The day begins in these lands with silent prayers dedicated to the sun... In the red-tinged lands of ancient hearts that pray first to seventy-two nations and then to themselves... The morning winds blow the night's incantations, esras and stories engraved on stones by the moonlight into the Mesopotamian sea. It adds a few more drops to the sea of myths, stories and postponed dreams... Each drop is a sea... Each sea is a drop of lament for the lost... Each lament is the myth, legend and light of tomorrow... The day brightens... This is how the day begins in these lands... ( Archaeologist Mesut Alp)

My love for Mardin started with this poem read by our dear guide, dear Müjde Tönbekici...

Greetings from a land of fairy tales, from the city of stone walls, the chief city of cultures, religions, harmonies and tolerance!

Greetings from Mardin, the pearl of Mesopotamia, which Murathan Mungan calls "the castle next door to the sky" and Ahmet Altan calls "a place to watch by day, a necklace by night"!

On the one hand, at Cafe Kana, I am sipping my spiced Syriac tea with cloves and spices with a cinnamon-herb Syriac bun fresh out of the oven brought by Matias, and on the other hand, I am lost in the blessed Mesopotamian Plain. The voice of my soul seems to be more silent as I hover over the stone city where the light dances softly. I love this land that has witnessed so many civilizations, where so much pain and pleasure are harmonized with love, which I call the cream of aesthetics, I love this nest of eagles, the land of legends, I understood this once again.

I am crazy about this land where Muslims, Orthodox, Catholics, Protestants, Chaldeans, Yazidis, Shamsis, different cultures, other symbols, other architecture and ancient groups melt into each other.

My first visit here was about 8 years ago. I was invited by a cosmetics company to give a presentation in Mardin and Midyat, and at that time I was studying Mesopotamian religions and myths, I couldn't get out of Assyrian, Elamite, Babylonian and Sumerian civilizations.

The presentations were over, I was very well hosted and taken around. On the last day, I had to stay at the Matiat Hotel in Midyat. While I was resting, ghost almond candies with bitter mirra and coriander buns were sent to my room and I was asked what I wanted to eat for dinner. I was surprised but said: "it doesn't matter, I'll eat anything." When I went downstairs at dinner time and realized that a long table for 15-20 people had been set with hundreds of different kinds of food and drinks just for me, it was as if I was in a thousand and one night's tales. It turned out that I was the only guest in the hotel that day.

Ahmet, the waiter, had just left for military service and was very excited because it would be his first time outside Midyat and he would have to stop in Mardin first so he could go to Malatya and see Mardin. As the conversation progressed, he told me that his biggest dream was to see Istanbul; he was so beautiful and innocent, like most people in my country...

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Anyway... The next morning I went to Mardin and wanted to explore the place on my own. One by one I went up and down the narrow streets with steep steps and stone stairs. I passed through the abbaras to cool off, I stroked the walls with my fingers, I learned the language of the stones. Here you could tell which faith each house belonged to by the reliefs and carvings on the outside. For example, cross motifs were hidden in flowers. Jews used the Star of David and Muslims used the drop motif. I got lost in the labyrinthine detours, then found my way again. All roads lead to a single street in Mardin. The famous Mardin cookie shops, shops selling walnut sausages and almond candies, copper and silver filigree shops, and shops selling handmade soaps such as Bıttım soap are all on this street.

After a while, in a section where Assyrian craftsmen were lined up side by side, I met Davud Abi, a filigree master. He hosted me in his shop for hours with his white hair, white machete moustache, big, tall, sturdy appearance and cute smile. Actually his name was David but he called him David. Just like he called his son Vadi, his name was Vedhi. He had an old friend with him, whom he called Kurd Mustafa. The three of us talked about politics and religion for hours, laughing, joking and having fun. They told us that Catholics, Orthodox, Assyrians, Armenians, Sunnis, Shafi'is, Arabs, Turks, Kurds, Arabs, Turks and Kurds and dozens of other sects lived together in peace. Then Vadi and his daughter Maria joined us. When I was invited to their house, I was in for the most wonderful surprise of my life; their house was an old Syriac chapel in a place called Gerdanlık, overlooking the Mesopotamian plain. The pictures of saints and saints on the thick stone walls were hidden under the whitewash, but there were a few photos of Mor Gabrial and some icons in small niches. Vadi, whom I had met only a few hours before, showed me around the Deir al-Zafaran Monastery, took me to the airport kilometers away and got me to the plane. All these years I had never forgotten the flow of love and energy I felt during my stay here and I remembered it with longing and I couldn't wait to come again, I didn't know that the stars here are different, the sun is different, the earth is different, the sky is different in this land.

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I was interrupted by the voice of Yılmaz, who resented that I had written about Matias and forgotten him. However, without Yılmaz, Cafe Kana, Mardin would have been less, more incomplete...

Yılmaz spent all his free time here, helping Matias and his family. The Assyrian family had come back to Mardin from Istanbul 6-7 years ago and were struggling to survive in their own land. There were only 10 thousand Assyrians in Turkey, 2 thousand of them were living here, in their homeland.

The more alien I was to Mardin, which floats like a gentle bride in the middle of the vast Mesopotamian steppe, the more I felt like I belonged there. Now, as my storyteller said, I was welcome here, and when I returned to my own homeland, I would be "welcome" again... When I returned, nothing would be the same as before... Once the love for Mardin entered one's soul, there was no way out...

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Mukaddes Pekin Başdil

Researcher-Author

Source: Denizli Haber