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Village of the dolls As we get older where do we seek the gardens of our
childhood? Can our memories bring back lullabies, jingling bells of the
flocks, games of hide and seek, and strings of kites? How do we revive
images of Text and photos AKGUN AKOVA* Source: Skylife 07/2001
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those old markets, wedding suppers, sheep shearing, the face of
a young bride looking in the mirror? Is the lark nesting amongst the ears
of wheat waiting for us somewhere? Or in migrating from country to city
have we paid the price of losing the houses, streets and villages where we
were born? If we have lost them, how can we bring them back to life from
our memories? Perhaps you have never asked yourself any of these
questions. Perhaps memories of your childhood have slipped beyond even the
reach of dreams. But for Ayhan and Nazmiye Cetin their childhood in
Akviran, a village in the province of Konya, has not faded. To be more
accurate, they have not allowed it to fade. They have been busy producing
handmade dolls, which tell the story of Akviran from the 1920s onwards.
Drawing for their creativity on the past, with patience and painstaking
attention to detail, they made
dolls, each 30 centimetres tall. Then they
made houses between 50 and 80 centimetres in height. On the flat roofs
they placed women spreading out tarhana to dry; in a garden a bridegroom
being shaved ready for his wedding; children playing leapfrog; a traveller
with his packhorse climbing a hill. Is this all a feat of their
imagination? No, this is exactly as it was when they lived in the village.
Even the names of the shops are as they were: Blacksmith Mehmet Ali Usta,
Barber Yakup, Grocer Ahmet, Tinsmith Muhittin Usta, and the rest. This
reconstructed village might be naive, but at the same time it is charming
and poignant. This 'house of memories' containing a miniature world is now
open to the public. It is not far from Ephesus. All you have to do is go
to the crossroads leading to Selçuk, Pamucak, Kusadasi and
Seferihisar, and travel 300 metres along the road to Kusadasi. The first
thing you see is live sized models in the garden. A woman carries her
swaddled baby on her back. An old man with a white beard sits upon a jar
sipping his coffee. Then you open the door of the one storey building and
enter the village of Akviran, inhabited by dolls! There you first notice a
familiar face. It is Nasreddin Hoca, the legendary Turkish wit and
commentator on human nature whose stories are still being told six or
seven centuries later. He is riding his famous donkey, with a crowd of
children gathered around him. A little beyond him nomads descend from the
Toros 
Mountains with their camels loaded with pomegranates, oranges and
carobs to barter for wheat from the village before returning to the
mountains. A shepherd is herding his goats, while the sheepdogs guard the
kids. Hardly any aspect of village life is not brought to life here. Now
it is time to look more closely at the dolls themselves. First the
framework of the body is made, then the heads and hands attached, and the
body stuffed with paper and cloth. String is then wound around the body,
and the hair and eyelashes of wool fixed on. This is the job of Ayhan
Cetin. His wife Nazmiye dresses them in clothes, which are exact replicas
of those worn at the time. The houses are made of paper, cardboard, wood
and polystyrene foam. In one of the houses the inhabitants are busy
preparing winter provisions. Wheat that has been washed, boiled and dried,
is being ground with a hand mill into bulgur. In the village square a
peddler is selling printed cottons, flannel dresses, mirrors and hair
slides to the women of the village. In one yard a woman is washing the
laundry, and in another melted lead is being poured to protect a pretty
girl from the evil eye.
Tobacco purchased from the tobacconist is being
rolled into cigarettes, and a photographer beneath the black cloth of his
old-fashioned camera is taking a photograph of his client, who is seated
on a wooden chair. A young man off to do his national service is taking
his leave of friends and family. All the daily tasks and eventful
happenings of village life in the early 20th century are here. There is
even a bear, named perhaps Balaban or perhaps Kocaoglan, on the back of a
man lying in the street! But don't worry, the bear is not trying to kill
him only cure his back pains. The beast owner stands beside them playing a
tambourine, and if only the spell were broken he would certainly start
singing. In the village coffeehouse people are drinking their well-brewed
glasses of tea as they chat to their neighbours. Perhaps they are
discussing the wrestling tournament held in the next village. In the
nearby fields people are busy harvesting. A man gives water he has drawn
from the well to some dappled horses. The miller is busy too, loading
sacks of flour onto the donkey of a customer. In the yard of one cottage
some colourful work is going on. I say colourful not in the metaphorical
sense, but because wool is being dyed in cauldrons and hung up to dry.
This will be used by the young girls to weave the rugs that will adorn
their houses when they are married. To the sound of drum and flute, boys
and girls are performing dances of Silifke and the Aegean. They are guest
performers, joining in the cheerful life of the village. So is anything
missing in this traditional village which opened its doors last May? Of
course there is: the dolls do not talk! But perhaps Ayhan and Nazmiye
Cetin will manage that one day. On the roof of one of the adobe houses you
will see a child with a dreamy expression flying his kite. Look carefully
at him, because he will grow up to make all these dolls and recreate the
village of Akviran. This is no other than Ayhan Cetin himself as a child.