Mardin, The Most Marvelous City in Southeast Turkey

Mardin. MARDIN. I was not expecting Mardin.

Southeast Turkey was not only different from all the other places I’d been in the country, but every city was wildly dissimilar from the one before.

Mardin was no exception. It was completely unlike Hasankeyf, and unlike Urfa, and unlike Halfeti. Mardin was nothing like what I imagined.

I had preconceptions. Of all the cities I’d be staying in, Mardin was the closest to Syria, the one I was most hoping my mother wouldn’t look up on a map. I figured that proximity would be palpable, much as it was in Harran.

I didn’t envision a glowing old city built into the hills, buildings and streets of off-white stone, clean and inviting storefronts, and sweeping views of the arid plains that spill into Syria. I didn’t anticipate a city so welcoming.

Mardin seems the most ready for tourists of all the places I visited in the Southeast— yet its location, a mere 30km from the Syrian border, doesn’t encourage the casual traveler. It’s a shame. The city feels much more Middle Eastern than the rest of Turkey, but there is something vaguely Mediterranean about it as well– some back streets, with their white-stone buildings and bright blue shutters and pink-blooming trees, reminded me of Croatia or Italy.

There was a sheen that I wasn’t expecting. From the boutique hotels to the photography gallery to the nice restaurants, there is a polish to Mardin’s old city. And yet the lively grittiness remains. Descending into Mardin’s covered bazaar takes you past butchers slinging meat in the open air, women hawking hand-embroidered shirts, and children fetching tea or testing out their English on foreigners.

The food is Turkish with a regional twist: slightly more middle eastern, definitely more flavorful. I ate the best kebap of my life in Mardin: a pistachio kebap (that’s ground meat mixed together with pistachios, and grilled) with a tart fruity sauce that was so lip-smackingly good that we begged the waiter for the recipe. (No luck. It’s the chef’s secret.)

It’s the sort of city where a tiny dark door leads to a cafe with balcony views of the plains, of somersaulting pigeons, of loitering men on the roof of a mosque. A place where local children playing in the street outside of an ancient madrassa ask for your name and pose for your pictures. A place where the alcohol is hidden behind newspapers for Ramadan but the man selling it is a proud Syrian Christian. This is the city where I went for a restaurant’s fixed-menu Iftar, a fast-breaking feast that was so completely delicious that it almost broke me. And then I ate more.

Mardin is exquisite. It’s not just a beauty of winding streets, it’s a beauty of the entire city’s facade. Even melting in the midday swelter, it was still impossible to be distracted from the splendid feeling of the place. The historical architecture deserves its reputation as an open-air museum. The war just over the border felt worlds away. I hope it stays away, so this city can continue to be such a glorious gem.

A post-script—The political situation in Turkey’s Southeast has been changing rapidly. Though things were fine when I went in the beginning of July, since then unrest in reaction to the war in Kobane has led the Turkish government to impose a curfew on many cities in the Southeast, including Mardin. I encourage you to check on the political situation BEFORE you go to Mardin, but know that even with its proximity to the border, it is unlikely that you will encounter trouble in Mardin’s Old City. If you have any questions about whether or not you should travel to Mardin, feel free to get in touch with me! My main advice is: be smart, not scared. The news often makes situations sound more dire than they appear on the ground.