Amasya

The town began as Amaseia, a fortified settlement in the gorge of the Iris, today's Yeşilırmak. In the Hellenistic period it became the capital of the Kingdom of Pontus, and its kings had their tombs cut into the cliff above the river, where they still stand. Rome eventually broke Pontus in the campaigns against Mithridates VI, and Amaseia continued as a provincial town; the geographer Strabo, born here around 64 BC, described his home city in the work that shaped ancient geography.

Byzantine rule gave way to the Danishmends and then the Seljuks, and in the 13th and 14th centuries, under Seljuk and Ilkhanid patrons, the town was given the medreses, mosques and the hospital known as the Bimarhane that still line the south bank. Under the Ottomans, Amasya became a training ground for princes: heirs to the throne were sent here as provincial governors with their tutors, and several later sultans spent formative years in the town. The 1480s mosque complex of Bayezid II dates from that era, and craft guilds, silk and copper work supported a prosperous urban population that included Armenian and Greek communities.

In the 19th century the town declined as trade shifted to the coast and the new railways, and its Christian population was lost to the violence and deportations of the First World War era and the 1923 population exchange. In June 1919 Mustafa Kemal and his colleagues issued the Amasya Circular here, calling for national resistance — the event the town is best known for in modern Turkish history. Conservation from the 1980s onwards restored the riverside houses, and Amasya now trades on that inheritance.

Amasya thinks of itself as a town of scholars and princes, and the medrese tradition still colours its self-image: religious learning, calligraphy and classical Ottoman music have a following, and the mosque complexes are used as much as they are admired. The local legend of Ferhat and Şirin, a stonemason who cut a water channel through the rock for love of a princess, is told everywhere and attached to the landscape outside the town.

Craft traditions survive in copper work, weaving and woodcarving, and the restored houses have given the town a small industry of guesthouse keeping and guiding. Evening life is centred on the riverbank: families walk the promenade after sunset, when the rock tombs and castle are floodlit, and tea gardens fill on both banks. Public commemorations matter here more than in most towns of this size, because of the events of June 1919.

Social manners are conservative and courteous. Elders are greeted first and their hands sometimes kissed and touched to the forehead; visitors are pressed with tea and food; and dress in the streets is generally modest, more so than on the coast. Amasya is also proud of its apples to a degree outsiders find funny, and they appear in songs, shop names and the decoration of the town.

About 115,000 people live in the town and roughly 340,000 in Amasya province. The old core is squeezed between the cliff and the river, so most residents live in newer districts spreading east and west along the valley, while the historic houses hold guesthouses, offices and a smaller resident population than they once did.

The economy rests on agriculture, public administration, education and tourism. Orchards in the valley produce apples, cherries and other fruit, and the surrounding plains grow grain, sugar beet, onions and the dried okra the province sells nationally. A university, hospitals and provincial government offices provide steady employment, and small workshops handle food processing and building trades. Younger people still leave for Ankara, Samsun and Istanbul.

The day runs early: markets and offices open soon after dawn, the midday heat empties the streets in summer, and life returns to the riverbank in the evening. Weekly markets bring villagers into town. Local concerns include flood protection along the Yeşilırmak, earthquake resilience, the cost of maintaining timber houses under conservation rules, and traffic in a centre that cannot be widened.

Amasya's cooking belongs to inland Anatolia rather than the coast. Keşkek — wheat and meat pounded together for hours into a thick, glossy dish — is served at weddings and communal meals. Toyga çorbası, a soup of yoghurt and wheat finished with dried mint, is an everyday staple, and bakla dolması, broad beans or their leaves stuffed with rice, is a local speciality in spring. Meat is usually lamb, grilled or stewed with vegetables from the valley.

The province's produce defines much of the rest. Amasya apples, small and strongly perfumed, are eaten fresh, dried and cooked; çiçek bamyası, tiny dried okra threaded on strings, is soaked and simmered into a sharp lemony soup that is one of the region's best-known dishes. Walnuts, cherries and vine leaves from the same orchards go into stuffed dishes and pastries.

Bakeries sell flat breads, sesame simit and layered börek with cheese or meat, and the sweet course is often a syrup pastry or a baked pudding of milk and rice. Coffee and tea are drunk through the day in the gardens along the river, and in cold weather stalls in the bazaar sell salep and roasted chestnuts.