No title

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. Turkish housewives, angered by the influx of prostitutes and what their husbands were doing at night, created a fundamentalist, Islamic movement in Trabzon. The Islamic political party began circumcizing 300 boys in the center of town to get support for their candidate.

Randy Olson, "No title," in POYi Archive, Item #33490, http://archive.poy.org/items/show/33490 (accessed May 12, 2025).