Çakırağa Konağı

Many years ago, thirty-six to be precise, I was on my first sabbatical from Providence College and went to Turkey earlier than usual. Jan and Elif came to join me there when Elif’s school ended. Binnaz, Ergun, and I took a long Aegean trip and stopped at many places. I will do my best to recall one visit to Çakırağa Konağı in the small town of Birgi.

Birgi

Birgi (sounds like Bihr-ghi) is a candidate to become a UNESCO World Heritage Site town in Turkey. The area has a rich historical background from the Phrygian to Ottoman times. I recall it as a small town with narrow streets, with many old buildings, and vaguely recall the town producing leather. But clearly remember silk production and silk weaving being a dominant element. In workshops, owners produced small quantities of local silk and woven material.

We visited one silk-producing and weaving workshop, and its owner invited us in. Of course, I do not remember his name, but I remember his welcoming presence and the fine silk thread running through the mill.

Click on the images to see them larger, uncropped, and read their titles.

Çakırağa Konağı

Of course, the biggest (but still vague) memory I have is of Çakırağa Konağı (sounds like chuck-kihr-agha). Quite possibly, Ergun found out about the mansion, built by a leather merchant about 250 years ago, and we wanted to see it. However, it was not open to the public and was under minimal restoration. We asked the local person in charge of the place to take a quick look. The courtyard was sizeable, as I recall, but covered with dust, dirt, and pieces to be restored.

Seeing that we were interested visitors, the official, a local townsman, allowed us to go upstairs. Unlike most buildings in town, Çakırağa mansion was three-storied, including the ground floor. It was hard to figure out how these rooms were used, but I recently learned that the first floor was mainly for the kitchen, stables, and helping hands. The second floor served as the winter home, and the top floor was for the summers.

I was quite surprised to see a door on the stairs as we climbed higher. The door was horizontal, level with the floor, and we had to push it up to open and continue to the top level. You will see a picture of the door in its open state.

I remember a colorfully decorated room with a painting of Istanbul on the higher part of one of its walls. I recently learned that the owner married two women, one from Istanbul and one from Izmir, and had two rooms painted with scenes of the cities so the wives would not feel homesick.

Photographs

The photographs in this collection are obviously film-based. I scanned them a few years ago and decided to share them as a unified collection. As it is a bit of time-travel for me as I go back thirty-six years, it may be a bit of time-travel for the viewers as the building is over 250 years old.

I have seen recent photographs of the mansion, and it looks gorgeous. This collection may help visitors to appreciate the changes that happened to take it from what you see here to what it is today.

Click on the images to see them larger, uncropped, and read their titles.