FINDICAK

A publication is in preparation about a decaying village; it is an account of the disintegration process of a mountain village called Fındıcak. These observations started in 1989. Fındıcak provides a striking example of vernacular architecture: almost pure timber framed, in different stages of functional development and decay. Since 1989 I have visited the village every year and sometimes more than once.

The village center

It is a small village located high in the mountains in a triangle formed by the towns of Bursa, Gemlik, and İznik. At an altitude of around 500 meters, the village is situated peacefully in a long valley, at the southern slope of the Kurban Dağı, a 1296 meter high mountain.

The winters are rather cold and the village can easily get snowed in. In the past the roads leading to the village could be blocked by snow. The summers are warm but not too hot, with temperatures of circa 35° C.

The earliest history: the villagers tell us that their ancestors were real ‘Turks’ who arrived with Orhan Gazi from Central Asia in the Yenişehir area. This town became, for a short period (1301-1326), one of the first Ottoman capitals.

In 1927 the population in Fındıcak consisted of 285 inhabitants, in 1990 183, but has dropped to about 120 people in 1999.

The village one sees nowadays consists of lots of abandoned houses and mostly elderly people.

Young people do not live here anymore. They left, mainly to Bursa, to work and have a more luxurious lifestyle.

In the village center we find the usual mosque, teahouse, hamam (bath-house), the village shop and tax office; the last three are now out of use.

Opposite the teahouse stands a large, old tree. In the summer we can find here the whole male population of the village.

The problem with the traditional houses is that their maintenance is insufficient or progressively abandoned. When the wall plaster is not yearly renewed, the old plaster will wash away and moisture and wind will penetrate the walls of the houses.

Most streets are of earth and dirt covering the natural rock. Since the village lies at the foot of the mountain, the rainwater coming down from the slope makes deep gullies in the streets’ surfaces. The streets are the easiest way down for the water stream.

The hamam is not very old; a stone with an inscription tells that it was founded in ‘1938’. It is a traditional building in which two bathing rooms and the room with the furnace are arranged in a row. For the service of the hamam every person paid one ölçek[1] of grain to the tenant. This system of payment failed to work when in general the standards of living went up and at the same time the number of hamam users decreased. As a result the hamam closed its doors in 1990.

A little shop lies opposite the hamam. The shop was closed in 1985 because there were not enough villagers left to make its operation worthwhile.

The village earns its money from the sale of firewood. For this work no heavy machinery is needed. The wood is cut on the slopes of the mountains and transported by medium-sized horses. There are about 40 such horses in the village; every family has at least one of them.

Agriculture is of no importance for the earnings of the village. In earlier days the products of the fields were sold in the towns. Nowadays the villagers work their land for their own use.

A village house used as a storage building

In earlier years they also grew tobacco in their fields. But cigarette production is a state monopoly and the price for tobacco became very low in comparison with the work involved. Around 1985 tobacco disappeared from the fields. 

Throughout the village we found a superb collection of discarded ploughs and old-fashioned tools. Ploughs were pulled by oxen, the last until 1990. Whetstones stand on forked sticks against the walls of houses and are still in regular use. Threshing-sledges are rotting away in gardens and in old barns. Most of the flint blades are still in their slots.

At the end of the summer the road leading to the village has borders of piled-up wood. Everywhere there are stacks of firewood lying against the walls of the buildings. Part of this is firewood for local use, but most of it is for trade. It is the main source of income for the village.

The village houses in Fındıcak are of a quite basic concept. They combine work and living spaces under one roof. The work is done on the ground floor while living quarters are on the upper floor. It is a peasants’ village and that is why everything is basic and functional.

The livestock stays on the ground floor during the winter; also the harvest of the small fields - grain and seeds, wood for the stoves, tools and machines - are stored here.

The final stage: total collapse

(photos: B. Claasz Coockson 2001)

The stairway ends at the upper floor in a ‘large’ room or corridor. At one end there is sometimes a fireplace and/or a sideboard. This is the kitchen area. The preparing of food in such houses was and still is a close-to-the-ground activity. . .

“The book will have about 100 photos and many drawings of a unique ‘open-air museum’ like settlement.”

Ben Claasz Coockson

Newsletter No. 1 - 2002, Pg. 24, 25

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