The heart of today's Turkey is Cappadocia, a historical region located in the central part of the country. This region is interesting not only for its extraordinary nature, but also for the opportunity to touch the history of the first centuries of the Christian Church.
At the first meeting with Cappadocia, the thought arises that you are on a different planet - landscapes that open to the eye are so unique and different . There are volcanoes with snow-capped peaks, low free-standing mountains, rocky massifs and fertile valleys
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Cappadocia Cities
How to get to Cappadocia
Since there is no direct communication between Russia and the cities of central Turkey, tourists have to fly first to Istanbul. Next - about an hour flight by domestic Turkish airlines to Kayseri or Nevshehira
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- Underground towns and shrines of Cappadocia
- Nevsehir is one of the few cities in Cappadocia where people , as well as five hundred years ago, live in tuff caves, having converted them into modern dwellings.
- Urgup is notable for the unique cave houses, as well as the church and the house where St. John prayed and lived. The main attraction here is an open-air museum, which includes about 30 cave churches
- Derinkuyu - an ancient underground city near Nevsehir, built in the 8th-7th century BC, which was used by early Christians to hide from oppressors Arabs
- Kaymakly is another underground city connected to Derinkuyu by a 9 km tunnel. At the moment, archaeologists have unearthed eight floors, but only the upper four are open for visits.
- Ihlara gorge is a deep and long canyon of volcanic origin (almost 14 km), in the steep walls of which the hermit Christians built a number of temples, connecting them with a ramified network transitions
- Rent a scooter and go exploring the local valleys: the quaintness of the landscapes and their diversity amaze and in additional comments, in general, do not need .
- To make an appointment for a mini-group tour on the route Göreme - Ihlara Canyon - the underground city of Derinkuyu. These places are separated from each other in a decent distance, and the detailed story of the guide will come in handy.
- Do not regret the money and at dawn, climb the sky in a balloon, view the surrounding landscapes from a bird's eye view and make unique photographs.
- Go through the streets of Goreme, look into souvenir shops and, perhaps, even decide on a large-sized purchase: a carpet of manual work and unreal beauty.
- How should we consider the ancient frescoes preserved on the walls of temples dug in the rocks - the most dense concentration on the territory called the open-air museum with an entrance fee.
- Visit the underground city, consisting of a ramified network of junctions and rooms, in order to see how the early Christians lived and hid here from the Arabs a few centuries ago.
- Closer to the evening find the most filled with the visitors of the institution and try the local "specialty": baked in a baked clay pot meat with vegetables - Testi Kebabi.
- Stay overnight in one of the small hotels, the rooms of which are arranged directly in caves, but are nevertheless equipped with all the blessings of civilization.
- To go for a couple of hours to the neighboring Avanos - the town of potters, to gaze at the ceramic products made by hand.
- In the afternoon, hurry to Uchisar, go up to the local fortress on the mountain and admire how the setting sun colors the surrounding rocks in various shades.
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Entertainment, excursions and attractions of Cappadocia
Modern Cappadocia is a major tourist center, annually there are more than one million foreign guests, mainly from Western Europe, India, China, Japan and America .For tourists in Cappadocia, hotels of different levels are built - from elite and even unique to the simplest .There are various entertainment services - skiing tracks, ethnic holidays, balloon flights .The unique nature and authentic treasures of Christian history and culture here, unfortunately, remain unknown to most Russians .
For a person who first came to Cappadocia, acquaintance usually begins with a visit to the capital of the Kayseri region (Caesarea). It is a large industrial city and administrative center with a population of more than a million people, with a multi-storey building. There are archaeological and ethnographic museums with interesting collections, fragments of an ancient fortress preserved.
At the end of the 3rd century, Christians began actively exploring the area between the three largest cities of Cappadocia - Nissa, Nazianzom and Caesarea .They used underground shelters, according to historians, dug out, even during the Hittite period .It was the Christians who expanded and deepened these cave structures, creating in some places real underground cities, whose population was, according to modern estimates, up to 10 thousand people .The most famous of them, located near the village of Derinkuyu, goes into the earth 85 meters .In multi-storey labyrinths there were living quarters, storages, stables, workshops, and, of course, temples .Ancient underground cities, currently open to visit .They shock with their scale and in a perfectly thought-out life support system .There are still operating ventilation shafts of that time, and tunnels and halls have a functional architecture .No less interesting is the underground city under the village of Kaymakly, where archaeologists have so far excavated only five floors .There is an assumption that the underground cities were used by Christians as a refuge first from the persecutions of the Roman emperors, then from nomadic Arabs who often raided these lands at 8 ., and then from the Seljuk Turks .
Göreme and Ihlara are the most famous and large temple Christian complexes of Byzantine time. Temples of this period are also found in the villages of Giselleurt, Ortahisar, Gul'shohir, Mustafapasha, the Zelva valleys, Sohangly, Pashbagh and many other places in Cappadocia.
Pilgrimage tours to Cappadocia
To the Orthodox heart this land is already dear because it was the apostolic preaching of St. Paul here. But Cappadocia itself, where the Christian community appeared quite early, showed the whole host of saints to the world. In the church calendar there are more than fifty names of saints, martyrs, saints and righteous.
Cappadocia - the birthplace of the martyr Longinus Sotnik, the natives of this ancient land were the saints Basil the Great, archbishop of Caesarea of Cappadocia, his younger brother Gregory, bishop of Nyssa, as well as Gregory the Theologian, Patriarch of Constantinople. These Fathers of the Church, who made a great contribution to the formation of the Orthodox doctrine of the Holy Trinity, and Christian theology in general, went down in history with the name of "great Cappadocians."
The desire for a solitary life among believers, the constant sense of danger and the willingness to accept death for Christ, undoubtedly influenced the widespread spread of monasticism in Cappadocia .To get acquainted with where the spiritual inhabitants performed their spiritual feat, the inhabitants of the monasteries in Cappadocia are best visited the Goreme valley .Here is an open-air museum, on the territory of which there are more than twenty temples carved in the rocks and several Byzantine monasteries .Their main value is the frescoes dating from 9-13 centuries .
At the beginning of 16 in .Cappadocia became part of the Ottoman Empire, whose sultans professed Islam .In these conditions, Orthodox Christians experienced hard times .The more amazing is the feat that shone in the first third of the 18th century in Cappadocia of the holy righteous John of Russia - our compatriot .His name is still revered not only by Christians, but also by Muslims .Part of the relics of the righteous John of Rus from 1881 g .is in the Russian Panteleimon Monastery on Athos .The other part in 1924 .was secretly exported from Turkey by Greek refugees and is on the island of Evia .Time spared the ancient Orthodox church in Urgup, whose walls remember the Russian ascetic, as well as the house of the host of the righteous John .
After the exodus of the Greek communities in the 20-30's. In the 20th century, together with the priests, there was virtually no one to perform divine services in Cappadocia. Over the past eight decades, many ancient temples and monasteries have become desolate, decrepit and collapsing. The largest monastic complexes of the Turkish government declared a national cultural heritage, they were transformed into museums and taken under protection. However, some of the monuments of Christian architecture are in an abandoned state.
There are currently no permanent Orthodox churches in Cappadocia. Church life comes to life only once a year, in the spring, when its traditional annual pilgrimage by the Patriarch of Constantinople Patriarch Bartholomew, performing service in some ancient temples, takes place here. Sometimes on great holidays, with the blessing of Patriarch Bartholomew, Greek pilgrims and tourists with priests who serve in them come to the cathedral churches in Cappadocian towns.
Photo of Cappadocia (26)