The Ambar

We began noticing them on the drive from Inebolu to Sinop: single-story timber structures raised from the ground, supported by what look like rough-hewn tables you might see in a cowboy theme-y bar. Storage facilities of some sort, we reasoned, something along the lines of the rice barns that dot the landscape in Thailand and Indonesia.

Turkey's Black Sea coast is corn country (though plenty of wheat is grown there too). In autumn nearly every rural house is festooned with bunches or garlands of drying cobs. These "corn barns", which we later learned are called ambar (a generic term for "storehouse"), is where farmers dried and stored their harvested corn (and other crops) while they waited for their turn at the village mill. In an ambar crops were  safely out of the reach of the wild boar and other hungry animals that roam the region's forested hills. Now most sit empty.

After days dogged by gray skies, confined by unceasing rain to our hotel room or to one or another of Sinop's harborside teahouses, we were bug-eyed. When we woke one morning to tentative sun we dressed and breakfasted hurriedly, jumped in the car and hit the road.

We drove inland, away from the sea we'd been staring at for the better part of a week, and traced a two-lane blacktop deep into a bucolic valley. Here and there were the tinest of villages consisting of a single bufe (always well-stocked with freshly baked bread) and a handful of cottages. Plumes of smoke rising from gardens signalled pekmez in process: mothers and grandmothers cooking kilos and kilos of apples, pears, mulberries, figs and grapes into liters and liters of fruit molasses.

Alongside a river slicing through a middling mountain range trees were just beginning to show autumn colors. We breezed by a mid-sized town and kept on, beyond the point at which the road became a pitted dirt track. Lured by the vista around the next corner, and the next, we negotiated hairpin turn after hairpin turn.

There were ambar, plenty of them; by now we were a bit obsessed with these structures. When the road narrowed to nearly impassable we stopped at the base of a hill crowned by an especially handsome specimen and got out for photos.

While Dave was shooting a window on the facade of what we'd taken to be an abandoned farmhouse opposite the ambar banged open. A red kerchiefed head popped out and we were assaulted with a half-growl, half-shout: "Who's there? What are you doing?"

I shouted back that we were just taking photographs of her ambar; she looked dubious and slammed the window shut. A few moments later she emerged from the front door and toddled over to the gate, arms swinging.

"It's gorgeous! He's a photographer."

I indicated the corn barn, tyring to explain why we'd hiked up a hill and on to her property, as she glared at me from beneath formidable brows. To tell the truth she scared me a little. Then, quite suddently, the clouds parted. Her face didn't soften, exactly, but she invited us in for tea.

Superlatives simply cannot express the beauty of her house, which her husband later told us was built of beechwood, by his father, over 60 years ago. We entered a dark ground floor layed with stone, a storage area for tools and bags of recently harvested walnuts and hazelnuts and, long ago, cattle and sheep and chickens.

Ladder stairs -- the steps, made of 2-inch thick boards, so solid underfoot -- led to an entry area. To the left was a curtained kitchen nook recently updated by her son, with a marble countertop, new sink and taps and handcarved wood bench. Two bedrooms lay straight ahead. One was empty save for a cloth spread over the floor; it was covered with drying corn kernals. Timber walls were draped with old kilim and thick cotton cloth.

Habiba -- after a while I felt bold enough to ask her name -- led us into a sitting room brightened by two windows, one with a fine view down the hill we'd just snaked our way up, and directed us to a low cushioned bench along one wall. Outside it was cold enough to require gloves and heavy wool socks but the room was toasty warm from a wood-fired stove set inside a five foot-high blackened hearth. She left us there to admire the timber walls, gleaming from age and smoke, and returned with a metal canister of water and a container of tea leaves.

We talked about her family -- three sons and a daughter, all grown and living Istanbul. Grandkids too, and they all converge on the village every summer to take in the fresh air and cool temperatures. As she talked Habiba loosened up a bit. She was 64 or 65, she said, she couldn't be sure. She'd grown up in the area, she loved these hills: "You should see it in springtime!" 

We must eat something, she insisted, even though it was past lunchtime. We declined out of politeness, Habiba persisted, and we gave in. While she was in the kitchen her husband Kazim returned home. Upon opening the door to find two yabanci drinking tea in his sitting room he looked shock, but graciously and quickly regained his composure. He offered us more tea.

Kazim and Habiba set up a low folding table in front of us, laid it with a flowered cloth and set it with plates of food. Kazim ate with us (Habiba demurred, saying she'd already eaten): tomatoes, long green mild peppers, cheese and gently pickled romano beans that Habiba warmed in oil over a burner on the wood stove. Tea for him, orange Fanta for Dave and me.

As the three of us ate Habiba pulled hunks of bread from a big loaf she kept in a plastic bag on a shelf near the door. She carefully peeled warm hard-boiled eggs and placed them on our plates.

Kazim told us about growing up in the house, how he was seven years old when his father built it with his own hands. He described a village more populous than it is now, the mosque just minutes from their door packed with the faithful every Friday afternoon (it's now closed). He told us about the mill down by the river where his father and the other farmers took their corn to be ground into grits and flour. How his mother made meals in the hearth that now houses the modern wood-fired stove, and how as a boy he listened to the family's cows and the sheep and chickens moving beneath the floorboards as he drifted off to sleep. Every autumn, he said, the ambar was stacked to its rafters with corn and other fruits of the harvest.

He and Habiba adore each other. It's lovely to see. When she checked his watch and pulled a sack of pills from beneath her sweater -- ''I was in the hospital last month, for few days," she murmured -- Kazim watched her worriedly. When we heard the clank of a jerryrigged oil can bell, hung just outside the house to scare animals away from the garden, Habiba shook her head, smiling sideways at Kazim, and said "That's his work." He shrugged his shoulders and smiled back.

Every year in late autumn the couple slaughter their few chickens, pack them up along with bushels of hazelnuts and walnuts and board an overnight bus to Istanbul, where they spend the winter with their family. And not necessarily willingly -- when they were younger, Kazim told us, they stuck out the cold and the snow in the old house. "No more though. There's no taxi, no bus to go into town. Sometimes no electricity. It's too isolated. We enjoy Istanbul but ...."

After finishing our late lunch we stayed for two glasses of tea. Habiba looked tired and Kazim began clucking after her; it was time to leave. They walked us downstairs, Kazim taking quiet but obvious pride in the fact that Dave stopped to photograph the house's wood beams and planks and its storage area, where the baskets Kazim and Habiba use to collect walnuts and apples hung on hooks jutting from the walls. He understood why we'd been drawn to the ambar. "Yes, it's beautiful," he said.

Neither Kazim nor Habiba wanted their photograph taken. "We're too old and too ugly!" she cried, shooing Dave away but smiling when he tried to convince her otherwise.

"Come back in the spring, in May, after we return from Istanbul," Habiba said us as she urged a bulging bag of black walnuts into my hands."This place in the springtime, oh! You can't imagine how wonderful it is. Like heaven on earth."

Comments

[Liuzhou Laowai]

Lovely story. Thanks

[marts aziz]

Thank you, this is something, and beautiful too.

[Kavey]

What a lovely story, and such a warm and genuine welcome.

[Sticky]

"We...traced a two-lane blacktop deep into a bucolic valley" - what a nice line. Feel like I travelled with you on this; had a similar experience in Zagorahoria in Northern Greece last year, where we arrived in almost deserted mountain village in late afternoon and were told we had to stay the night! Sausages, grilled lamb, olives and wine were produced, open fire lit and a night of broken but stimulating conversation ensued...felt so privileged.

[Martin Klein]

A really lovely story and, as usual, beautiful pics. Good to see there's still a bit left of the rural Turkey I remember from a few similar visits - some 20 years ago. And you really tried to resist that snack of plain Turkish country food fresh from the garden? Hard to believe. :-)

[Robyn]

LL, Marts, Kavey, Sticky, Martin -- thank you! This is a very, very special memory. We hope to return, maybe even this spring.

Sticky - wow, that sounds fantastic, how lucky for you. Plus you get wine -- that's not often brought out in rural Turkey! At least in this part of Turkey.

Martin - yes there is quite alot of rural Turkey left, in fact, once you get beyond Istanbul and far enough inland from the Med/Aegean coasts. It's astonishing (to me anyway) how rural Anatolia/Black Sea still is. Just love road tripping there .... the open road, beautiful vistas, big sky.

[Maureen]

What an amazing experience!! I'm so envious I can't stand it.

[Snippets of Thyme]

You both must have been so tickled to be invited inside. I would have been so curious to see the interior of the house. How wonderful to put together what they did for you. Did they speak English or do you speak Turkish? Love that they gave you Orange Fanta. We had to go to a police station in rural Italy once; they immediately brought us some soda pop and chocolate for our children. Ha!

[mahek]

Hi
I may have never commented before but I have to tell you this that I love your blog and look forward to reading your posts.. Thanks for the efforts you put into making the post and sharing it with us .. very impressive..
I have you on my sidebar .. THANKS AGAIN

[Robyn]

Ha, Maureen -- I love your honesty! Thanks for reading.

Snippets, we have a thing for old buildings, esp those made of wood, so yes this was a treat. Such a beautiful house and they love it so. I speak some Turkish, struggling to regain what I learned during 3 years of study over a decade ago. Orange Fanta, any kind of western soda pop -- seems to be the "special occasion" drink in alot of the world. Certainly so in China too.

Mahek -- You're welcome, and thank you for the kind words about the blog! And for reading.

[maya]

There you go, you got me nostalgic again! These photos are beautiful and they reflect the beauty of luxuriant green landscape of the black sea region. The thing I really don't like about this region however is the weather, man it rains NON STOP, no wonder it is so green! And I know you will hate me for this but I really can't stand hamsi! My parents used to force me to eat hamsi as a kid growing up in Ankara and it put me off any kind of fish for life! But like I say, give me a tub of pekmez and some tahini to mix with it and I'm a happy camper!
I'm curious though, I don't think I've read a post about Trabzon in your blog, didn't you guys treck that far yet? Trabzon is gorgeous, the locals are super sweet, they make beautiful handmade silver jewelery and they have excellent kebabs! Not all Karadenezli are obsessed with hamsi at least!
By the way I don't know if you are aware of jokes made about the karadenizli people in Turkey? THe main character is usually called Temel and he has a "hooked" nose, the turks (mainly from places like istanbul) say that black sea people are "slow" and they have a funny accent when they speak! I don't think they are slow, from my travels they were always super sweet hard working people, but they do speak turkish with a funky accent!

[Robyn]

Maya, we haven't been back to Trabzon since our first visit way back in 2000. We will make it back eventually. The weather was awful and folks seemed to be in a bad mood, until Dave bought a Trabzon Spor baseball cap and then everyone was super nice to us. ;-) And yeah the weather is bad. But I live somewhere with weather that I pretty much hate 100% of the time so weather has come to mean not so much to me, even when I travel.
I have heard those karadenizli jokes. Every population has to pick on someone I guess.
As for hamsi -- condolences! I would say you don't know what you're missing but you obviously do. Trabzonlu do a darned fine hamsi bread, as I remember. ;-)

[Ming]

Amazing...

[Turkey's For Life]

Ohh, I think we might have to pop up there in May after they return from Istanbul, just to see what it looks like in the springtime. ;)
Julia