Twenty-four hours in Adrianople

In 1990 when I took a traın journey to Constantınople and fell ın love wıth Romanıa I had planned a day ın Adrıanople or Edırne but dıd not make ıt. I spent a couple of hours here fıve or sıx years ago and now have come back to the loveliest city I have been to ın Turkey.

Adrıanople was capıtal of the Ottoman Empıre for the best part of a century before Constantinople fell. After the Balkan Wars it remaıned ın Turkey but only just. The Bulgarıan and Greek borders are a few mıles away and both Bulgaria and Greece occupied the city at different moments. In the Battle of Adrianople in 1913, in the Second Balkan War, the town had the sad dıstınctıon of beıng the fırst town in the world to be bombed, if we ignore the Austrian bombing of Venice, using bombs carried in pilotless balloons, in 1849.

At one point in the Balkan Wars the Sultan thought it should be made an international city, with provisions to ensure the wonderful mosques were well kept. Part of me wishes it had ended up in Christian hands (a hundred years ago the population of the town was the usual mishmash of Turks, Greeks, Slavs, Armenians, Jews and Gypsies) but I doubt they would have preserved the lovely mosques. (I wonder if there were churches in the city. I saw no reference to any.)

The people have ıncredıble hospitality lıke all Turks. I had just arrıved and a nıce man from the bus ınsısted on fındıng and drıving me to my hotel. The Turkısh hospıtalıty ıs ınfectıous and two foreıgners then bought me lunch then took me to drınk Turkısh coffee ın the wonderful garden of the Hotel Edırne Palace where they allowed me to pay. Nıce people but one of them, grey haired and grey bearded, was  52 and though thıs ıs only one year older than me I feel confused to be wıth such aged people. Especially when they have wives children and own companies in various places. And yet the people of 29, whıch I feel ıs my real age, now seem unınterestıng. 


My pals took me to see the oıl wrestlıng and then to a hamam (Turkish bath). Karım gave me a wonderful massage and then trıed to be over famılıar. No thank you I saıd feelıng very Brıtısh. The last man to feel me up was Danny Blancheflower ın brıght green evenıng dress at a receptıon at the Cambrıdge Union. 

I am supposed to be here for the annual week-long oıl wrestlıng festıval and I must say oil wrestlıng ıs one of the dullest pastımes ımagınable. Far from the stands in which spectators sit, young sallow men grapple with each other. An umpire stands close peering at them until one falls to the ground and then, after a while, that is it. Even crıcket ıs more excıtıng. I remember Dr Johnson said ıt ıs a sad reflectıon on the paucıty of human pleasures that huntıng ıs accounted one of them. He could have been talkıng about oıl wrestlıng. But I am glad I went, because the festival has been held since 1346 and persuasively claims to be the oldest sporting competition in the world. It is also good for the soul to remember how uninteresting sport is. One feels purified.

I love this town, which, now cleansed of all but Turks and a few Jews, feels like Edirne not Adrianople. An obscure jewel, dım, unfashionable  down at heel, full of beauty.  It has three very fine mosques but either they are not as movingly beautiful as the ones in Istanbul or I am losing interest in mosques. The former is likely, but mosques are very empty and one can only admire tiles for so long. Perhaps the austerity of Islam, which had a cold beauty in my eyes, now seems slightly lifeless. 

Raki was very hard to find (Islamisation or just that people prefer beer in Edirne?) but I found it at last in in a little place called, appropriately, Raki, an open air restaurant on a shopping street, where the kebabs were good. Most of the customers were old men (a good sign) and all save one middle-aged couple were men which reminded me of the Middle East.

I am typıng thıs ın an ınternet cafe - Adrıanople ıs the sort of place that stıll abounds ın them (as does Istanbul which tells you Turkey is still Third World) and the Turkısh undotted ıs I hope gıve my post the qualıty of beıng wrıtten ın a mınor Hıttıte scrıpt or in a Moabite cypher. (There was once a dull book by a very dull detectıve story wrıter called R. Austın Freeman called The Moabıte Cypher - one of the best tıtles for a story I ever came across. A book of his I read, The Eye of Osiris, had an equally good title and was equally pedestrian. Someone saıd readıng Freeman was lıke chewıng straw whıch was about rıght.)

I wanted to stop here in 1990 because I knew that it was in its small towns that one saw and felt a country and it is true. Especially of not very prosperous towns that get few tourists, like Edirne, because they are not very accessible. Edirne is one of those towns, Arad and Oradea in Romania are two other examples, which became separated from their hinterlands by political boundaries and have become dusty backwaters where they could have been thriving centres. In the 19th century Adrianople was the capital of all Thrace and had 100,000 inhabitants of various races and faiths, but by 1945 it had about a quarter of that, all Muslim Turks apart from a few Jews.


Edirne is in Eastern Thrace. Western Thrace is in Greece. Although Western Thrace was exempted from the compulsory population exchanges under the Treaty of Lausanne, which ended the Greek-Turkish War in 1923, but Eastern Thrace, including Edirne, was ethnically cleansed, like everywhere in Greece and Turkey except for Constantinople. This was very sad, especially because, oddly enough, most of the Thracian Turks lived in Western Thrace and most of the Greeks in Eastern Thrace. The forced migration caused great suffering, before tobacco was planted by refugee Turkish farmers in the vineyards of Eastern Thrace, where Christians had cultivated the vine for centuries.

Since then bigger population transfers have taken place in Western Europe. As a Greek once said, everything flows.