Calis Beach and Fethiye Turkey Discussion Forum

Other Local Resorts & Areas => Kayakoy Discussion Forum => Topic started by: nichola on September 12, 2014, 08:38:31 AM

Title: Kayaköy up for rent!
Post by: nichola on September 12, 2014, 08:38:31 AM
Up for auction 23rd October - one village! In return for its restoration...

The auction will also partially open Kayaköy's archeological site to construction and includes plans for the construction of a hotel, as well as tourist facilities that will encompass one-third of the village.

http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/for-rent-from-culture-ministry-fascinating-ghost-town-and-bargain-cultural-heritage.aspx?pageID=238&nID=71611&NewsCatID=341
Title: Re: Kayaköy up for rent!
Post by: kayakebab on September 12, 2014, 11:28:48 AM
Shuddering at the thought... What can we do Nichola... ? I don't feel I can sit back and just hope... :(
Title: Re: Kayaköy up for rent!
Post by: Jacqui Harvey on September 12, 2014, 13:00:30 PM
How awful, Kaya is a lovely quiet peaceful little village.   We have taken to going there quite a lot when we visit. I think it would be terrible to change the place.
Title: Re: Kayaköy up for rent!
Post by: KKOB on September 12, 2014, 13:53:34 PM
I think it would be terrible to change the place.

You're too late Jacqui. It's already changed. The quad bikes, jeep safaris, tour buses, road widening schemes, extensive building of houses and hotels all over the valley etc have done that.
Title: Re: Kayaköy up for rent!
Post by: karaokemark on September 12, 2014, 15:17:20 PM
It changed the day expats decided they wanted to live there, it is another business opportunity just like all the building that has gone on over the last 20 years. Hopefully it will be regulated and done sympathetically.
Mark
Title: Re: Kayaköy up for rent!
Post by: Scunner on September 12, 2014, 15:34:12 PM
Expats making their home around Kayakoy is hardly the same as living in an area of specific historical heritage. I'm looking to get a place in Rome, I wonder if there are any studio flats being made in the Colosseum!

Tragic and horrifying.
Title: Re: Kayaköy up for rent!
Post by: Colwyn on September 12, 2014, 16:06:30 PM
I think Kayakoy itself is a physical reminder of a tragic and horrifying episode of history that many Turks would prefer to forget. Turning it into a business opportunity is crass in the extreme. Rather like opening a Slave Hotel in Bristol with tiny rooms fitted out with wrist shackles and leg irons.
Title: Re: Kayaköy up for rent!
Post by: Old Nick on September 12, 2014, 16:08:13 PM
Shameful, there will shortly be a facebook site with sepia photographs showing Kaya as it was and people exclaiming that they remembered it like that, or more upsetting, that they don't remember it like that, as I view photos of the place I was born and bred in and can see no resemblance to what I see now and remember, as my memory has faded, whether I think it has or not! :( :(
Title: Re: Kayaköy up for rent!
Post by: sadler on September 12, 2014, 17:03:15 PM
Stupid question I know and I am sure that I already know the answer but would be very happy to be proved wrong, is there not some organisation such as our National Trust who takes over the preservation and maintenance of historic sites in Turkey?
Title: Re: Kayaköy up for rent!
Post by: Scunner on September 12, 2014, 17:07:27 PM
Yes, they are the ones offering it for rent as far as I know...
Title: Re: Kayaköy up for rent!
Post by: kevin3 on September 12, 2014, 18:49:13 PM
Depending upon who the chosen builders are, at the end of the lease it may look exactly as it does now.    :)
Title: Re: Kayaköy up for rent!
Post by: Scunner on September 12, 2014, 19:06:16 PM
If Hanel get the job the roofs will collapse and rain will get in through the walls. Oh I take your point Kevin!!!
Title: Re: Kayaköy up for rent!
Post by: KKOB on September 12, 2014, 20:26:10 PM
Unfortunately, Turkey's idea of preservation is to just leave the site and to let it continue to crumble.
Title: Re: Kayaköy up for rent!
Post by: Menthol on September 12, 2014, 21:10:21 PM
Personally speaking KKOB, that sounds preferable to the alternative 'restoration'.
Title: Re: Kayaköy up for rent!
Post by: Scunner on September 12, 2014, 21:26:25 PM

Unfortunately, Turkey's idea of preservation is to just leave the site and to let it continue to crumble.

Or use it as a climbing frame/playground
Title: Re: Kayaköy up for rent!
Post by: KKOB on September 12, 2014, 23:49:08 PM
Personally speaking KKOB, that sounds preferable to the alternative 'restoration'.

I partly agree with you. But I would have thought that if they were so proud of the village they would have done something more sympathetic to preserve it.
Title: Re: Kayaköy up for rent!
Post by: nichola on September 13, 2014, 00:10:05 AM
I have a friend who is a member of the architects association in Fethiye and in the past they have restored a couple of the village houses. They got in touch with the HQ of their association in Ankara a few years ago about Kaya but they weren't interested - because it is Greek heritage not Turkish.

When this issue about Kaya was raised a couple of years ago and the Save Kaya Facebook page was set up I did quite a lot of research. I found numerous newspaper reports in the local Turkish press where it was very clear that many of the local Kaya Turks including those that hold official positions want this development. They are fed up of being the poor relations to the other local areas where landowners have profited from selling their lands, building properties for foreigners etc etc.

This is the Facebook page if anyone is interested https://www.facebook.com/groups/110494149116617/?ref=ts&fref=ts
Title: Re: Kayaköy up for rent!
Post by: Scunner on September 13, 2014, 00:30:01 AM
The restoration into homes is repulsive due to the way it is being done. Once again they found a way to sort something out by getting someone else to pay for the entire thing. They don't have to spend a penny. You do it up, you can rent each bit of it out for 49 years! No noticeable requirement to make it true to what it was in it's prime.

To me Kaya Koy slowly dies as all awful episodes should - but I would truly prefer it to be restored in a "how we think it may have looked" project, than to have a "this looks fairly decent; well given we only have it for 49 years we ain't going to spend much time on research or money on it" style.


In my heart and in my mind I have often wondered what Kaya Koy looked like, the very day those good people did their housework, locked the front door and headed for the harbour at Fethiye for their journey to Greece. Dear Turkish (and British) friends of mine worked hard to make that the halfway house option for the good of the area, the history and the now.

With this I know I'll never ever see that, and to me that is almost unbearable.
Title: Re: Kayaköy up for rent!
Post by: Jacqui Harvey on September 20, 2014, 10:24:14 AM
This is a petition to sign if you don't want the development in Kakaykoy
https://secure.avaaz.org/en/petition/The_Turkish_Minister_of_Culture_and_Tourism_Stop_the_auction_to_rent_historic_cultural_Kayakoy/?sKUGobb
Title: Re: Kayaköy up for rent!
Post by: karaokemark on September 27, 2014, 08:38:33 AM
http://www.todayszaman.com/expat-zone_a-song-for-kaya_359450.html