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 cocktail tables of the sort you might find in a Wild West-themed cowboy 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 almost every rural house is festooned with bunches and garlands of drying cobs. These "corn barns", which we later learned are called ambar in Turkish (a generic term for "storehouse"), were used by farmers to dry and store their harvests of corn (and other crops) while waiting for their turn at the village mill. Set up high above the ground, their crops were safely out of the reach of the wild boar and other  animals that roam the Black Sea's pine-carpeted hills. Now most of them sit empty.

We were bug-eyed after days of gray skies,confined by unceasing rain to our hotel room or one or another of Sinop's harborside teahouses. When we finally woke to a weak, tentative sun we dressed and hurriedly breakfasted, 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 tiniest of villages comprising a single bufe (always well-stocked with freshly baked bread) and a handful of cottages. Plumes of smoke rose from roadside gardens, signalling pekmez in process. We pulled off the road not once but four times, to find mothers and grandmothers hovering over mammoth metal kazan (cauldrons), cooking down kilos and kilos of apples, pears, mulberries, figs and grapes into liters and liters of fruit molasses over wood fires.

Alongside a river slicing through a not-quite mountainous range trees were hinting at autumn, flashing bare limbs and spots of saffron and yellow. 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 climbed and climbed, cautiously negotiating hairpin turns, always on the lookout for heedless Turkish drivers.

There were ambar, plenty of them, and we slowed and gawked at each one; 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 of our car to take photos.

While Dave was shooting a window on the facade of what we'd taken to be an abandoned farmhouse opposite the ambar a shutter banged open and a red kerchiefed head popped out. We were assaulted with a half-growl, half-shout: Kimler? Kimler? Ne yapsiniz? "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 popped out the farmhouse's entrance and, puffing loudly with arms swinging, toddled over to the gate.

"It's gorgeous! He's a photographer," I said, indicating my husband and the corn barn, trying to explain why we'd hiked up a hill and onto her property. She glared at me from beneath thick formidable brows, scaring me a little. My Turkish is no match for an angry teyze. But then suddenly the clouds parted. Her face didn't soften, exactly, but she invited us in for tea.

She invited us into her beautiful beautiful wooden house. Later her husband told us it was built of beechwood by his father, over 60 years ago. We entered from the dim 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 the woman's son, with a marble countertop, new sink and taps and a handcarved wooden bench. Two bedrooms lay straight ahead. One was empty save for a cloth spread over the floor covered with drying corn kernals. The timber walls were hung with old kilim and thick cotton cloth.

Habiba -- after a while I gained the courage to ask her name -- led us into a sitting room brightened by two windows -- one with a fine view down the hill up which our car had just snaked -- and directed us to a low cushioned banquette running along one wall. Outside it was cold enough for gloves and a hat and heavy wool socks. Inside, the room was toasty warm from a wood-fired stove set within 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.

Habiba told us about her family, three sons and a daughter, all grown and married and living in 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: "Allah allah, you should see it in springtime!" 

We must eat something, she insisted, even though it was past lunchtime. We danced the dance of Turkish hospitality, declining while she insisted, and finally giving in. While Habiba was in the kitchen her husband Kazim returned home. Opening the door to find two yabanci drinking tea in his sitting room he stopped short, then 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 chilies, fresh cheese and gently pickled romano beans that Habiba warmed in oil over a burner on the wood stove. Tea for Kazim, 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 crowded with the faithful every Friday afternoon; it's closed now. He described the mill down by the river where his father and the village's 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, hung his head, then smiled and winked at her. They both laughed.

Every year in late autumn the Habiba and Kazim slaughter their few chickens, pack the carcasse up along with bushels of hazelnuts and walnuts from their own trees and board an overnight bus to Istanbul. There they stay for the winter, shuffling between their children's houses. Not willingly -- when they were younger, Kazim told us, they stuck out the cold and snow in the old house. But it's impossible now. "There's no taxi, no bus to go into town. Sometimes no electricity. It's too isolated. We enjoy Istanbul but ...."

After finishing our lunch we stayed for two more glasses of tea. Habiba looked tired and Kazim began clucking after her; it was time to leave. The couple walked us downstairs, Kazim taking quiet but obvious pride in the fact that Dave stopped every step to photograph his house's wooden 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 agreed.

Neither Kazim nor Habiba wanted their photograph taken. "We're too old and too ugly!" she cried, shooing Dave away but laughing 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. 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

[Heather]

The storage barns supported by the "rough-hewn tables you might see in a cowboy theme-y bar" are very similar to hórreos you find in northern Spain. Hórreos are grain storage buildings built with these strange supports to keep rodents from getting inside. I have never seen this design anywhere other than the Spanish provinces of Asturias and Galicia, so I was very surprised to see these photos. Would love to see this part of Turkey!

[Robyn]

You should, Julia! It's a beautiful region.

Thanks for commenting Heather! That's fascinating ... apparently these sorts of storage barns also exist in parts of E Europe. The central Black Sea is probably Turkey's most second beautiful region, after the northeast.

[Katy]

Those leg support and 'rough-hewn tables' structure are called saddle stools (for the grain storage barns) in England. Record dated back to 1800's.

[Katy]

Sorry, it's 'Staddle stones' :-) Remember it wrong hearing it from a colleague. We have an English Rural Life Museum in the campus. Here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Staddle_stones