GROUP JOURNAL FOR

MELITOUR EASTERN TURKEY TOUR

JULY 29,2001 TO AUG 12 , 2001

Day 5 – Friday, August 3, 2001

Crossing to the Dry Side of the Black Sea

Rise to the Georgian Border/Artvin and it’s surroundings

The morning finds us hot and steamy from our first totally non-air conditioned night. One of two other tour groups at the Asnur Hotel kept several of us awake last night by dancing, loudly, until midnight.

Never-the-less, we are on the road by nine as Meli gives us several interesting news stories: 1. That our day’s itinerary will have to be changed some because the road we are to take inland will be closed part of the day due to blasting for a new hydro-electric dam and 2. That overnight there was a freak storm in Ismir with walnut sized hail.Our first visit of the day is at the Caykur Pazar Cay Fabrikasi (tea factory). We are visiting between crops so things are kind of quiet. When fully operational, this factory will run 24 hours straight and can handle 150 tons of tea leaves per day.

Our factory guide informs us that there are five stages in tea production: dehydration, oxidation,

fermentation, quality separation and wrapping. The process starts when tea leaves are dumped from trucks unto a conveyor belt which carries them to an upper level room full of screens. Here steam fans blow the leaves until they have reached about 65% of their original moisture content. From here they are ground, squeezed, heated and allowed to ferment and dry further until the desired aroma and color are achieved. The leaf mash then goes through a set of whirling drums which electro-statically suck out impurities and leaf fibers that become animal feed. Finally, the tea is separated into seven qualities that are usually blended to create various medium grades of final product. This will rest for a few months before being shipped. Some interesting facts we learned include:

This is one of three privately owned factories. It employs 600 workers and 29 engineers and lab technicians from all over the country during the harvest season and serves 22,000 plantations.All the loose tea produced is consumed in Turkey.Tea in bag form is exported to markets in Germany, Holland and Russia.No chemical additives are used to enhance the color or aroma of Turkish tea.The state provides natural fertilizer and regulates the quantity of tea produced.Tea is good for about 8 months if well covered.Tea bushes live about 50 years and must be pruned to stay healthy and productive.The caffeine content of Turkish tea is 3-4% which is higher than other countries that harvest and produce all 12 months during the year.After leaving the tea factory, we drive a bit further, through several tunnels, to make a brief visit to the Georgian border. On the way back, Meli points out a hole in the mountain next to one of the tunnels. This was a tunnel for camels on the Silk Road.Soon we say farewell to the Black Sea. We begin our speedy trip over the mountains in order to reach the bridge at the town of Borcka before 1:30pm when road will be closed.Cheers go up as Metin makes the trip smoothly with 2 minutes to spare.Everything is dust and construction beyond

Borcka.What was once a powerful and beautiful river has been muddied, scraped and tamed by huge machinery and cascades of blasted rock falls.In the midst of all of this, we soon see the ancient fortress of Artvin on a rock outcropping overlooking the steep river valley. We stop at a restaurant along the river for lunch of shish kabobs, fries and smooth cool apricot juice: then, on up the road to drop our bags and catch mini buses at the Hotel Karahan in the city of Artvin. The mini buses take us up a steep, dusty road to a high mountain village (Dolushane Hamamlikoy) where we will see a small 13^th century Armenian Orthodox church/later-mosque. Some unusual carvings on this church include a Star of David and a sundial. The interior has been pretty well stripped of frescoes and embellishments by Italian researchers in the 60’s and Byzantine gold seekers. Two little boys follow us inside the church. One of them is an orphan whose father was killed by a bear.More than any other, this visit strikes me with the harshness of life in this region. When we arrive we are told that the village Imam died only 15 days before. A young man of 16 named Sarcon acts as our guide and invites us to visit his house and garden. He is a sober young man with a lot of responsibility. His father is mentally ill. He and his mother are trying to find the means to send his thirteen-year-old sister to boarding school in Artvin. There are too few children in his village of 60 homes for the state to provide transportation to school. Sarcon attends a state owned boarding school and hopes to become a teacher some day. Sometimes he earns money cutting timber in the nearby forests. His garden seems small but I am struck by the variety of fruits, nuts and vegetables that his family is able to grow.It is getting late and our next visit is a short one on the other side of Artvin and the river valley. It is cooler and greener here with beautiful pine trees and ferns. We have tea at the Livane (old name for Artvin) Restaurant in the yayla of Kafkasor which means Little (or Baby) Caucasia. There are skins of wild goats and bears on the walls of the restaurant and a bull fighting stadium outside. It is dark by the time we come back down to Artvin. The lights of the city are beautiful and more numerous than one would expect during the day.We reach the hotel just in time for a tasty dinner of eggplant, stuffed peppers, stew and cheese boreks. The hotel’s owner eats with us and talks with us about the dam and the economy in this region. Artvin is a center of state and local government. Lumber production kept this region fairly self sufficient prior to the 1980’s. Now there is stiff competition from cheaper imported timber. Five separate hydroelectric dams have been planned for this river. Three have been started and are planned for completion in seven years. They will probably really take about 12 years to complete and will raise the water level 210 meters. Eventually, 13 major cities will be under water. The dam at Borcka will be an earthen dam. The one at Artvin will be much higher and will be concrete. Swiss and Austrian partners are financing the construction of the first 3 dams; French partners for the last 2.Our dinner ends with many differing opinions about the positive and negative effects of these dams.Our day ends with a brief thunderstorm.

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