Wednesday 10 December 2014

Zelve Open Air Museum, Cappadocia


Tucked away beyond anyone's ability to see off the fundamental street from Avanos to Göreme, Zelve was until 1952 a living group where conventional individuals went about their day by day life, pounding bulgur at the seten (factory), pressing grapes for pekmez (molasses) in the şaraphane (winery), raising pigeons for their preparing excrement in the güvercinliks (pigeonhouses) and sheets their creatures down for the night in the hollow cut ahırs (stables).

In that sense it was dependably an altogether different spot from what is currently the Göreme Open-Air Museum, which was a religious settlement possessed by Byzantine ministers and nuns, and was just informally existed in later years after the populace moved not far off to what inevitably got to be Göreme town.



Zelve was not without its devout group, which is thought to have existed in the range checked by three immense angled breaks in the third valley. They are as of now reserved for security reasons, which implies, tragically, that you won't have the capacity to examine one of the colossal moving stones that used to be utilized to close off shafts from interlopers as in the underground urban communities. The breaks neglect what used to be Zelve's principle square.

Of course this has a little mosque to one side. From the outside this looks as though it was constructed routinely out of mainly quarried stone yet in the event that you look inside you'll see that the back part is removed straight of the rock, as is the dainty little mihrab.


For those enthusiastic about seeing some of Cappadocia's celebrated rock-cut houses of worship, Zelve has a couple of traps up its sleeve, including the Balıklı ve Üzümlü Kilise (The Church of the Fish and Grapes) in the first valley and effectively conspicuous by the harmed frescoes of heavenly attendants over its doorway.

Inside the grapes look suspiciously like monster strawberries, and the fish keep a low profile. The same can't be said of the conspicuous cut and painted crosses on the dividers of the Kutsal Haç Kilisesi (Holy Cross Church) in the second valley. At long last, in the third valley the Direkli Kilise (Columned Church) has generally fell so it looks more like a cave than a church.

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