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Cesme is a coastal
town and the center-town of the district of the same name
in Turkey's western-most end, on a promontory on the tip
of the peninsula which also carries the same name and
which extends inland to form a whole with the wider
Karaburun Peninsula. It is a popular holiday resort and
the district center, where two thirds of the district
population is concentrated, is located 85 km. west of
Izmir, the largest metropolitan center in Turkey's Aegean
Region, the road connection between the two cities being
assured by a recently-built six-lane highway. Cesme
district has two neighboring districts, Karaburun to the
north and Urla to the east, both of which are also part
of Izmir Province. The name "Cesme" means
"fountain" and possibly draws reference from
the many Ottoman fountains scattered across the city.
Name
Its name in classical antiquity was "Kysos",
and later "Kysus" under the Romans, and was
probably a mere locality depending Erythrae then. The
name Kysos is nevertheless associable with Homer since
the Thracian king Rhesus, ally of the Trojans during the
Trojan War and slain together with twelve of his men by
Odysseus who had plotted to steal his magnificent horses,
had his wife Argantona (sometimes also spelled as
Argantone), a mythical beauty and a master of animals
like her husband, inhabiting the forests of Kysos [1].
Turkish sources always cited the town and the region as
Cesme since the first settlement 2 km south of the
present-day center (Cesmekoy) founded by Caka Bey and
pursued for some time by his brother Yalvaç before
an interlude until the 14th century. More recent Greek
sources use the name Κρ?νη,
transliterated; Kríni or Krene.
The region
A prized location of country houses and secondary
residences especially for the well-to-do inhabitants of
Izmir since more than a century, Cesme perked up
considerably in recent decades to become one of Turkey's
most prominent centers of international tourism. Many
hotels, marinas, clubs, restaurants, boutique hotels,
family accommodation possibilities (pansiyon) and other
facilities for visitors are found in Cesme center and in
its surrounding towns and villages and the countryside,
as well as very popular beaches.
Cesme district has
one depending township with own municipal administration,
Alaçati, where tourism is an equally important
driving force as the district center area and which
offers its own arguments for attracting visitors, as well
as four villages: Ildiri on the coast towards the north,
which is notable for being the location of ancient
Erythrae, and three others which are more in the
background, in terms both of their geographical location
and renown: Germiyan, Karakoy and Ovacik, where
agriculture and livestock breeding still forms the
backbone of the economy. Some andesite, lime and marble
is also being quarried in Cesme area, while the share of
industrial activities in the economy remains negligible.
In terms of livestock, an ovine breed known as
"Sakiz koyunu" in Turkish (translatable
literally as "Chios Sheep"), more probably a
crossbreeding between that island's sheep and breeds from
Anatolia, is considered in Turkey as native to Cesme
region where it yields the highest levels of productivity
in terms of their meat, their milk, their fleece and the
lamb they produce [2].
Another brandname of the district which rings a bell in
the Turkish mind once the name Cesme is pronounced is
mastic. Preparations such as jam, icecream and desserts,
and even sauces for fish preparations, based on the
distinctively flavored resin of the tree pistachia
lentiscus from which it is harvested, are among
nationally known culinary specialties of Cesme. While its
name is synonymous also in Turkish (sakiz') with the
Greek island of Chios across the shore which made it
famous and the quantity of production is not as extensive
as in the Mastichato, mastic is also produced in the
adjacent Cesme peninsula where ecological conditions are
identical [4]. A number of efforts are being made to
rehabilitate the potential presented by the mastic trees
that presently grow in the wilderness, and to increase
the number of cultivated trees, especially those planted
by secondary-residence owners who grow them as a hobby
activity. The fish is also abundant both in variety and
quantity along Cesme district's coastline.
In relation to tourism, it is common for the resorts
along Cesme district's 90 km coastline to be called by
the name of their beaches or coves or the visitor's
facilities and attractions they offer, as in Sifne
(Ilica), famous both for its thermal baths and beach, and
in Çiftlikkoy (Çatalazmak), Dalyankoy,
Reisdere, Küçükliman, Pasalimani,
Ayayorgi, Kocakari, Kum, Mavi and Pirlanta beaches;
Altunyunus, synonymous with a large hotel located in its
cove; and Tursite, by the name of the villas located
there. Some of these localities may not be shown on a map
of administrative divisions [5] The district area as a
whole is one of the spots in Turkey where foreign
purchases of real estate are concentrated at the highest
levels.
The town of Cesme lies across a
strait facing the Greek island of Chios, which is at a
few miles' distance and there are regular ferry
connections between the two centers, as well as larger
ferries from and to Italy (Brindisi, Ancona and Bari)
used extensively by Turks of Germany returning for their
summer holidays.
The town
The town itself dominated by Cesme Castle. While the
castle is recorded to have been considerably extended and
strengthened during the reign of Ottoman sultan Bayezid
II, sources differ as to their citation of the original
builders, whether the Genoese or the Turks at an earlier
time after the early 15th century capture. A statue of
Cezayirli Gazi Hasan Pasha, one of the naval commanders
of the Battle of Chesma is in front of the castle and the
Pasha is depicted caressing his famous pet lion and
facing the town square. The battle itself, although ended
in Ottoman defeat, had seen Hasan Pasha pulling out
honorably after having sunk the Russian flagship Sv.
Evstafii, together with his own ship, after which he had
to follow the main battle from the coast before joining
the capital by way of land, where he rapidly rose to
become a distinguished grand vizier.
A few paces south of the castle, there is an Ottoman
caravanserai built in the early centuries of the Ottoman
conquest in 1528 by order of Süleyman the
Magnificent, and it is now restored and transformed into
a boutique hotel. The imposing but redundant 19th century
Greek Orthodox church of Ayios Haralambos is used for
temporary exhibitions. Along some of the back streets of
the town are old Ottoman or Greek houses, as well as
Sakiz house-type residences of more peculiar lines, for
the interest of strollers.
Ilica
Ilica is a large resort area 5 km west of Cesme to which
it depends administratively, although it bears aspects of
a township apart in many of its characteristics. It is
famed for its thermal springs, which is the very meaning
of its name.
Ilica started out as a distinct settlement towards the
end of the 19th century, initially as a retreat for
wealthy people, especially from Izmir and during summer
holidays. Today, it is a popular destination for many.
Mentioned by Pausanias and Charles Texier, Ilica thermal
springs, which extend well into the sea, are also notable
in Turkey for having been the subject of the first
scientifically based analysis in Turkish language of a
thermal spring, published in 1909 by Yusuf Cemal. By his
time the thermal springs were well-known both
internationally, scientific and journalistic literature
having been published in French and in Greek, and across
Ottoman lands, since the construction here of a
still-standing yali associated with Muhammad Ali of
Egypt's son Tosun Pasha who had sought a cure in Ilica
before his premature death [6].
Ilica has a fine beach of its own, about 1.5 km long, as
well as favorable wind conditions which make it a prized
location for windsurfing.
History
In Classical times, the urban center and the port of the
region was at Erythrae (present-day Ildiri), located
slightly to the north of Cesme.
The town of Cesme itself lived its golden age in the
Middle Ages when a modus vivendi established in the 14th
century between the Republic of Genoa, which held Scio,
and the Turkish Beylik of Aydinoglu, which controlled the
Anatolian mainland, was pursued under the Ottomans, and
export and import products between western Europe and
Asia were funneled via Cesme and the ports of the island,
only hours away and tributary to Ottomans but still
autonomous after 1470. Sakiz became part of the Ottoman
Empire in an easy campaign led by Piyale Pasha in 1566.
In fact the Pasha simply laid anchor in Cesme and
summoned the notables of the island to notify them of the
change of authority. After the Ottoman capture and
through preference shown by the foreign merchants, the
trade hub gradually shifted to Izmir, which until then
was touched only tangentially by the caravan routes from
the east, and the prominence of the present-day
metropolis became more pronounced after the 17th century
[7].
Cesme regained
some its former lustre starting with the beginning of the
19th century, when its own products, notably grapes and
mastic, found channels of export. The town population
increased considerably until the early decades of the
20th century, immigration from the islands of the Aegean
and the novel dimension of a seasonal resort center
becoming important factors in the increase. The
viniculture was for the most part replaced with the
growing of watermelons in recent decades, which acquired
another name of association with Cesme aside from the
thermal baths, surfing, fruits, vineyards, cheese,
tourism and history.
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