What shapes Amasya is the river that runs through it. At roughly 400 metres above sea level, the Yeşilırmak has cut a narrow valley between high cliffs, and the city was built wedged into its floor. As the TDV Encyclopaedia of Islam describes it, the river runs for about 4 kilometres through a gorge within the city; on the left (north) bank rise the rock-cut royal tombs and, above them, the citadel, while the right (south) bank is gentler and flatter, so settlement spread mainly in that direction. The settlement on the north bank remained a thin strip squeezed between the castle ruins and rock tombs on one side and the river on the other. The Yalıboyu houses stand along that strip.

This geography has had two consequences. First, over the centuries the riverbank was the centre of both livelihood and danger: water structures were built along it, and floods and fires left their mark on the city's memory. Second, because the valley is so narrow and the slopes around it so steep, the only way to see the whole city is to climb. The Çakallar Viewing Terrace to the south, Ferhat Hill, and the citadel on Mount Harşena to the north serve this purpose; each shows the same valley from a different direction and a different height. Walking along the river and looking from these points are two readings that complement each other.

The Valley and the River

The Yeşilırmak rises in the Köse Mountains in Suşehri district of Sivas, runs for a total of 519 kilometres and reaches the Black Sea at Çarşamba district of Samsun. According to the figure given by the Amasya Governorate, about 150 kilometres of the river lie within the provincial borders, and it divides the provincial centre in two over roughly 7.5 kilometres. The difference between this figure and the encyclopaedia's 4 kilometres presumably arises because the first measures the riverbed along the whole built-up area, the second only the narrow stretch hemmed in by cliffs. In antiquity the river was called the Iris; Strabo, the geographer born in Amasya, describes his native town as lying in a deep and broad valley through which the Iris flows, and writes that nature and art together had provided a surprising answer here to the needs of both fortress and city.

The river's regime is irregular. Tributaries such as the Çekerek and the Tersakan join the Yeşilırmak within Amasya's borders, and their recorded discharges swing across a very wide range: the highest measured discharge of the Çekerek is 362 cubic metres per second and the lowest 0.09; for the Tersakan the figures are 317 and 0.021. For a city on the riverbank, such variation means that flood risk and summer low water are both facts of life. The TDV entry notes that Amasya suffered earthquakes and floods from time to time; the building of the Süreyyabey Dam on the Çekerek for flood protection, energy and irrigation belongs to the same problem.

Water Structures on the Bank

For someone strolling along the river today, the Yeşilırmak is a feature of the view. Until the nineteenth century and the middle of the twentieth, it was working infrastructure. A study published in the Amasya University Journal of Social Sciences examines the water wheels, water mills and weirs built on the banks and across the river in that period to lift and carry water, using archival documents, travel accounts and photograph archives. According to the article's abstract, these structures were eventually removed because technically more advanced systems took over, because vineyards and gardens gave way to housing, and because floods caused loss of life and property. With their disappearance the bank ceased to be a band of agricultural production and turned into an urban frontage.

The water wheels have not vanished entirely. Residents of Yalıboyu are said to have drawn water from the Yeşilırmak with these wheels to irrigate their vineyards and gardens; once water mains were laid in the city the wheels were abandoned to their fate, and in recent years some have been repaired and set turning again for nostalgic purposes as one of the city's emblems. The wheels seen on the river today were built to lift water, and that function has largely ended; what remains on the bank is its visual trace.

The bridges belong to the same riverside history. According to the notes of H. Dernschwam, who visited the city in April 1555 with an Austrian embassy, there was at that time one wooden and three stone bridges across the river. On the same visit Dernschwam records that a great fire broke out in the city on 14 April, that the burnt houses were rebuilt in a short time, that the princely palace was a plain single-storey brick building with a garden around it at the foot of the mountain, and that Süleyman the Magnificent was staying there. Among today's bridges are the Alçak, Meydan, Meydanos (Hekis) and Künç (Kuş) bridges.

Yalıboyu and the Bridges

The row of timber houses leaning against the river on the north bank is known as the Yalıboyu Houses. Most of them date from the nineteenth century; they were built in the hımış and bağdadi techniques, that is, with a timber frame filled with mud brick, and have hipped or gabled roofs covered with channelled tiles. They are generally set side by side in contiguous rows, one or two storeys above a basement, with courtyards and gardens; the upper floors widen into bay windows projecting over the street. According to some accounts the houses sit on top of the old city wall. About 67 registered mansions, listed by the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, are mentioned; some are used as hotels, some as museums, some are still homes. It is also reported that some houses are struggling to stay standing for lack of maintenance and that their protected status makes intervention difficult.

Among the houses, one of the buildings turned most directly toward the river is the Hatuniye Mosque. Built in 1510 by Bülbül Hatun, wife of Bayezid II and mother of Prince Ahmed, it forms a complex together with a bath and a primary school. The neighbouring Hazeranlar Mansion is today a museum house; its construction date is given as 1865 in one source and as 1872, attributed to the finance official Hasan Talat Pasha, in another. Right beside the Alçak Bridge stands the Şehzadeler (Princes) Museum, a private museum opened in 2008; it displays wax figures and personal belongings of twelve princes who served the Ottoman state, seven of whom came to the throne. Statues of statesmen who served as princes also stand along the riverbank.

The Alçak Bridge is the best-known point of the riverside walk. It was built in the Roman period of cut stone with four high arches to connect the citadel and its surroundings, then the city centre, with the opposite bank. Over time the riverbed rose, the tall piers sank into it, only the upper parts of the arches remained visible, and because the deck came close to the water the townspeople gave the bridge its name, meaning "Low Bridge". Ziya Pasha, the governor of Amasya at the time, had the bridge repaired in 1865; one source describes this as the raising of piers above the arches. Used today as a footbridge, it is surrounded by cafés and tea gardens.

The Clock Tower on the Nergis Bridge is also the work of the same Ziya Pasha. Built in 1865, its body is of brick and its base of marble; it withstood a major earthquake about 75 years after its construction, but was demolished in 1940 on the grounds that it obstructed the building of the Hükümet Bridge, and was rebuilt in 2002. The tower stands at the entrance to Yalıboyu.

Stone Walls and River Rehabilitation

According to the Amasya Governorate, the Yeşilırmak where it passes through the city has been rehabilitated with stone-wall structures, and the serious flood risks experienced in earlier years were thereby pushed back. The walled, regular riverbed seen from the bank is the result of that intervention. The same bed creates another problem in summer.

According to the Governorate's statement of August 2022, in the hot months of July and August the water level in the river falls, sediment on the bed builds up into reed beds and small islets, and the regular cleaning work of the State Hydraulic Works (DSİ) could no longer be sustained. Mosquitoes, pests and bad odour created public health problems and heavy costs for Amasya Municipality and the other agencies concerned. From this assessment the idea of the "Amasya City Centre Yeşilırmak River Bed Regulation Project" emerged; feasibility studies were completed jointly by the Governorate and the Municipality, and approaches were begun with the DSİ 7th Regional Directorate.

The project was prepared as a guide-channel bed regulation on the stretch beginning at the Amasya-Taşova highway bridge and running upstream as far as the Şirin Bridge. The section between the Künç Bridge and the İstasyon Bridge was left outside the project because it is a protected site. Carrying out the mechanical work under the Governorate's coordination, using the machinery fleets of the agencies, was intended to reduce costs. The opening of the "Yeşilırmak River Cleaning, Rehabilitation and Recreation Project" was held in August 2022 in front of the Saraydüzü Barracks building; after the ceremony DSİ construction machines went down into the river and began cleaning. The stated aims included preventing pollution and its causes, carrying out works to prevent erosion, and regulating the river's flow regime.

At the opening, Mehmet Sarı, the mayor at the time, said that the project included both cleaning and transformation, that recreation areas were being built on the sides of the river, that the river was being brought into a channel without damaging its structure by adding elevation, and that seating and walking areas were being created. These statements show that the riverbank works were regarded as urban design for pedestrian use in addition to an engineering job. The state of completion of the project and its present condition on the bank could not be verified from the sources consulted.

An earlier initiative also concerns the same riverbank. The Yeşilırmak Inflation Project, whose work the Amasya Municipality began in November 2015, aimed to keep the river level constant as far as the İstasyon Bridge by means of an inflatable rubber weir to be placed in front of the old courthouse, and to run tourist boat tours on the water thus stilled. News reports spoke of facing viewing terraces, viewing towers in keeping with the historic fabric, resting areas and walkways along a 150-metre section of the riverbank. The project was opened in March 2019, with a budget of about 20 million lira, with rubber weirs installed along roughly 300 metres of the river; a fountain, a landing stage and an amphitheatre were reported built beside the river, and electricity was reported generated from the horizontal watercourse by a screw method. The power plant was said to have been commissioned in November and to have a capacity of 200 kilowatts per hour.

Walking Along the Bank

To walk along the Yalıboyu strip is to read the city's historical layers along the line of the river. The Bayezid Complex stands along the bank among tree-lined gardens; the complex, consisting of a two-domed cut-stone mosque, a madrasa now used as the provincial public library, an almshouse and a twelve-sided ablution fountain, dates from 1481-1486. Architect Şemseddin Ahmed is named as the mosque's architect. The complex is the largest group of buildings on the bank; seen from above, its domes resemble a nomad's tent.

There is a well-known tip on timing for photography. When you turn to look at Yalıboyu, the sun is behind you from morning until noon; for this reason it is recommended that daytime shots toward Yalıboyu be finished between sunrise and 10.30. In the evening, because the sun stays behind Mount Harşena, there is no sunset to be watched from the valley. The nighttime view of the bank and the boat tours on the river are a separate subject, covered in another article.

Çakallar Viewing Terrace

Çakallar lies south of the city centre, about 3 kilometres from it, in Çakallar Neighbourhood. On height the sources give different values: some accounts put the hill at about 200 metres, others put the terrace 250 metres above the city. They differ in locating it too; one places Çakallar directly behind Ferhat Mountain, another on the foot of Ferhat Mountain. Both descriptions agree that the hill is around Ferhat Mountain, on the south side of the river.

The terrace faces north, toward the opposite bank of the river, and directly in front of it appear the slope of Mount Harşena, the rock tombs and the citadel. Because the rock tombs are carved into the limestone on Harşena's southern slopes, this face stays open before the terrace throughout the day. The places where the valley narrows and widens, the river's bends and the line of the Yalıboyu houses resemble a scale model when seen from here. Travellers write that from the hotel terrace at Çakallar one sees the Amasya Citadel, the royal tombs, the Bayezid Complex, the Yeşilırmak stretching away and the Yalıboyu houses lined along its bank all together. On the hill, among the pine trees, there are accommodation facilities, picnic areas and one of Amasya's older restaurants. At sunset the light is said to give the valley a different colour, and the setting is described as calm and away from the crowds.

Two explanations circulate for the origin of the name Çakallar. The more common is that jackals (çakal) used to roam the hill where people do not now. The second is a local account attributed to Hüseyin Hüsameddin's Amasya Tarihi: the descendants of Bedreddin Mahmud Çelebi, known as "Çakal Kadı" (Jackal Judge), were called Çakalzades, and the vineyards were first "the Çakaloğulları Vineyards" and then simply "the Çakallar Vineyards". This second account is related in abridged form in a memoir piece published in 2020 and has not been verified against the original source.

According to the same piece, the eastern parts of Çakallar passed to Süleyman the Magnificent, and when his son Prince Mustafa came to Amasya as governor he had a summer residence built here and lived in it for a while. The prince's tutors and the poets around him are named, together with his tutor Hamza Bey and the people to whom he gave vineyards; the places now called "Hamza Düzü" and "Goncalık" are thought to survive from lands given to them. The same account adds that after Prince Bayezid was killed in 1560 while governor of Amasya, all the places that had been the princes' hunting grounds were sold to notables and the well-to-do, and that most of it passed to Çakalzade Gül Sinan and Lale Ali Çelebi. These are details taken from a text of a memoir character, and documentary support remains to be researched. That Çakallar was a hunting ground and the site of summer pavilions for princes and certain pashas is repeated in more general sources too. It is also written that for years the city's drinking water was supplied from the Çakallar locality.

The Halkalı Evliya (Ringed Saint) Tomb in the same locality is also part of local memory. In this four-column, baldachin-type structure, said to date from the fifteenth century, lies Sâru Hatun, daughter of Şadi Bey, one of the grandsons of Şadgeldi Pasha, Emir of Amasya. The building took its name from the belief that children slow to walk would walk if their feet were put through the iron rings on the stones at the mouth of the crypt on three Saturdays. This information, too, rests on the same memoir piece.

Ferhat Hill and the Ferhat Water Channel

Ferhat Hill is one of the high points south of the river, and from it the Yeşilırmak, the Yalıboyu houses and the rock tombs are seen as a single panorama. The viewing points make photography easier; it is said that at sunset the light paints the valley gold, and that a light mist settling over the valley in the early morning changes the scene. Çakallar and Ferhat Hill offer different angles of light through the day and are often mentioned together. Technical details such as the size of the terrace, its height and directions are not clearly given in the sources used.

The name Ferhat comes from the story of Ferhat and Şirin, which ties Amasya to a love narrative; the TDV entry too mentions Amasya as the place where, among the people, this story is said to have taken place. According to the tale, Ferhat, a master decorator, falls in love with Şirin, sister of Mehmene Banu, ruler of Amasya. The ruler, not wishing to give Şirin away, asks him to bring water to the city. Ferhat opens a water course by splitting the rocks with a pickaxe from a faraway place called Şahinkayası; when he is brought news that Şirin has died, he strikes the pickaxe against his own head and dies, and Şirin throws herself from the cliffs. The source of the tale is unknown, and it circulates in different forms.

The structure with which the legend is associated is the Ferhat Water Channel. Dated to the late Hellenistic and early Roman period, the channel was built to meet the water needs of ancient Amasya; tunnels were opened by carving the rock, vaulted walls were built in places, and it was designed to function with a water-level system according to the slope of the terrain. The people's calling it the Ferhat Water Channel has joined the legend and the engineering work. Today the area around the channel offers a route suitable for walking.

The Citadel and the Royal Tomb Path

The citadel on top of Mount Harşena is the highest viewing point in the city. According to Amasya Municipality, the citadel stands 700 metres above sea level and about 300 metres above the Yeşilırmak. Some historians say the fortress was built by the Pontic king Mithridates, others that the name Harşana arose because the commander Karsan or Harsana had it built; the TDV entry, by contrast, says that who built the citadel is not known with certainty. Its four gates are called Belkıs, Saray, Maydonos and Meydan; records place at the centre of the citadel a passage cut into the rock and descended by 150 steps, a cistern and a dungeon. Controlling the Samsun-Tokat road in Seljuk times, the citadel kept its importance under the Ottomans, and at the beginning of the sixteenth century it had a warden, a steward and fifty-seven garrison men. Evliya Çelebi writes that the city's wealthy kept their valuables there during the Celali bandit raids. From the eighteenth century the citadel lost its importance and began to fall into ruin.

Today the citadel is visited in three sections: the Inner City, the Maiden's Palace and the Upper Fortress. A viewing point with binoculars on the Hatuniye Neighbourhood side is mentioned, from which the full breadth of the valley is seen. The climb is laborious, but it is said that the view from the top repays the effort. Where Çakallar shows the citadel from across the river, the citadel does the reverse and takes in both banks of the river and the slope on the Çakallar side in a single glance.

The Royal Tomb Path is a footpath leading to the rock tombs associated with the Pontic kings. The path passes among the rocks, and along the walk the Yeşilırmak and the view of the city accompany the walker. The rock tombs were carved in the Persian-Pontic period into the limestone on the southern slopes of Mount Harşena and continued in use in the Hellenistic and Roman periods; Strabo records that the tombs belong to kings. The best worked and most complete example is said to be the Aynalı Cave (Mirrored Cave): it is 9.8 metres wide and 13 metres high, and because its façade is polished it shines when the sun strikes it. Mount Harşena and the Rock Tombs of the Pontic Kings have been on UNESCO's World Heritage Tentative List since 2015.

Comparing the Points

The three high points show the same valley from different distances. From the southern slope, Çakallar gives the citadel, the rock tombs and the Yalıboyu strip as a whole from across and at a distance; because there are food and lodging beside it, it lends itself to long stays. Ferhat Hill gathers river, houses and tombs into a panoramic frame. The citadel, by contrast, stands within the valley on the north slope; seen from there, the Yalıboyu houses, the river and the city to the south lie beneath one's feet. The person walking on the bank looks from the valley floor, these three points from above. The water's edge shaped by stone walls and the city seen from the slopes complement each other; every intervention on the bank reads, from above, as the line of the river.

Chronology

1481-1486: The Bayezid Complex is built on the bank of the Yeşilırmak.

1510: Bülbül Hatun has the Hatuniye Mosque, the bath and the primary school built.

1555: According to H. Dernschwam's notes, there are one wooden and three stone bridges over the river; on 14 April a great fire breaks out in the city.

1865: Governor Ziya Pasha has the Clock Tower built on the Nergis Bridge; repairs are also made at the Alçak Bridge the same year.

1940: The Clock Tower is demolished on the grounds that it obstructed the building of the Hükümet Bridge.

2002: The Clock Tower is rebuilt.

2015: Work on the Yeşilırmak Inflation Project begins; Mount Harşena and the rock tombs are added to the UNESCO Tentative List.

March 2019: The rubber weir, recreation areas and energy production project is opened.

August 2022: The Yeşilırmak River Cleaning, Rehabilitation and Recreation Project is opened.

Sources

Primary sources

  • A. Kadir Çapanoğlu, "Şehr-i Amasya'da Halkalı Evliya ve Çakallar Tepesi" (11 July 2020). amasya.gov.tr

Academic studies

  • TDV Encyclopaedia of Islam (TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi), "Amasya" entry.
  • "19. Yüzyılda ve 20. Yüzyıl Başlarında Amasya Kent Merkezinde Yeşilırmak Üzerinde Bulunan ve Günümüze Ulaşamayan Su Yapıları", Amasya Üniversitesi Sosyal Bilimler Dergisi.
  • Uğur Biryol, "Amasya: Dağı Delen Aşk", Gezgin Dergisi, issue 75 (gezgindergi.com). gezgindergi.com

Official sources

  • Republic of Türkiye Amasya Governorate, "Valimiz Mustafa Masatlı: Yeşilırmak Nehri Temizleme, Islah ve Rekreasyon Projesi, Yeşilırmak ve Çevresini Cazibe Merkezi Haline Getirecek" (3 August 2022), amasya.gov.tr
  • Amasya Municipality, "Amasya'nın Tarihi" page.

Other sources

  • TRT Haber (AA), "Amasya'da Yeşilırmak Nehri Temizleme, Islah ve Rekreasyon Projesi başladı" (5 August 2022). trthaber.com
  • Turkey Outdoor, "Amasya Çakallar Tepesi Tanıtımı" (turkeyoutdoor.org). turkeyoutdoor.org
  • Ekrem Özbay, "Çakallar Tepesi'nden Bimarhane'ye Amasya Notları" (23 October 2019), haberajandanet.com
  • DHA, "Amasya'nın çılgın projesi" (19 March 2019); İHA, "Yeşilırmak'ta Kayıklar Yüzecek" (10 November 2015).
  • festtravel.com, "Yeşilırmak'ın Can Verdiği Şehir Amasya". festtravel.com

Online sources