My first visit to Cunda, a seaside village also known by some as Alibeyadasi, near the beautiful town of Ayvalik on Turkey's northern Aegean coast, was in the autumn of 2007, and I was smitten by this scenic little town at the very first sight.
This village, like its sister-village of Ayvalik, was also a former Greek Orthodox enclave settled by ethnic Greeks until 1923, when the entire Greek population was resettled in Greece under the terms of the Treaty of Lausanne. According to some estimates, during the latter stages of the Greco-Turkish War, when a Greek defeat was imminent, at one point more than half a million Greek refugees fled across the Aegean within one week to the island of Lesvos with the retreating Greek army.
While the local Greek population moved to Lesvos and other parts of Greece, the Muslim population on the island of Crete was resettled in Ayvalik and Cunda. In spite of being Muslims, many of these Muslim refugees from Crete actually spoke Greek - to be more precise, a very localised form of Cretan-Greek spoken only in parts of Crete and the Dodecanese - instead of Turkish as their mother tongue, and they continued to speak to one another using this special variant of Cretan-Greek after they moved to Ayvalik. Even today it is not unusual to hear Cretan-Greek being spoken by second and third generation Göçmen, the Turkish word for immigrants, especially those who were born in Greece and the Balkans prior to the demise of the Ottoman Empire, whose families were forced to flee to Turkey after the Balkan Wars and the end of WWI.
I noticed this linguistic difference while travelling in a shared taxi that shuttles between Ayvalik and Cunda with a few other locals. When one of the fellow passengers wanted to get off at a particular junction in downtown Ayvalik, instead of speaking to the driver in Turkish, he uttered something which is neither Turkish nor Kurdish, and the driver also replied him using that unfamiliar tongue. At first I thought it might be a local dialect of Turkish, until later in the evening, when I spoke to some locals, that they told me about the existence of this Cretan-Greek dialect unique to the area of Ayvalik.
This unique cultural feature, as well as the presence of relatively well-preserved traditional Greek houses, makes both Ayvalik and Cunda very appealing to tourists from Turkey and Greece. While the Turks flock to Ayvalik because of its beautiful sandy beach, scenic bays and some of the best-preserved and most photogenic Greek stone mansion to be found in the whole of Turkey, the Greeks are there in Ayvalik largely out of nostalgy, in remembrance of their own families' Asia Minor roots and the town's Greek past.
In the summer, daily ferry connections operate between Ayvalik and Mytilini on the Greek island of Lesvos, and one-day excursion to Ayvalik from Mytilini is very popular amongst tourists from various western and northern European countries spending their summer vacations on Lesvos. The journey across the Aegean from Mytilini to Ayvalik takes about 1 hour, en route one can see the views of the various smaller islands and islets that once formed the outer boundary of the Gulf of Ayvalik, but have now been connected to the mainland by a series of coastway
In terms of its culinary traditions, Ayvalik is best known within Turkey for the local snack, the Ayvalik tostu (Ayvalik Toast), which is a kind of toasted bread or sandwich stuffed with fillings which may include french fries, salami sausage, meat, pickles, lettuce, vegetable and smothered with some ketchup and plenty of mayonnaise. Another local speciality of Ayvalik and Cunda which has legions of fans all over Turkey is the Ayvalik or Cunda lokma, a kind of sweet deep-fried donut steeped in sweet syrup or honey and sprinkled with sesame or pistachio nuts. In addition, the seaside taverns of Ayvalik and Cunda are considered by some as the best place in Turkey to have fresh grilled fish and seafoods down with a few glasses of raki. For me, one of the most beautiful and unforgettable moments in life is to wake up in one of the boutique hotels housed in restored Greek mansions on Cunda, have a nice breakfast at one of the traditional cafes in historical Greek buildings with seaviews along the shore of the Aegean, and slowly soaking up on that marvellous atmosphere arising out of a mixture of historical charm and sensational excitement in the warm morning sun over some Turkish teas and ayran.
The thing I like most about Ayvalik and Cunda is, in spite of its exceptional natural scenery and historical beauty, the place is still very down to earth and has none of the kitschy trappings, pretensions or gross commercialisation that had come to plague some other famous ex-Greek villages and towns in Turkey frequently visited by tourists. Both Ayvalik and Cunda have retained their own cultural identity and take a strong sense of pride in preserving their unique historical heritage, which make these two places all the more enchanting and memorable. The atmosphere in Cunda and Ayvalik is strongly permeated with a unique mixture of intense historical charm and striking scenic beauty, a very subtle sensation which is very hard to describe in words, but is something which leaves a very long and strong aftertaste in your consciousness, something that lasts well after your visit.
Copyrights@2012. All text and photos by YC Cheng. All Rights Reserved.
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