Mosque), built in 1275 for Eminiddin Mikail, a follower of Mevlana. Aside from its soaring brick mosque, this is one of those secretive buildings that gives little away from the outside. How wonderful, then, to step inside and find a long hall of a mosque whose ceiling -- a forest of hewn tree trunks -- is held up by 67 wonderful wooden columns, most of them resting on marble stones obviously scavenged from local ruins, including two capitals pilfered from nearby Pessinus. The mihrab (niche indicating the direction of Mecca) wears a thick overcoat of paint but beneath it it’s possible to pick out the complex geometric designs of the Selçuks. The mimber (pulpit) is a masterpiece of Selçuk woodwork.

From the Ulu Cami it’s but a skip and a jump to the old Yoğurt Pazarı (Yoghurt Market) where suddenly, like a butterfly emerging from a chrysalis, Sivrihisar starts to reveal its charms. The market is a misshapen piece of land surrounding one of the two “camisız” (mosque-less) brick minarets arising from tall stone plinths which are a feature of the town. No one seems quite sure what became of the mosques (if indeed they ever existed). “An earthquake,” hazards one local, which hardly explains why the minarets would stand intact. “Pulled down in the past,” suggests another, which sounds equally unlikely.

What is clear is that the minaret is surrounded by imposing Ottoman konaks (mansions), and that the local authorities are now hard at work restoring them. “Beypazarı,” I hear several people whisper, the small town near Ankara that has so successfully reinvented itself as a Safronbolu-lite obviously offering inspiration for what is happening here.

The Sivrihisar mansions were constructed with a wooden frame that was filled in with patterned brickwork. Later on the bricks vanished behind painted plaster, which is now being stripped away to reveal the original designs. Two of the finest examples stand apart from the market on the western side of town. The Zeyneller Konağı has a cross in its brickwork which suggests that its owners were Christian. Then there’s the even more beautiful Sakarya Konağı, with, right beside it, the town’s pride and joy -- the restored Zaimağa Konağı, where Atatürk met with colleagues to discuss their progress on March 24, 1922.

A visit to the Zaimağa Konağı offers a chance to eyeball the lifestyle of the comfortably off of the late 19th century. The woodwork may have been reconstructed, but you get to peek inside the cupboards at the tiny spaces that used to serve as showers in the days when, understandably, regular trips to the local hamam (Turkish bath) would have been de rigueur. Larger cupboards were used to house bedding that was laboriously taken out and then stored away again every day at a time when the divans along the wall doubled up as beds. One especially intriguing feature of the house is a square cut out of the upstairs floor just above the front door. Such holes above gates in castles were cut to enable defenders to pour boiling oil down on their enemies. Here, however, the hole merely allowed those upstairs to see whether the visitor was a man or a woman before descending to greet them.

A short walk away stand the remains of an enormous church built in 1881 for use by the Schismatic Armenians, a group that had broken away from the Greek Orthodox Church after the Council of Chalcedon in 451. Towards the end of the 19th century there were about 300 such families living in Sivrihisar, according to a British traveler. The front part of their church was later press-ganged into service as a power station. Today it stands abandoned, although there are plans to start restoring it soon.

Sivrihisar has plenty more unexpected delights up its sleeve. The Kurşunlu Cami, for example, on the eastern side of town dates back to 1492 and is a classic example of early Ottoman architecture. In front of it is a fountain whose pillars rest on old Roman capitals and whose back rests against an old Roman sarcophagus. On the western side of town, past a creakily authentic old marketplace which springs to life every Wednesday is the Aziz Mahmud Hüdayi Cami which dates back to 1591 but was redecorated in a baroque style that recalls the Balyan mosques of İstanbul in 1894. Up in the foothills of the rocks you can hardly fail to spot the clock tower that dates back to 1899. Less obvious but well worth climbing up to see are the remains of the Gavur Hamamı (Infidel Bathhouse), a Selçuk-era building apparently rebuilt in 1883. Standing in front of it the silence is so profound that it’s broken only by the curious clashing noise made by mating turtles, the sharp drumming of a woodpecker and the frantic cackling of jackdaws. Finally, those with an interest in dogs might want to pay a visit to the Akbaş Çiftliği where “white-headed” sheepdogs, close cousins to the better known kangals (“karabaş”) are bred -- to find it just look for the statue of a shepherd with his dogs and take the road beside it.

Sivrihisar is a precious piece of the old Turkey, a place where it’s best just to relax and go with the flow, the kind of place that still hangs onto the generous and innocent hospitality of pre-tourism Anatolia. Here, when someone stops you in the street and asks somewhat bashfully if they can help, you can be sure that they have nothing to sell and that nobody is lurking nearby in hope of a commission. Visit soon before modernization sweeps all before it.

WHERE TO STAY

Nasreddin Hoca Oteli.

Tel: 0222-711 4370

Şoförler Federasyonu.

Tel: 0222-711 4893

HOW TO GET THERE

Hourly buses connect Sivrihisar town center with Eskişehir. Buzlu buses from Ankara pass the outskirts of town.