Yayla Migration

Randy Olson

Aurora / National Geographic Society

The closest mountain peaks ever get to the sea is in an area of Turkey defined by the Pontic Alps on the Black Sea coast. This area, cut off to the world by geography, is also the place where a mountain to sea migration has been going on since the neolithic. Mountain homes are called Yaylas (YIY-luz) and most families have more than one. Families fish at the coast and as the temperatures rise, they move to a succession of homes higher in the mountain range. These homes are community property and bequeathed during the Ottoman period. Historically the Yaylas have a hard-scrabble life. This all changed with the influx of tea as a cash crop. Now families travel to their Yaylas as a part-vacation and part-work because tea is so lucrative.

Randy Olson, "Yayla Migration," in POYi Archive, Item #33422, http://archive.poy.org/items/show/33422 (accessed May 14, 2025).