Ayvacik (Canakkale) Fair

That’s what happened this year! it rained again, but he could not miss the joy of the fair! I am speaking from the Ayvacık (Çanakkale) Fair, which is established in the big area outside the town on the 26th of May every year. The tradition of fairs dating back to ancient times still continues here. The villagers around Ayvacık and Assos, especially children, have been looking forward to this multi-colored fair, which is established once a year and offers both shopping and entertainment opportunities. While the adults were shopping to meet their one-year needs, the children would queue for the swing. Shepherd’s bran, bells for animals, colorful beads, ropes, baskets, bird cages, carpets and clothes, all of which were handcrafted, were sold. While the boys were impatient to buy a whistle, the children who were not taken to the market impatiently looked for bagels and candy roads in the dwelling, the fair stories that would be told for days, but most of all, the putty maker’s lovely colorful pastes that could not be brought to the house.

Many people in Sivrice were again excited for the fair. We went to the fair with some guests at the hotel (www.terrazoe.com) with umbrellas in hand. Although a lot has changed from past to present, Ayvacık Fair is still very colorful and still inviting to a childlike frivolity. Handicrafts are not found more than once, everything is fabricated but meets the need… almost an open-air shopping mall, you can find anything you need from needle to thread: kitchen utensils, plastic basins, clothes, underwear, machine carpets, fabrics, toy shops and a respite in the region. bells, glass beads, woolen ropes, the originals of which are still intact due to the incoming livestock. The surprise of the day is the bench where very old hand-embroidered pillows, covers and clothes collected from the chests in the local villages are sold. When we see the German guests with us, the sales lady gets excited and opens the unexhibited works in the bags; Both our eyes and our hearts celebrate when we see these segments of the past, the experience, and most of all, labor.

We rush right from the shopping section to the entertainment section. The amusement park is set up, the children are running with joy ; intentional, it makes the little ones love the bunnies and makes the big ones want; On the other hand, the local boys are shooting at the Roman girls in shorts who have passed into the goal to win cigarettes. There is still a putty with a brass rimmed glass tabletop, but the colors of the pastes are not at all like in our childhood, the artificial dyes of today paint the sugar in this way, I guess!! Fresh palace halva is sold at the counter ahead; At the table in front of him, four young men pull and turn the halva dough, which consists of sugar, butter and flour, until the halva takes its final form. I approach and shamelessly throw a cut of “sugar wool” into my mouth, the unique flavor of butter turns my head while the halva masters laugh. While the masters continue to make halvah, we all watch this “delicious show” with admiration.

It’s getting evening, the fairground is a flood of light, sound and people. Next up is the most “delicious” tradition of the fair that has remained unchanged from the past to the present. capricorn flip there is. In the past, men used to go to the fair mostly for spinning capricorns. They used to celebrate spring by eating goat meat fried like pomegranate and drinking alcohol, and the revel would last until the daylight. We sat at the tables in one of the big tents; The smell of the goat cooked on charcoal fills the tent. Since it coincides with Ramadan, there is no alcohol, but the goat meat is still very tasty.

Now it’s time to return to our village; shopping bags in our hands, the legendary taste of goat met with coal fire on our palates, a childlike joy in us. The rain has started again! who cares….