Sun, Oct 24, 2010
Saffron, the precious flower and spice of love, once gave it its name. For almost 700 years, the small Central Anatolian town of Safranbolu was the hub of the trade caravans on the Silk Road. Situated almost 200 kilometres north of the present-day Turkish capital of Ankara, Safranbolu was considered early by the Ottomans to be the "back garden of the Topkapi palace" along the Bosporus. Its inhabitants, Turks, Greeks and Jews, were famous for their craftsmanship. For centuries, blacksmiths, potters and tanners dominated the everyday scene. Many worked as bakers or saddlers at the Sultan's Court in Istanbul, some even rose to high government officers and, like the legendary Izzet Mehmet Pasha, became the Grand Vizier of the Ottoman Empire. This brought prosperity and the necessary resources for magnificent city villas. Two Grand Viziers donated mosques, provided infrastructure, urban planning and, with the construction of the first clock tower in the Ottoman Empire, also for the commemoration of a new era. The blessings of modernity, wide arterial roads, large commercial buildings and industrial complexes never reached the small town. It was simply forgotten. More than half a century later, it was realized that this preserved a unique jewel of original Anatolian urban culture. Since 1994, this urban jewel has been protected as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. A late fortune that gave Safranbolu a second life as an "echo of the Oriental Middle Ages" in the midst of Turkish modernity.