Alanya

Alanya is a seaside resort city and district of Antalya Province in the Mediterranean region of Turkey, 74.6 miles (120 km) from the city of Antalya. The municipal district, which includes the city center, has close to 400,000 inhabitants. The population is almost entirely of Anatolian origin, but is home to almost 10,000 European residents, with a growing presence in the city and its economy.

Because of its natural strategic position on a small peninsula into the Mediterranean Sea below the Taurus Mountains, Alanya has been a local stronghold for many Mediterranean-based empires, including the Ptolemaic, Roman, Byzantine, and Ottoman Empires. Alanya's greatest political importance came in the Middle Ages with the Seljuk Sultanate of Rûm under the rule of Alaeddin Keykubad I, from whom the city derives its name. His building campaign resulted in many of the city's landmarks, such as the Kızıl Kule (Red Tower), Tersane (Shipyard), and Alanya Castle.

The relatively moderate Mediterranean climate, natural attractions, and historic heritage makes Alanya a popular destination for tourists, and responsible for 9% of Turkey's tourism sector. Tourism has risen since 1958 to become the dominant industry in the city, resulting in a corresponding increase in city population. Warm-weather sporting events and cultural festivals take place annually in Alanya. Mayor Hasan Sipahioğlu of the Motherland Party has led the city since 1999.

Names

The city has changed hands many times over the centuries, and its name has reflected this. Alanya was first known in Latin as Coracesium or in Greek as Korakesion from the Luwian Korakassa meaning "point/protruding city". Under the Byzantine Empire it become known as Kalonoros or Kalon Oros, meaning "beautiful" or "fine mountain" in Greek. The Seljuks renamed the city Alaiye , a derivative of the Sultan Alaeddin Keykubad I's name. In the 13th and 14th centuries, Italian traders called the city Candelore or Cardelloro. In his 1935 visit, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk finalized the name in the new alphabet as Alanya, changing the 'i' and 'e' in Alaiye, reportedly because of a misspelled telegram in 1933.

History

Although first fortified in the Hellenistic period following the area's conquest by Alexander the Great, the castle rock was likely inhabited under the Hittites and the Persian Empire. Finds in the nearby Kadrini cave indicate occupation during the Paleolithic era as far back as 20,000 BC. A Phoenician language tablet found in the district dates to 625 BC, and the city is specifically mentioned in the 4th-century BC Greek geography manuscript, the periplus of Pseudo-Scylax. Alexander's successors left the area to Ptolemy I Soter after 323 BC. His dynasty maintained loose control over the mainly Isaurian population, and the port became a popular refuge for Mediterranean pirates.The city resisted Antiochus III the Great of the neighboring Seleucid kingdom in 199 BC, but was loyal to the pirate Diodotus Tryphon when he seized the Seleucid crown from 142 to 138 BC. His rival Antiochus VII Sidetes completed work in 137 BC on a new castle and port, begun under Diodotus Tryphon.The Roman Republic fought Cilician pirates in 102 BC, when Marcus Antonius the Orator established a proconsulship in nearby Side, and in 78 BC under Servilius Vatia, who moved on the Isaurian tribes.The period of piracy in Alanya finally ended after the city's incorporation into the Pamphylia province by Pompey in 67 BC, with the Battle of Korakesion fought in the city's harbor. Isaurian banditry remained an issue under the Romans, and the tribes revolted in the forth and fifth centuries AD, with the largest rebellion being from 404 to 408. After the Roman Empire's collapse and split, the city remained under Byzantine influence, becoming a suffragan of Side, in the metropolis of Pamphylia Prima. Islam arrived in the 7th century with Arab raids, which led to the construction of new fortifications. 681 marked the end of a bishopric in Alanya, although St. Peter of Atroa may have taken refuge here from iconoclastic persecution in the early 9th century. The area fell from Byzantine control after the Battle of Manzikert in 1071 to tribes of Seljuk Turks, only to be returned in 1120 by John II Komnenos.Following the Fourth Crusade, the Christian Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia periodically held the port, and it was from an Armenian, Kir Fard, that the Turks took lasting control in 1221 when the Anatolian Seljuk Sultan Alaeddin Keykubad I captured it, assiging the former ruler, whose daughter he married, to the governance of the city of Akşehir. Seljuk rule saw the golden age of the city, and it can be considered the winter capital of their empire. Building projects, including the twin citadel, city walls, arsenal, and Kızıl Kule, made it an important seaport for western Mediterranean trade, particularly with Ayyubid Egypt and the Italian city-states. Alaeddin Keykubad I also constructed numerous gardens and pavilions outside the walls, and many of his works can still be found in the city. These were likely financed by his own treasury and by the local emirs, and constructed by the contractor Abu 'Ali al-Kattani al-Halabi. Alaeddin Keykubad I's son, Sultan Gıyaseddin Keyhüsrev II, continued the building campaign with a new cistern in 1240.At the Battle of Köse Dağ in 1242, the Mongol hordes broke the Seljuk hegemony in Anatolia. Alanya was then subject to a series of invasions from Anatolian Turkish Beyliks. In 1293, the Karamanoğlu dynasty took control after Mecdüddin Mahmud conquered the city, but their rule was intermittent. Lusignans from the Cyprus briefly overturned the then ruling Hamidoğlu Beylik in 1371. The Karamanoğlu sold the city in 1427 for 5,000 gold coins to the Mamluks of Egypt for a period before the general Gedik Ahmed Pasha in 1471 incorporated it into the growing Ottoman Empire. The city was made a capital of a local sanjak in the eyalet of Içel. The Ottomans extended their rule in 1477 when they brought the main shipping trade, lumber, then mostly done by Venetians, under the government monopoly. On September 6, 1608, the city rebuffed an naval attack by the Order of Saint Stephen from the Republic of Venice.

Trade in the region was negatively impacted by the development of an oceanic route from Europe around Africa to India, and in the tax registers of the late sixteenth century, Alanya failed to qualify as an urban center. In 1571 the Ottomans designated the city as part of the newly conquered province of Cyprus. The conquest further diminished the economic importance of Alanya's port. Traveler Evliya Çelebi visited the city in 1671/1672, and wrote on the preservation of Alanya Castle, but also on the dilapidation of Alanya's suburbs. The city was reassigned in 1864 under Konya, and in 1868 under Antalya, as it is today. During the 18th and 19th centuries numerous villas were built in the city by Ottoman nobility, and civil construction continued under the local dynastic Karamanid authorities. Bandits again became common across Antalya Province in the mid-nineteenth century.

After World War I, Alanya was nominally partitioned in the 1917 Agreement of St.-Jean-de-Maurienne to Italy, before returning to the Turkish Republic in 1923 under the Treaty of Lausanne .Like others in this region, the city suffered heavily following the war and the population exchanges that heralded the Turkish Republic, when many of the city's Christians resettled in Nea Ionia, outside Athens. The Ottoman census of 1893 listed the number of Greeks in the city at 964 out of a total population of 37,914. Tourism in the region started among Turks who came to Alanya in the 1960s for the alleged healing properties of Damlataş Cave, and later the access provided by Antalya Airport in 1998 allowed the town to grow into an international resort. Strong population growth through the 1990s was a result of immigration to the city, and has driven a rapid modernization of the infrastructure.

Geography

Located on the Gulf of Antalya on the Anatolian coastal plain of Pamphylia, the town is situated between the Taurus Mountains to the north and the Mediterranean Sea, and is part of the Turkish riviera, occupying roughly 43.5 miles (70 km) of coastline. From west to east, the municipality is bordered by the Manavgat district along the coast, the mountainous Gündoğmuş in-land, Hadım and Taşkent in the Province of Konya, Sarıveliler in the Province of Karaman, and the coastal Gazipaşa, with which Alanya shares an airport. Manavgat is home to the ancient cities of Side and Selge.

The Pamphylia plain between the sea and the mountains is an isolated example of an Eastern Mediterranean conifer-sclerophyllous-broadleaf forest, which include Lebanon Cedar, evergreen scrub, fig trees, and black pine. The Alanya Massif refers to the area of metamorphic rocks east of Antalya. This formation is divided into three nappes from lowest to highest, the Mahmutlar, the Sugözü, and the Yumrudağ. The similar lithology extends beneath the city in a tectonic window. Bauxite, an aluminum ore, is common to the area north of city, and can be mined.

The town is divided east–west by a rocky peninsula, which is the distinctive feature of the city. The harbor, city center, and Keykubat Beach, named after the Sultan Alaeddin Keykubad I, are on the east side of the peninsula. Damlataş Beach, named for the famous "dripping caves", and Cleopatra Beach are to the west. The name Cleopatra Beach possibly derives from either the Ptolemaic princess' visit here or the area's inclusion in her dowry from Mark Antony. Atatürk Bulvarı, the main boulevard, runs parallel to the sea, and divides the southern, much more touristic side of Alanya from the northern, more native side, that extends north into the mountains. Çevre Yolu Caddesi, another major road, encircles the main town to the north.

Climate

Alanya has a relatively moderate continental Mediterranean climate. The Mediterranean Basin ensures that most rain comes during the winter, leaving the summers long, hot, and dry, prompting the Alanya board of Tourism to use the slogan "where the sun smiles". cells sometime bring with them fair weather waterspouts when close to the shore.The presence of the Taurus Mountain in close proximity to the sea causes fog, in turn creating visible rainbows many mornings. The height of the mountains creates an interesting effect as snow can often be seen on them even on hot days in the city below. The sea at Alanya has an average temperature of 70.5°F (21.4°C) annually, with an average August temperature of 82.2°F (27.9°C).

Architecture

On the peninsula stands Alanya Castle, a Seljuk era citadel dating from 1226. Most major landmarks in the city are found inside and around the castle. The current castle was built over existing fortifications and served the double purpose of a palace of local government and as a defensive structure in case of attack. In 2007, the city began renovating various sections of the castle area, including adapting a Byzantine church for use as a Christian community center. Inside the castle is the Süleymaniye mosque and caravanserai, built by Suleiman the Magnificent. The old city walls surround much of the eastern peninsula, and can be walked. Inside the walls are numerous historic villas, well preserved examples of the classical period of Ottoman architecture, most built in the early 19th century.

The Kızıl Kule (Red Tower) is another well-known building in Alanya. The 108 foot (33 m) high brick building stands at the harbor below the castle, and contains the municipal ethnographic museum. Sultan Alaeddin Keykubad I brought the accomplished architect Ebu Ali from Aleppo, Syria to Alanya to design the building. The last of Alanya Castle's 83 towers, the octagonal structure specifically protected the Tersane (arsenal), it remains one of the finest examples of medieval military architecture. The Tersane, a medieval drydock built by the Seljuk Turks in 1221, 187 by 131 feet (57 by 40 m), is divided into five vaulted bays with equilateral pointed arches.

Atatürk's House and Museum, from his short stay in the city on February 18, 1935 is preserved in its historic state and is a good example of the interior of a traditional Ottoman villa, with artifacts from the 1930s. The house was built between 1880 and 1885 in the "karniyarik" (stuffed eggplant) style. Bright colors and red roofs are often mandated by neighborhood councils, and give the modern town a pastel glow. Housed in a 1967 Republican era building, The Alanya Museum is inland from Damlataşh Beach. With its rich architectural heritage, Alanya is a member of the Norwich-based European Association of Historic Towns and Regions.

Culture

Alanya's culture is a subculture of the larger Culture of Turkey. The city's seaside position is central to many annual festivals. These include the Tourism and Art Festival, which marks the opening of the tourism season from at the end of May or beginning of June. At the opposite end of the season, the Alanya International Culture and Art Festival is held in the first week of October, and is a notable Turkish festival. Other regular festivals include the Alanya Jazz Festival, which has been held in the first week of September since 2002 at the Kızıl Kule, which is otherwise home to the municipal ethnographic museum. The Jazz Festival hosts Turkish jazz musicians in a series of free concerts.  Onat Kutlar, Turkish poet and writer, and founder of the Istanbul International Film Festival was born in Alanya, as was actress Sema Önür.

The Alanya Chamber Orchestra, formed of members of the Antalya State Opera and Ballet, gave its inaugural performance on December 7, 2007. The International Alanya Stone Sculpture Symposium, begun is 2004, is held over the month of November. Atatürk's Visit to Alanya is also celebrated on the visit's anniversary each February 18, centered on Atatürk's House and Museum. The Alanya Museum is home to archaeology found in and around the city, including a large bronze Hercules statue, ceramics, and Roman limestone ossuaries, as well as historic copies of the Qur'an.

Transportation

The D400 Turkish Highway, the Alanya-Mersin Route, connects Alanya from the east and west, encircling it, and connectin through the city center via Atatürk Bulvarı. The D695, the Ankara-Akşehir Route, runs north-south and reaches the sea 25.5 miles (41 km) west of the city near Side, connecting with the D400. Antalya Airport, is 75 miles (120 km) away and connects internationally. The still unopened local Antalya Gazipaşa Airport, completed in 1999, is only 9 miles (15 km) from the city, and is constructing an international terminal. The international terminal will be completed by August 2008. No train routes go to Alanya or Antalya Province, and there are no train stations in the district. There are bus and dolmuş systems out of Alanya's two bus depots, but buses are usually limited to the major roads, and inside the city transportation is by car, taxi, or foot, as many roads in the old town are closed to traffic. The harbor includes cruise ship piers, and also seasonal ferries and hydrofoils depart for Kyrenia in the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus. Further west of the city is the Alanya Yacht Harbor, a marina scheduled to start services in 2008.