Julius Caesar proclaimed his celebrated words, “Veni, Vidi, Vici” (I came, I saw, I conquered) in Turkey when he defeated the Pontus, a formidable kingdom in the Black Sea region of Turkey…. Part of Turkey’s southwestern shore was a wedding gift that Mark Anthony gave to Cleopatra…. The Famous Trojan Wars took place in western Turkey, around the site where a wooden statue of the Trojan Horse rests today.

These are just a few facts that point to the dramatic role that Turkey and its Black Sea shores have played in world history. While one of the oldest known human settlements is in Catalhoyuk (7500 BC), present-day Turkey was created in 1923 from the Turkish remnants of the Ottoman Empire.

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Dracula: True Story

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Samsun which plays a special role in the beginning of the National War of Independence and in the establishment of the modern Turkish Republic, has been an important center of the Black Sea Region and of  our country in the history of our republic.  Even though it has natural and economic resources that cannot be evaluated properly, it is still the biggest city of the Black Sea Region in terms of population, industry, trade, natural and cultural wealths.

History of  Samsun

Samsun is a very old residential area for the history of humanity. With the inclusion of today’s city center, people have been living in Kızılırmak valley, Kavak, Tekkeköy, and Çarşamba savannas.

In the middle stone age ( B.C 10000 – 5000) it is known that people were living in shelters in Tekkeköy and they are the primal residents of the region. Again, in Neolithic and Calcolithic periods, it is known from the excavations that people were living in Dündar Tepe, Kalenderoğlu, and Bafra İkiztepe.

The primal community that lived in Samsun and  established a state is Gashkas.Tthis community is  also called  Gasgas ( B.C 5000 – 3500). After this known primal community, Paflagons who were in control of the whole North Anatolian, lived in Kızılırmak Basin ( B.C. 3000 – 1100). Hittites ( B.C. 2000 – 1200), Phrygians ( B.C 1182 – 676), Kimmers ( B.C. 676), Lydians( B.C. 1200- 547,  constructed a site called ENETE in the place which is known as Kara Samsun today).

Milletlies (Ionia), (B.C. 2000 – B.C. 400), settled down in ENETE. They came from the  Aegean by using the Black Sea way, and they called ENETE  “Amisus” or “Amisos”.  As the result of the defeat of Krezus ( the king of the Lidians), against the Persians ( B.C. 550-330), the Persian Empire captured the Amisos in B.C. 546. In B.C. 331, Alexander the Great defeated the Persian Empire, the Macedonian Empire captured the Amisos. After the death of Alexander the Great, Kont Kingdom whose origins are based on the Persian Empire was established ( B.C. 255-63). Amisos became the capital city of Kont Kingdom. Later , in the first century before Christ, Amisos fell into the hands of the Roman Empire.  After the Roman Empire was divided into two branches, Amisos stayed inside the borders of the Byzantine Empire in A.C. 385. Although in A.C.860, during the Abbacy Period, with the order of Caliph Mutassım, Amisos was captured by the armed forces which were under the command of dreadful Omar; but the  Byzantine Empire took it back later. After the Turks had come to Anatolia, Samsun was beleaguered by Danişmentliler, but it could not be obtained.  During the Anatolian Seljuk Empire, Muslim residential areas of Samsun were captured by Anatolian Seljuk Empire in 1185. For the first time, the name Amisos was changed and it became Samsun. After the Crusade, Trabzon became the capital city. Then, Cenevizliler, had a dominance on the trade in the Black Sea; so they lived here approximately 100 years. In this period, Samsun where the Turks lived was called “Muslim Samsun”, and the  trade site of the Cenevizliler which is 3 km away from the Muslim Samsun, was called as “non-Muslim Samsun”.

In 1071, after the  Manzikert War,  the  Seljuks created the Muslim Samsun by building  a castle on the coast of Samsun; with the Kösedağ War in 1243, Trabzon Rum Empire captured Samsun; but then, in 1296, Samsun was captured by Anatolian Turks. In 1389, during Yıldırım Beyazıt period, it became a part of  the Ottoman Empire. While Anataolian Seljuks Empire was collapsing, it became the capital city of Canik Principality.

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Largest city :  Istanbul

Government:  Parliamentary republic

Founder :       Mustafa Kemal Atatürk

Turkey (Turkish: Türkiye), officially known  as the Republic of Turkey is a Eurasian country that stretches across the Anatolian peninsula in Western Asia and Thrace in the Balkan region of southeastern Europe. Turkey is bordered by eight countries: Bulgaria to the northwest; Greece to the west; Georgia to the northeast; Armenia, Azerbaijan (the exclave of Nakhchivan) and Iran to the east; and Iraq and Syria to the southeast. The Mediterranean Sea and Cyprus are to the south; the Aegean Sea to the west; and the Black Sea is to the north.

Turkey is the successor state to the Ottoman Empire. It is a democratic, secular, unitary, constitutional republic, with an ancient and historical cultural heritage.  Its political system was established in 1923 under the leadership of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk,  following the fall of the Ottoman Empire in the aftermath of World War I.  Since then, Turkey has become increasingly integrated with the West through membership in organizations such as the Council of Europe, NATO, OECD, WEOG, OSCE and the G-20 major economies.

Turkey is a transcontinental^. Eurasian country. Asian Turkey (made up largely of Anatolia), which includes 97% of the country, is separated from European Turkey by the Bosphorus, the Sea of Marmara, and the Dardanelles (which together form a water link between the Black Sea and the Mediterranean Sea). European Turkey (eastern Thrace or Rumelia in the Balkan peninsula) comprises 3% of the country.

The population of Turkey stood at 72.5 million with a growth rate of 1.45% per annum, based on the 2009 census.  It has an average population density of 92 persons per km². The proportion of the population residing in urban areas is 75.5%. People within the 15–64 age group constitute 67% of the total population, the 0–14 age group corresponds 26% of the population, while 65 years and higher of age correspond to 7% of the total population.

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Location:

Orastie Municipality is located in the east of Hunedoara county, 27 km away from the county city of Deva. Municipal area is 3862 hectares of the land is built 995 meters. Geographical coordinates are: 45 ° 47′30 “north latitude and 23 ° 11′30″ east longitude, the national road links the Sebes Deva and Alba Iulia..

The climate

 The climate of the city is characterized by an annual average temperature of 9.8 ° C. In July the  average temperature registers 20 ° C and in January -3 ° C. Precipitations are reduced  with a maximum in July of 80 mm and a minimum of 30 mm in February.

Geological support

 The  municipality of Orastie is situated in Mures corridor. It is framed by the  Counties (Orastie Mountains), part of the Southern branch of the Southern Carpathians and the Apuseni Mountains (Mountains Metaliferi).
Fluvial deposits are present in the area: sand, gravel, clay from the riverside areas, accumulations deluviale: clay; coluviale accumulation.

Fauna

 Animals in the woods on the outskirts include various species: wild boars , wolves, foxes, squirrels and rabbits but Rafter. Some birds can remind us of partridge and blackbirds and in river valleys, you can  meet wild ducks and pheasants. The Mures rivers is the richest in fish (catfish, barbel, broad snout, carp, dace). The upper reach of rivers and Sibişel Grădişte is populated with trout.

Other images from my city:

Castles in Romania

• Saint Stephanos is a suburb in northeast Attica, 25 km from the historical centre of Athens.
• When on January 30, 1923 the Greek-Turkish agreement for the exchange of populations was signed, a Greek commission went to towns and villages of Constantinople and Asia Minor recorded the Greek populace.

This is how the history of St. Stephanos begins (86 years ago) when on May 1, 1924 seventy (70) families from the region of Constantinople – Litres, Nymphes – and 36 families from Asia Minor, Ikonion, Prokopi, Makri, etc., reached, after much hardship, this place as exchange populace.

They settled in Dekeleiko (a name we find in Homer and it means forest area) or Bogiati. The only thing that existed there then was the railway station named “Oeon”.  The refugees founded the New Bogiati or Saint Stephanos.  In tents given by the government, they started dynamically to build their households

• Men of Letters and Arts from good families with large estates in their lost motherlands, they arrived here and started, having been given a plot of land in place of what they had lost, paying 50,000 drachmas for the settling.

They had to work hard and even to build themselves their own houses. By the time, little by little, things became better…..

• TODAY
• The population of St. Stephanos is approximately 10.000 inhabitants, continuously growing by people from the centre of Athens, who are seeking better living conditions.

The city of Darmanesti is situated in the county of Bacau, Romania

Le relief de cette zone comprend un mélange complexe de formes : des montagnes d’une hauteur moyenne et petite, des collines et des dépressions. La montagne la plus haute de la région s’appelle Nemira qui a une hauteur de 1646 mètres.

The town is surrounded by beautiful mountains. They are called Nemira and they are 1646 meters high.

Situé le long de Valea Uzului, Darmanesti est entouré par les montagnes qui sont belles pendant l’été, nostalgiques pendant l’automne, silencieuses et solitaires en hiver.

En hiver la neige est très abondante de sorte que la ville semble oubliée du reste du monde. Pendant le printemps on y retrouve quelque chose du charme auquel on ne peut pas résister.  C’est ici que les perce-neiges fleurissent ; il s’agit des fameux perce-neiges de Valea Uzului. On peut y rencontrer de véritables tapis fleuris formés des symboles de la vie qui créent l’impression de fête au bon milieu de la forêt.

During the first days of spring, the forests are full of flowers

Une fois entré dans la ville de Darmanesti, le voyageur peut regarder une ville qui ressemble plutôt aux villages traditionnels roumains, une  ville qui essaie de promouvoir son côté touristique. La beauté du paysage attire beaucoup de regards. Les gens qu’on retrouve ici n’ont rien emprunté de la froideur spécifique des habitants des grandes villes. Ils t’accueillent  les bras ouverts  et ils n’oublieront pas de te dire qu’ici les traditions sont strictement observées. Ainsi ne trouvera-t-on personne qui ne soit plus que content de parler des traditions de Noël et du Nouvel An. Ces traditions ont fait que la zone est reconnue dans le pays entier : les traditions de l’ours, les danses traditionnelles.

The area is famous all over the country for the traditions that are kept.

En les écoutant on peut lire dans leurs yeux la fierté d’être les descendants  du très connu Darman,  les gardiens  de l’histoire ancienne.

Le château de Stirbei, situé toujours dans ce coin du monde, est placé sur un plateau à une altitude de 600 mètres. Il a été construit à partir du 19^e siècle par Gheorghe Stirbei et Elisabeta Baleanu. C’est un monument important dans le patrimoine culturel du pays.

Conscients de la beauté de la zone, ceux qui y habitent, disent: ‘celui qui a jamais bu de l’eau d’Uz (la rivière qui traverse cette vallée) ne quittera jamais cette région’.

Dans l’âme de Darmanesti et de ses habitants, Dieu semble avoir parsemé des gouttes d’éternité.

L’article a été écrit par Roman Ionela-Corina, professeur de roumain dans notre lycée. Mille fois merci a elle !