Ceren Karlıdağ-Özlem Çiçek/ JINHA

ISTANBUL – The women defending their history, nature and livelihoods in Istanbul’s Yedikule gardens continue to resist city security officers’ attempts to demolish the garden.

For more than 1500 years, the Yedikule market gardens of Istanbul have functioned as an urban agricultural site. The Istanbul city government has begun construction on a 70 m² park project, piling rubble and low-quality earth over the Yedikule gardens in a move that is rapidly ruining the rich soil. The women of Yedikule continue to defend their exemplary practice of urban gardening against the encroaching grey of the city.

The Yedikule Gardens extend throughout the area of Istanbul’s old city wall from the Silivri Gate to the Mevala Gate, explained Suna Kafadar, an activist with the Initiative to Protect the Yedikule Gardens. Urban cultivation has gone on in the area for at least 500 years. Urbanization has left Yedikule as the last historic urban garden in the city.

“Here, history, archaeology, anthropology, agriculture all come together in one place. If we act creatively and work together with the gardeners, this could be a beautiful place. Children could learn about plants here,” said Suna. From the Byzantine period to the Ottomans, the Yedikule gardens were key to meeting the city’s needs, Suna explained.

“If we change our perception about history and see it as not just composed of great sultans, this problem could be solved,” said Suna.

The city had previously planned to demolish the historic urban gardens near the Piyale Pasha Mosque (built by famous architect Mimar Sinan) in order to build a parking lot. However, a precedent-setting legal decision protected the gardens as a cultural asset, Suna said.

“We want to produce the same outcome for these gardens, of course by working with the gardeners,” said Suna. “There’s a centuries-old agricultural tradition here and its protectors are the gardeners.”

Kezban Kaplan has been working in the Yedikule market gardens for 20 years.

“Peppers, eggplant, purslane, tomatoes—anything you can think of, we grow it,” said Kezban. “We deposited what we had in our hands to the state, and they tore down our park and our oven.

“We can’t do any other work. We don’t read and write; there’s no work we can get,” said Kezban. She criticized the city government’s new attempt to demolish the garden sheds, saying it made gardening impossible. “If our sheds are ruining the view, they should give us better sheds.”

Ayten Kaplan has spent 40 years of her life working in the market gardens. She said that there was no one among the gardens who had a pension or insurance.

“They shouldn’t take our food from our hands,” said Ayten.

(fk/cm)