| Ahmet Hamdi Tanpinar (1901-1962),
one of Turkey’s foremost 20th century
novelists, wrote that ‘In Bursa there
is a another, second time.’ What he meant
by that ‘second time’ can be seen
when you look at a mosque, a tomb, an ancient
plane tree, a han or a fountain in the city,
where the past seems ever present. The aspect
of the past I was seeking in Bursa on this visit
was the carts and carriages that used to clatter
through the narrow streets.
The cart known as esebey is that which used
to be the most common form of goods transport
in Bursa. Loaded with rows of tall baskets filled
with silk worm crysalises, they used to deliver
these to the workshops where the raw silk was
reeled off. But the clatter of horse hooves
and wooden wheels on the cobbles and the chatter
of the workmen as they caught the ends of silk
in the boiling cauldrons and fitted them over
the reels are only echoes today between the
walls of one of these old workshops.
|
