The Yeşilırmak shapes both the geography and the history of Amasya. The city sits in a narrow valley cut by the river, between the steep cliffs of Mount Harşena to the north and the old quarters that spread toward the water on the south bank. Today the short boat trips offered on this stretch of river use vessels known locally as "saltanat kayığı" (sultan's caique), and they let visitors see the Yalıboyu houses, the bridges and the rock-cut tombs from water level. For families, couples and photographers it is one of the least demanding things to do in Amasya. Behind the view lie layers that build on one another, from the valley described by an ancient geographer and the water wheels that irrigated gardens for centuries to nineteenth-century mansions and an inflatable weir installed only a few years ago.

The boat tours cannot be called a long-standing Amasya tradition. In older sources the Yeşilırmak inside the city is described as a river that watered gardens, turned mills and organized the life of the valley, and those sources record no boat service carrying passengers. Boat tours within the city became possible only in the 2010s, when the water level on this section was fixed artificially. The night lighting of Mount Harşena, the rock-cut tombs and the Yalıboyu houses, for its part, gives the riverbank a second appearance in the evening.

The Yeşilırmak and the Amasya Valley

The Yeşilırmak rises in the Köse Mountains within the borders of Suşehri district in Sivas province and completes its 519-kilometre course by flowing into the Black Sea at Çarşamba in Samsun. In antiquity it was called the Iris, and it is thought to appear as Kumeşmaha in Hittite texts. The part within Amasya province is 129 kilometres long. Before reaching the city the river takes in the Çekerek River, then, after passing through the centre of Amasya, it is joined by the Tersakan Stream, which carries the surplus water of Lake Ladik, and between Taşova and Erbaa it receives the Kelkit River, its largest tributary. Its measured mean discharge is 121 cubic metres per second, and the highest recorded flow reached 1,914. Floods occur mostly in March, April and May.

Inside the city the river runs for roughly four kilometres through a valley enclosed by high cliffs. The valley floor lies about 400 metres above sea level. On the left (north) bank rise the caves and royal tombs carved into the rock, with the fortress directly above them; because the strip between the cliff and the river is very narrow, settlement on this side forms a thin ribbon. The south bank, whose slope is gentler, is where the city grew. This arrangement has not changed for centuries and explains why Amasya is a city laid out along the river from east to west.

The first detailed description of the valley comes from Strabo, the geographer born in Amaseia. He describes his native city as built in "a large, deep valley" and placed so that it serves as both city and fortress. In his account the city lies on a steep rock that falls abruptly to the river, enclosed by a wall along the water on one side and by walls climbing to two peaks on the other; the two peaks are naturally joined and rise like towers. Within this circuit stand the palaces and monuments of the kings. The rock contains water reservoirs, and thanks to two tube-like channels cut through it, one toward the river and one toward the neck joining the peaks, the city cannot be deprived of water. Strabo also writes that two bridges span the river: one from the city to the suburb, the other from the suburb to the territory outside.

Amaseia existed before Alexander the Great, and its history is thought to reach back to the Hittite period. After serving at various times as the capital of the Pontic kings, the city came within the borders of Rome in 63 BC. The Royal Rock Tombs date from the kingdom period: according to the sources, after Mithridates I (281-266 BC), founder of the Kingdom of Pontus, made Amaseia his capital, monumental tombs were cut into the limestone slope of Harşena. There are 21 rock tombs around the city in total. Five lie in the area known as the Maidens' Palace (Kızlar Sarayı) and nine on the slope inside the fortress. The tombs of the Maidens' Palace group are between 8 and 15 metres high; three are reached by two separate staircases and two by a tunnel, and they are attributed to Mithridates I, Ariobarzanes, Mithridates II, Mithridates III and Pharnaces I, though these attributions are not certain. Above the largest tomb, that of Pharnaces I, a Greek inscription states that the fortress commander Metrodorus dedicated an altar and a flower bed for the king. Mount Harşena and the Royal Tombs of Pontus have been on UNESCO's World Heritage Tentative List since 2015.

Bridges and Riverside Structures

Strabo's two bridges show how old the problem of crossing the river at Amasya is. In the middle of the sixteenth century Hans Dernschwam, a member of an Austrian embassy visiting the city, counted one wooden and three stone bridges over the Yeşilırmak. In Hüseyin Hüsameddin Yasar's Amasya Tarihi, completed in 1914, the valley has six bridges, four of masonry and two of wood. The same work recounts that the river swells from early March, that floods cover the city and its gardens, and that the river is nonetheless regarded as "the life of the city and of its people."

The best-known bridge today is the Low Bridge (Alçak Köprü). Believed to have been built in the Roman period to link the old city centre around the fortress to the opposite bank, its four high arches sank into the rising riverbed over time, leaving only the tops of the arches visible. When the roadway over the arches also came close to the water surface, the people gave the bridge its name, "Low Bridge." In 1865 Ziya Pasha, the administrator of Amasya at the time, had piers built over the arches and made the bridge usable again. In the same year he had a clock tower built on the Nergis Bridge. About seventy-five years after its construction the tower survived a major earthquake, but in 1940 it was demolished on the grounds that it obstructed the building of the Government Bridge. It was rebuilt in 2002.

Water Wheels and Mills

The Yeşilırmak now has a calm surface suited to boat trips; in the past the same river was a source of power and irrigation for the structures on its banks and for the fertile land around them. Wooden water wheels turned with the current, lifted water in buckets to a trough above, and a second trough carried it to the gardens. A study by Duygu Kalkan Açıkkapı of Amasya University, based on archival documents, travellers' notes and the works of local historians, shows that these structures irrigated vineyards and gardens, supplied mansions with water, brought water to mosques and bathhouses, and powered water mills, silk factories and tanneries.

The fame of the wheels is old. In the fourteenth century Ibn Battuta, passing through Amasya, wrote that the city stood beside a great river, ringed by vineyards and orchards, and that houses and gardens were watered by wheels set on the river. In the seventeenth century Evliya Çelebi described the Yeşilırmak entering the city from the south, watering many thousands of vineyards and gardens, turning several hundred water wheels and flowing north, and he named Amasya alongside Hama and Adana for the renown of its wheels. The wheels are not found only in written sources: an Amasya miniature in an Iranian embassy account dated 1811 shows two wheels on the river, and the 1872 mural at the base of the dome of the Bayezid II Mosque's ablution fountain includes a wheel-like figure and a mill.

The operation of the wheels also left a mark on the city's legal life. The fatwas issued by Kara Müftizade Mustafa Vazıh Efendi show that wheel owners shared the costs of maintenance and repair, that communal wheels were used in turns, and that disputes arose over who should pay what toward repairing a wheel's weir. Because a wheel was taken apart at the end of the season for repair, its parts had to be carried to a safe place; wheels not removed in time could be swept away when the river rose. In Amasya Şehri, written in 1937, Osman Fevzi Olcay reports that the wheels were dismantled in winter and stored to be set up again the following spring. The same author records ten flour mills in the city, among them Çalak, Kızılca, Gölönü, Büyük Fabrika and Yağlayan, and says that the ground wheat was sent on as flour to Samsun and Istanbul.

The traces of these water structures can be followed until the middle of the twentieth century. Later, houses and other urban functions replaced the vineyards and gardens, more advanced means of lifting water came into use, and when floods caused loss of life and property the wheels and weirs on the river were removed. Residents of the Yalıboyu houses once watered their gardens with these wheels too; when infrastructure lines were laid, the wheels were abandoned. Today some have been repaired and stand again on the riverbank as one of the city's nostalgic symbols.

The Yalıboyu Houses

The row of façades that comes into view on the north bank as the boat moves along is the Amasya Yalıboyu Houses. Most of the houses date from the nineteenth century and some from the twentieth, and they were registered and placed under protection in 1992. They are built in the hımış and bağdadi techniques: a timber frame with sun-dried brick infill, a hipped or gabled roof above, and grooved tiles. Ground floors generally rise on a stone foundation and the upper floors are of timber. In many houses the second floor projects toward the street or the river in a bay-window plan; these bays add width to the room and let the occupants watch the river comfortably. The windows are mostly of the sliding type and are fitted with wooden lattices that keep the interior from being seen from outside.

The houses typically have courtyards and gardens; the courtyard holds a well and a hearth, and some houses also have an oven for bread. Laid out on the haremlik and selamlık plan, the dwellings present a closed face to the outside, and life turns toward the garden and courtyard. Inside, the sofa is the centre of the house, and the rooms contain fittings such as a fireplace, a sherbet niche, built-in cupboards, bedding chests and a sedir (a low bench). Part of the row rests on the old city walls, so seen from the river the stone foundations of the mansions, the buttresses leaning against the water and the shadows of the bay windows falling on the surface can be taken in together.

Some of the houses are now used as museums, hotels, restaurants or cafés. One source counts 67 mansions in the area registered as cultural property. The best known is the Hazeranlar Mansion: built in 1865, it bears the name of Hazeran Hanım, who lived there for many years, and it opened to visitors as a museum house in 2001. The nearby Hatuniye Mosque was built in 1510 by Bülbül Hatun, wife of Bayezid II and mother of Prince Ahmed, and forms a complex with its bathhouse and children's school. The Şehzadeler (Princes) Museum, in a building beside the Low Bridge since 2008, displays wax figures and personal belongings of twelve princes who served as sanjak governors in Amasya; seven of them went on to take the throne.

The Inflatable Weir and the Start of the Boat Tours

That the river inside the city can now be toured by boat goes back to a project prepared by Amasya Municipality. In November 2015 Mayor Cafer Özdemir announced that work on the "Yeşilırmak Inflation Project" had begun. Under the plan, an inflatable rubber weir placed in front of the old courthouse would hold the river at an even level as far as the Station Bridge and still the water. Tourist boats could run tours on water whose flow was under control, and a 150-metre stretch of the bank would get facing viewing terraces, observation towers in keeping with the historic fabric, rest areas and walkways.

The project passed its first test in July 2018. In the second half of July the mayor and local officials toured the river in the "saltanat kayığı"; with the water level raised by the weir and waterfall works, boat tours had begun. The project was officially opened in March 2019. The "Yeşilırmak Rubber Weir, Creation of Recreation Areas and Renewable-Energy-Based Development Project," also supported by the Middle Black Sea Development Agency, raised the water level by means of rubber weirs installed along about 300 metres of the river where it passes through the city centre. It cost about 20 million lira, of which the Ministry of Industry and Technology contributed 7 million through the Middle Black Sea Development Agency; Amasya Municipality and the Special Provincial Administration were also partners. Opening the project, Minister Mustafa Varank said that the weirs raised the river level by two to two and a half metres, which provided both a recreation area where boats could go and the drop needed to generate electricity.

A power plant was built on the same structure. Brought into service in November 2018, it was announced with an installed power of 200 kilowatts and an annual production capacity of 1,728,000 kilowatt-hours; because it works by a screw system, it was stressed that it creates no visual clutter on the river. The electricity is used in the municipality's service building and for lighting in the recreation areas along the river. Minister Varank noted that before the weir, when the discharge fell the river dropped close to the riverbed, which caused odour problems in summer, and he said the river could now be used twelve months a year. Fountains, landing stages and an amphitheatre were built on the banks, and tours by rowing boat and motor boat can now be made on the river through the middle of the city.

The City as Seen from the Water

From the shore, the Yalıboyu houses look like a row of coloured façades; once on a boat, the point of view changes. The stone foundations of the mansions, the buttresses leaning on the river and the shadows of the bay windows can be picked out one by one. Mount Harşena rises overhead, and the royal tombs carved into its steep slope pass one after another at the boat's slow pace. The stone arches of the bridges also look different from below. Passing under each arch, one recalls a long bridge history running from Strabo's two bridges to Dernschwam's four, and on to the submerged piers of the Low Bridge.

The still water held by the weir has changed the view in another way as well. Because the water level is steady, the reflections of the houses and cliffs on the river surface remain undistorted, and in the evening, with the lighting, those reflections are doubled. The boat tours are short and take place only on the stretch of the river inside the city that the weir holds; on this brief route the valley Strabo described can be seen from end to end.

Night Lighting

Amasya's night appearance has been shaped by the lighting of the Yalıboyu houses, the fortress walls and the rock-cut tombs. In 2012 a lighting system was installed for Mount Harşena, the rock tombs and Yalıboyu. Over the following years it reached the end of its economic life, and factors such as lightning and vandalism left parts of it unusable. Governor Önder Bakan said that the wooden Yalıboyu houses had to be protected against fire and that the ageing of a system in use for thirteen years had created safety problems, which made it necessary to renew the technology. A photographer who visited the area in 2019 noted that the system of the time lit Yalıboyu, the royal tombs and the fortress in alternation at sunset and that the lights were switched off around 11 p.m.

The new project was announced in December 2025 at a meeting held at the Büyük Amasya Hotel. Carried out in coordination with the Amasya Governorship and with the Special Provincial Administration's own resources, and reported to cost about 142 million lira, it covers an area of 29,000 square metres: the Royal Rock Tombs, the Maidens' Palace, Amasya Fortress, the city walls and the Yalıboyu houses built on them, and the historic bridges over the Yeşilırmak. Erdin Acar, Secretary General of the Special Provincial Administration, called it one of the largest lighting projects in the world. Before implementation the area was scanned in three dimensions by photogrammetric and geodetic methods, a coordinated point cloud was produced, two- and three-dimensional plans of the structures were drawn up, and light intensity was calculated point by point with special software. The designs were approved by the Samsun Regional Council for the Protection of Cultural Heritage and the Samsun Regional Commission for the Protection of Natural Assets.

According to the schedule, the tender was held on 10 September 2025, the site was handed over on 14 October 2025 and physical work began on 11 November 2025; the target completion date was 12 June 2026 and the planned completion date 10 August 2026. At the end of July, MP Haluk İpek said that the work was proceeding in stages, starting from the flagpole at the top of the fortress, and that the first section would be lit within fifteen days. The project had also planned the removal of signboards from the Yalıboyu houses, necessary repairs to façades and a reduction in visual clutter. In mid-September 2026 physical completion reached 95 per cent, trial lighting began, and the official opening was expected at the end of the month. The system is said to rest on an infrastructure that provides not just fixed lighting but also light shows in different themes, suited to national or cultural days.

Light, Hours and Photography

The best time for a boat tour is between the hours when the afternoon begins to cool and sunset. That way the colours of the Yalıboyu houses can be seen in daylight, and on the way back in the dusk when the first lamps come on. For photography, a person facing Yalıboyu has the morning sun behind them; daytime shots of the Yalıboyu façades are best finished between sunrise and about 10:30. In the evening the sun passes behind Harşena, so the same restriction does not apply, and Yalıboyu, the royal tombs and the fortress can be framed together from the bank. One of the bridges or the terraces on the opposite bank suit getting both the boats and the lit façades in the same frame; the Low Bridge is the most favoured spot in the area.

The operating hours of the new lighting system are not stated in the sources. Since the lights of the old system were switched off late at night, evening hours are the better choice for seeing the lit façades. Late in the evening the river surface calms and the reflections are at their clearest.

Chronology

281-266 BC: Under Mithridates I, Amaseia becomes the capital of the Kingdom of Pontus; royal tombs are cut into the slope of Harşena.

63 BC: Amaseia is incorporated into Roman territory.

1510: The Hatuniye Mosque is built.

1555: Dernschwam counts one wooden and three stone bridges over the Yeşilırmak.

1811: Water wheels appear in the Amasya miniature in Bozoklu Osman Şakir Efendi's embassy account.

1865: Ziya Pasha has piers built over the arches of the Low Bridge and a clock tower built on the Nergis Bridge; the Hazeranlar Mansion is built.

1872: The mural at the base of the dome of the Bayezid II Mosque's ablution fountain includes a wheel-like figure and a mill.

1914: Hüseyin Hüsameddin Yasar's Amasya Tarihi is completed; six bridges are counted in the valley.

1937: In Amasya Şehri, Osman Fevzi Olcay describes ten flour mills and wheels dismantled in winter and set up again in spring.

1940: The clock tower is demolished.

1992: The Yalıboyu houses are registered and placed under protection.

2001: The Hazeranlar Mansion opens to visitors as a museum house.

2002: The clock tower is rebuilt.

2008: The Şehzadeler Museum opens to visitors.

2012: A lighting system is installed for Harşena, the rock tombs and Yalıboyu.

November 2015: Work on the Yeşilırmak Inflation Project begins.

July 2018: The first tours are made in the saltanat kayığı.

November 2018: The power plant beside the weir is brought into service.

March 2019: The rubber weir and recreation project is officially opened.

September 2025: The tender for the new lighting project is held.

September 2026: Physical completion of the lighting reaches 95 per cent and trial lighting begins.

Sources

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Academic studies

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