Discovered in 2014, an underground city in Nevsehir in central Turkey will soon open to tourists after excavations are completed. The RIA Novosti correspondent visited the city and met with archaeologists working there.
In the heart of Cappadocia
Nevsehir, being the capital of the province of the same name, where the world famous historical site of Cappadocia is located, has never been a tourist attraction in itself. Numerous tourists who come to fantastic Cappadocia usually do not stop here, but go a little further, deep into the bizarre tuff landscapes - in Goreme, Urgup or Gulsehir.
You can understand tourists. Nevsehir, in general, is a fairly traditional modern Turkish city - cozy, green, hilly, calm, but it cannot be said that it is abundant in tourist attractions.
And yet, as in any Turkish city, there are worthy places to visit. For example, the old complex of the Damat Ibrahim mosque and other service buildings. The mosque stands next to the city hall on a small hill, and the former madrasah built in 1730 today serves as a modern library. Moreover, the library is not religious, as one might expect, but of an ordinary, secular nature. The library hall may well pull into a place in some rating of the "10 most colorful old libraries": it is a real old domed hall with a painted ceiling like in a mosque, gloomy, mysterious, as befits an ancient library respecting itself.
The old part of Nevsehir, the Nar district, is a typical Cappadocian landscape with crooked streets and extremely colorful stone-clay houses. There is even a real cave hotel - ancient walls with modern filling, handmade carpets and candles and a picturesque panorama of the city.
Excavations in Nevsehir
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Photo: RIA Novosti. Alena Palazhchenko
An underground city on the site of a slum
There is reason to believe that in the near future the city authorities will have to think about receiving a large number of guests, because in the very center of Nevsehir, the world's largest underground city was discovered, where excavations are now in full swing. This city, which has no name yet, is larger than the largest of the Cappadocian underground cities discovered to date, Derinkuyu.
On the territory of the discovered city in the 1970s, there were so-called "gejekondu" - slums where the poorest strata of local residents lived, who used ancient premises, caves, adapting them for housing, without even knowing what they were.
“It is not entirely correct to call this city underground, because it is not so much located in the ground as it spreads along the mountain itself, with only separate rooms, galleries and numerous tunnels deep inside,” says the head of the excavation, archaeologist Ali Aydin.
According to him, now about 50 thousand square meters are open and restored, and the total area of excavations can reach 300-400 thousand square meters. We rise just above the old library and find ourselves on the slope of a low, but quite solid mountain, dotted throughout the area with caves, tiny stone rooms, like honeycombs from which the top layer was removed.
The recent turbulent life here is evidenced by the remains of fragile walls made of cheap building partitions, with which the former inhabitants gave the ancient caves the appearance of modern apartments. In some places there are still broken switches, hooks for clothes, photographs of famous actors from old magazines tattered in the wind …
“In 2012, the“Urban Renewal”program was launched all over Turkey, associated with the reconstruction or complete replacement of old houses that have no seismic safety. As part of the program, in 2014, the demolition of old, substandard buildings in the poorest quarter began, during which ancient structures were discovered. After the intervention of scientists and archaeologists, the site was conserved and restoration began,”the second archaeologist Semih Istanbulluoglu leads the tour.
“Our team employs about 100 people. The work on the complete opening of the city may take 30-40 years. The first stage is planned to be completed in 2-3 years, and then the first part of the city will be open to visitors. One of the most interesting objects of such cities is the so-called "key stones": huge round stone circles that have special protection from external enemies and can completely block the entrance to the premises very quickly, despite their weight. In this city, about 50 such stones have been found - this is a record for Cappadocian cities,”says the agency's source.
Frescoes of an ancient church
We go into one of the caves and find ourselves in an ancient Christian church, part of which is completely covered with earth and stones. Semih shines a flashlight on a dark wall - and on it are barely visible fragile frescoes depicting saints buried up to their shoulders under the merciless earth.
“People have lived here since Byzantine times; several churches have survived. The most amazing thing is this one-nave church of the 13th century, but it has been preserved very poorly, so much so that we do not touch it yet, we are waiting for a commission from the Istanbul laboratory of conservation and restoration. In terms of its significance, it is similar to the Tatlarin Church (5th century AD), which is located in Gulsehir and is famous for its unique frescoes. Perhaps these two churches were made by the same masters,”says Semikh.
The underground tunnel is very impressive - it is flat, narrow, the length of which experts estimate at 7 kilometers, but now only 700 meters are brought into the divine form. But today, this is probably the only object completely ready for tourists, even excellent lighting has been carried out.
No less impressive is the huge stable, where the grooves in the walls for the horses' food are completely preserved.
In general, the entire territory of the "new-old" city is a wonderful complex, the uniqueness of which lies, among other things, in the fact that, unlike other Cappadocian complexes, it is located in the middle of a large modern city. It can become attractive and convenient for tourists.
Excavations in Nevsehir
Photo: RIA Novosti. Alena Palazhchenko