Mapsino (or Gurpınar) is a small town but it means a lot for us, “mapsinolilar”. Most of us were not born in Mapsino but again we stick to Mapsino because we feel that we get our characteristics from Mapsino. Therefore, we in turn feel responsible ourselves to design a web site for Mapsino. Mapsino is located in the east of Trabzon, a Black Sea city. It is a municipial depending Of town. Of is about 60 km away from Trabzon, 23 km away from Rize. Of people call themselves as “a people depending on The God directly”. So when you ask them where you are from, they don’t say that they are from Trabzon, they say that they are from Of even though Of is a small town of Trabzon that s why they are supposed to say they are from Trabzon. Of is the center of the world; and also which is considered as a “republic” by Of people. Mapsino is 15 km away from the sea and Of city center. It is towards the south. It is a mountain village. To get Mapsino, you pass Mavran and then take the left on Tashan Bridge. It is 3 km away from there. Mapsino’s neighbors are Cuvariksa (Ugurlu), Zisino (Bolumlu-Cataldere). Mapsinolilar don’t like their neighbors; they believe that they are superior to neighbors. Its neighbors think the same for themselves. Namely, all people think that their towns are superior to the others; and their people are cleverer; no one assumes that other towns are equal to his/her town. Mapsino has about a 3 thousand population. Official figure is about 5 thousand. (Local authorities in Turkey get more money as their population increases; therefore, generally they exaggerate their population or they move their people from cities in which they live to Mapsino on censuses) It decreases in winter because the village people are used to living in big cities like Istanbul Izmir, Samsun in winter. Mapsino people depend on tea plant dominantly. The tea plant is harvested 3 times a year from spring to fall. Mapsinolilar (people from Mapsino) go Mapsino with their children just after the school semesters are done, spend their summer time there, harvest tea plant and then go back their cities. So many later generations can get Mapsino’s characteristics through this mobility. Mapsinolilar moved the west of Turkey in 1960s especially in Istanbul, Izmir, Samsun. Some of them have migrated European countries, mostly Germany. First generations had hard times; but then when they set up their works, they brought their families from Mapsino. Today there is a third generation in Europe that they weren’t born in Mapsino but they still call themselves “mapsinoli”. Tea is the dominant plant cultivated by mapsinolilar. Recently, because of supply surplus, its value decreased, and then many mapsinoli gave up collecting their tea plant leaves. Because tea plants’ roots are too long to remove from the soil, they can’t change their tea plants with another plant. Actually, the government and other related institutions have not presented diversified agriculture policies to the public. Therefore, the tea is still the most important thing in their lives. The tea agriculture mostly plays a supportive role for middle class or poor class Mapsino people living in big cities. The income produced by tea agriculture can’t meet families’ living expenses all, but it can help them in living on. People moving cities generally engaged with construction industry. Like all Black Sea people, each mapsinoli is a construction engineer and also architecture without getting their education! They didn’t need to buy this kind of services from professionals in the past; but some doubts emerged about their buildings’ safety! In Mapsino and all other towns in the East Black Sea region, homes have been built in a shooting range. The Black Sea people are some (little bit!!) aggressive and nervous like the Black Sea itself. In addition, they like guns a lot. Therefore, they have needed to construct their homes some far from each other, generally this distance is considered as far as a bullet can’t reach to its target. This explanation, of course, is not so much scientific but it still could be one of the reasons why homes are far each other, though. Main reason is tough geographical conditions. It is not easy to find a flat area where people build their homes next to each other. Moreover, people could prefer to build their homes near plantations. Well, even though it is impossible to find flat areas to build even homes, this town’s people love soccer very much.You could say “what a relationship?!!”. Mapsino children play soccer on roads because there is no place to play football except Kaban which is top place of the town. Nobody can even imagine follow any other team from Trabzonspor. All guys dream playing football (soccer) for Trabzonspor. Mapsino is not a Turkish name. We don’t know its meaning precisely. There are some explanations about it, but we don’t know the truth. There is an old language spoken in Mapsino by old people; but this language has not been transferred to young generations and also it has not protected by the state. Therefore young generations don’t know this language. But some few words influenced to daily life. The language is inheritance of old Pontus people. It is an archaic language consisting of many different languages. In this area (Of’s hinterland), there were Pontos people in the past till 1920s. (In 1920s Turkish people living in Greece and Pontos people living in Turkey had to leave their hometowns.) We don’t have precise information whether Pontus people lived in Mapsino or not. Today Mapsino is called as Gurpinar officially. We don’t know why it was named as Gurpinar. Day to day, with new generations, people tend to use Gurpinar instead of Mapsino. But old generations still prefer “Mapsino”. In the past there were many different fruit tree in Mapsino. Its fruits are organic. Fruit trees mostly are longer than 6-7 meters; some of them than 15 meters. Its sweet cherry, apples, peers, blueberry are really delicious. Some of the fruits’ old names are ligarba, fuska, khamuchera, lazap (a kind of peer), and mavrap (a kind of pear). The East Black Sea region is a conservative city even though it was a commercial center in the past and was hosted many different cultures. Today, we can say that Of (and its hinterland) meets Turkey’s imam (prayer/ like priest in Chr.) need by on its own. “Oflu imam” is very famous. It is subject to many jokes as well. (The photo was taken 1940s; the four sisters who are our grand grandmothers) Taking into consideration that Trabzon and Of are small cities and Mapsino is a mountain town, equality between women and men is not available. Generally women work in tea plants, men sit in traditional cafe houses. But this situation has changed timely. Women have taken many steps to force their husbands to help them in tea plantations. On the other hand, it is interesting that all women except old ones get primary and secondary education. No one in Mapsino thinks not to enroll their daughters to schools. Additionally, mapsinolilar living in big cities are willing to provide their daughters with university education. About Mapsino.com We are from Mapsino even though one of us was not born and the other has not grown up there. It is a different feeling. We feel that we took our personal characteristics from Mapsino; additionally we love Mapsino and The Black Sea, that’s why we feel that we owe Mapsino. And one day we decided to set up this site. We don’t have commercial or any other personal practical goals. We love Mapsino and its different color in the Black Sea area, so we want to preserve its color. With this site, we try to get lower mapsinolilar’s missing to Mapsino and also increase the solidarity among Mapsinolular. In this web site we don’t allow pop culture, racists, and sexist ideas. We believe the equality and friendship between peoples and genders. As the friendship improves between peoples, we believe that many things considered problems today will not be considered problems in future. As Ataturk, founder of Turkey said “peace at home, peace in the world”. BEĞENDİM0
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