Elbeğendi
| Elbeğendi | ||||
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| Basic data | ||||
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| Province (il) : | Mardin | |||
| District ( ilçe ) : | Midyat | |||
| Coordinates : | 37 ° 17 ' N , 41 ° 24' E | |||
| Residents : | 50 (2010) | |||
| Telephone code : | (+90) 482 | |||
| Postal code : | 47500 | |||
| License plate : | 47 | |||
Elbeğendi ( Aramaic ܟܦܪܐ ܬܚܬܝܬܐ, Kafro Tahtayto , also just called Kafro ) is a village in the district of Midyat in the province of Mardin in southeastern Turkey in the Tur Abdin mountain range . The place has 50 inhabitants and is exclusively inhabited by Arameans . The previous name was Harabkefr. The name Kafro Tahtayto is of Aramaic origin and means "lower village".
geography
location
The village of Elbeğendi is located on a slight hill and is about 900 m above sea level. The border with Syria is 20 km to the south as the crow flies, other villages in the area are distributed as follows:
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Midyat 22 km |
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.svg)
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Taşköy 10 km |
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Üçyol 17 km |
Üçköy 5 km |
The red earth is very fertile. It is rich in volcanic lava rock. There is a high occurrence of white limestone .
climate
The seasons are very distinctive with lots of rainfall in spring and autumn, hot and dry summers and cold and snowy winters. The temperatures fluctuate between −10 ° C in winter and +52 ° C in summer.
population
According to oral tradition, the village of Kafro Tahtayto has its origins before the birth of Christ. In the year of the genocide of the Aramaeans in 1915, the entire population of the village fled to the Mor Malke monastery or to the Mor Elija monastery in Ehwo, so that it was temporarily empty. Resettlement began only slowly afterwards. In the 1980s, when the fighting between Kurds and the Turkish military expanded in southeastern Turkey , many residents again emigrated to Western Europe, so that the place is almost uninhabited today.
- 1900: 30 families
- 1915: 20 families
- 1916: 8 families
- 1970: 46 families
- 1992: 5 families
- 1995: 0 The last three families leave the village of Kafro
In 2004 around 180 families from the original village of Kafro Tahtayto lived in Europe, the majority in Germany , Sweden and Switzerland . After many years of planning, the first families returned to Kafro in the summer of 2006. Today around 15 families live in a completely newly built settlement in Kafro.
Place name
Kafro is the Aramaic word for village . To distinguish them from a nearby village of the same name, the two places were designated with Tahtayto (lower) and Helayto (upper). The upper village is about 26 km further north as the crow flies.
Economy and Infrastructure
The inhabitants of the place lived and live almost exclusively from agriculture, which they mainly operated for their own consumption. There were figs , pomegranates , melons and watermelons grown and wheat , barley , cucumber , almonds and occasionally apples . Wine was grown on the surrounding hills , the grapes of which were largely processed into raisins . There was also cattle breeding.
Elbeğendi consists of 46 houses, which are typically two-story, with the family living on the upper floor while the ground floor served as a stable. Each house had a forecourt separated by a wall. There is a schoolhouse built in 1964. Approx. 80 self-built deep wells were used to supply the water; there is no sewer system. Elbeğendi has been connected to the power grid since 1980. The village is on the Midyat- Arkah road .
Since the village was completely deserted at times and not inhabited for years, a number of houses in the old part of the village collapsed or at least were in very poor condition. Some of the churches are also only ruins, the interiors have been destroyed. In contrast, the new part of the village with the large houses was equipped with European standards. Roads were paved, electricity and water lines were led into the new part of the village and trees were planted.
Religion (christianity)
The area around Kafro Tahtayto, like the whole of Tur Abdin, was Christianized in the first centuries after Christ. The villagers belonged to the Syrian Orthodox Church of Antioch . There were the following places of worship in the village
- Mor Yahkup Church, built in the 5th century
- Mor Barsaumo Church, built in the 5th century
- Memorial House to Our Lady of Mary
- Mor Bosuss Church
- Kadisto Memorial House
Individual evidence
- ↑ Turkish Institute for Statistics. ( Memento of December 21, 2012 in the web archive archive.today ) Retrieved February 26, 2011
- ↑ David Gaunt, Jan Beth-Şawoce, Racho Donef: Massacres, Resistance, Protectors: Muslim-Christian Relations in Eastern Anatolia During World War I . Gorgias Press LLC, 2006, ISBN 1-59333-301-3 pp. 232, 371