I spent two weeks in Ankara with Emre. Ankara has changed hugely in the twenty-odd
years I have been visiting it. The
growth seems to be continuing – the population is now just under 5 million (doubled
since 1990) and there are 35 indoor shopping malls (2014 – probably 40 by
now). The skyline, once characterised by
two or three tall buildings, now boasts plenty of skyscrapers.
Every year there are new roads, flyovers
and underpasses – makes it hard to find your way round when you only go there
once a year! There is also now a (not
very extensive) metro system and of course, this being Turkey, there are also thousands
of minibuses as well as overcrowded council buses. It used to be a relatively easy city to drive
round – at least in comparison to Istanbul – but despite all the public
transport and the development of the road system, the traffic is now
appalling. The driving is also appalling
and to those of you who think you have seen it in Fethiye I say “you ain’t seen
nothing yet”!
While Ataturk was organising the
resistance to the Allied occupation of Turkish land, he used Ankara as his
base. In 1923 he named it as the capital
of the new Turkish Republic. Unlike Istanbul it is located centrally in
Anatolia, the heartland of Turkey. In
case you are wondering, it is a little of 600km (325 miles) from Fethiye.
Despite its recent growth, Ankara is an
ancient city. It was previously known as
Angora and the goats, cats and rabbits (and wool) of that name all come from
here!
You might know that I
love to visit museums and have seen (and subjected the boys to) most of the
museums in Ankara over the years. So
imagine my excitement when I found out about a new one – the Erimtan
Museum. It holds a collection that
includes jewellery, coins, glass and ceramic objects acquired by a civil
engineer called Yuksel Erimtan with a passion for archaeology and a desire to
stop Turkish artefacts from being taken abroad.
There are some impressive pieces such as
this 3000 year old Urartian belt and a collection of seal rings – with which
notables would put their mark on documents – but a lot of thought had also gone
into the way things were displayed. Translations
of inscriptions and letters brought the ancient civilizations to life, actually
showing most effectively how little things have changed:
(In
Roman times) “both males and females enjoyed perfumes and even over-wore them
at times so that the famous Roman orator Cicero concluded that, ‘The right
scent for a woman is none at all.’ ”
From
the Roman poet Ovid’s Cosmetics for the Female Face: “But, Girls, let your first
care be your manners...Age will lay ravage your figure and your pretty face
will be ploughed with wrinkles. There
will come a time when you can’t bear to look in a mirror...But good manners are
enough and are long-lived...”!
