Turkish bayram with its rites, rituals, traditions

Turkey once again celebrated the Kurban Bayram with all its colors as warm weather prompted holidaymakers in the south to swim while eastern villages carried out rituals in snowbound isolation.

Along with reuniting families and reinforcing traditions, the "Feast of the Sacrifice" also brought grim tragedy to crowded highways and scenes of illegal animal slaughter in city parks and alleys.

The prime minister, meanwhile, enjoyed a seven-star getaway and two western villages turned the occasion into matchmaking exercise for local boys and girls.

The most notorious bayram traditions in Turkey are the great number of road accidents and deaths and the ugly scenes accompanying illegal animal sacrifices on roadsides. This bayram was no different.

In the first three days of the bayram, more than 50 people died on the roads, with more than a hundred injured.

The fact that for most the bayram holiday will end Sunday makes it certain that the road toll will increase.

Authorities expect inter-city traffic congestion to start escalating today and last throughout the weekend. There was also a note of warning to drivers returning to Istanbul that the Kocaeli entrance to the TEM highway has seen the most accidents during long holiday. In Istanbul where the slaughter scenes were largely absent, the governor, Muammer Güler, said they received 450 complaints of illegal sacrifices, with 200 sacrifice rituals being banned. Those who want to sacrifice animals are obligated to do so in permitted areas with professional butchers.

Güler said they fined violators a total of YTL 13,000, noting that the number of violations had decreased significantly compared to previous years.

Blood on the streets
In İzmir, Turkey’s second largest city, sacrifices continued to be done in unhygienic areas and on the streets. Despite precautions taken and areas designated for sacrificing animals, many preferred to sacrifice their animals on the streets, with amateur butchers disposing of organs in a haphazard way. The head of the İzmir Chamber of Butchers, Aydın Mestanlı, told Doğan news agency that they had not seen a single official or police inspection at the sacrifices, arguing that if the necessary controls were in place, such a scandal would not have occurred.

The head of the municipal security officers said they had assigned two officers to inspect sacrifices, admitting that the number may have been too low. The proclivity to employ "amateur" butchers or to do the cutting oneself resulted in many injuries, almost altering the meaning of the "sacrifice," as it does every year.

According to the Anatolia news agency, more than 1,700 people went to hospital to be treated for the cuts they suffered during ceremonial sacrifices.

Cross-border celebrations
The normally peaceful cross-border bayram celebrations in the south on the border with Syria saw significant problems this year. Every bayram, Turkey and Syria allow their nationals a 48-hour pass to the neighboring country to celebrate with their relatives. This year’s huge number of people wanting to visit relatives in Syria nearly resulted in children and women being trampled. Police accompanied children lost in the crowd to a central point where they could reunite with their parents.

Syrian nationals crossing into Turkey caused another type of celebration. Doğan news agency reported that the local shopkeepers in Hatay province enjoyed a boost in business from Syrians on a shopping spree. The number of Turkish nationals who crossed into Syria reached 5,500 this year, while the number of Syrians crossing over to Turkey is more than double that number.

Different parts of the country featured very different types of weather this bayram. While hundreds of eastern villages were cut off from the rest of the country due to heavy snowfall, the Aegean and Mediterranean coasts of the country enjoyed unseasonably warm weather. Foreign tourists in Bodrum and Alanya resorts took advantage of the warm weather and swam while locals preferred picnicking. Officials said hotels were around 60 percent full even though it was not tourist season.

Tourists were not the only ones who enjoyed the warm weather on coasts. Many politicians from the ruling Justice and Development Party, or AKP, and Republican People’s Party, or CHP, were found holidaying in Antalya.

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and his wife Emine spent their bayram at the seven-star Rixos Premium Hotel in the Belek resort, with journalists following in his footsteps reporting that he hardly left the hotel. Five ministers staying nearby were the only ones to see him.

CHP leader Deniz Baykal was also in Antalya, which is his constituency. Spending his holiday at his home in the city, at one time he called on the reporters waiting in front of his house to "please go."

In the western province of Kocaeli, bayram provides the opportunity for young men and women from a few villages to gather and meet each other as the first stage of marriage.

The young men and women of the region every year wait for bayrams in order to find their soul mate. The meeting first takes place in the village of Süverler and then all move to Şentepe. Parents also could be seen at the meeting, picking up spouses for their children. Süverler’s muhtar, or village head, Halil Esen said these meetings have been taking place for many years. "It is a beautiful tradition. These meetings usually end with marriage," he said. Naim Özer, who met his wife at such a meeting, said: "I have two children now."

Angry minister
Culture Minister Ertuğrul Günay, who went spent a day of his bayram in the Black Sea province of Ordu, was angry with the deputy governor when he failed to see the governor of the province welcome him at the provincial border. Deputy Governor Mehmet Turan Çuhadar, who was on the receiving end of Günay’s wrath, tried to explain that both the governor and the senior deputy governor of the province were away, which failed to satisfy the minister, who asked from Çuhadar a report on the governor’s whereabouts.

Günay went to the neighboring province of Giresun afterward and was welcomed by all the top officials. He was asked if he was pleased with his reception. "They have abided by the rules of the state," said Günay, adding that there were some deficiencies in Ordu. While Günay was annoyed with the failure of officials to abide by state protocol, he himself came on the receiving end of the fury of AKP’s Çorum deputy Agah Kafkas.

Kafkas was angered at the lack of reception when he was in Çorum, on his way back to Ankara from his Black Sea tour. After searching for the minister at a few hotels, accompanied by the governor, Kafkas learned Günay had proceeded to Ankara. Calling him on the cell phone, Kafkas told Günay, "Dear minister, even a Çorum local would not do what you have done."

"A Çorum local would not do what you have done," is a Turkish saying for when there are no Çorum locals around to denote something bad someone had done.