Pictured Sundura Today.Fortyone years ago during the Summer of 1972, after a late arrival to Sarp Otel Hopa[1] in the Eastern Black Sea province of Artvin, the very next day I found myself in Sundura [2] Neighborhood (Mahalle) at an abandoned house that once belonged to Ahmet Yamak.
I photographed, measured and did the drawings based on that field trip in September for Sedat Hakki Eldems Architectural Conservation and Restoration | 'Röleve ve Restorasyon' class. Here they are...
Ahmet Yamak House
Drawings of Ahmet Yamak House
Mavi Boncuk |
[1] The area was part of the kingdom of Colchis but was always vulnerable to invasions, first the Scythians from across the Caucasus, then the Muslim armies led by Habib, son of Caliph Uthman who controlled the area from 853 AD to 1023 when it was conquered by theByzantines from the Sac Emirate allied to the Abbasids. The Seljuk Turks led by Alparslan conquered the area in 1064. With the collapse of the Seljuks, the Artvin area came under the control of the Ildeniz, one of the Anatolian Turkish beyliks.
There is currently a high rate of cancer in Hopa, attributed to fall-out from the disaster at Chernobyl, across the Black Sea from here. Between 2001 and 2004, cancer cases sharply increased in the Black Sea region, especially in Hopa, with 47.9% of all deaths during this time being due to cancer.
[2]Sundura takes the name from the small Sundura (dere) creek[*].
[*] Dere TR could be any of these : brook, stream, rivulet, run, runlet, watercourse, beck, bourn, bourne, branch, creek, dale, gully, kloof, runnel, vale.
