17 February, 2013

DÜZCE - HOMETOWN OF OUR TURKISH FRIENDS

Our Turkish project friends live in a town called Düzce that is 1882 kilometres far from Uherské Hradiště. If we took our car it would take more than 20 hours to get there. It would be much more faster to go by plane, of course! :-)


The Turkish teacher Tugba writes more about her hometown:

The city of Düzce has approximately 323 328 inhabitants and it is situated in West Black Sea Region, in the middle of Ankara and İstanbul. It is 40 km to seaside. It has got a magnificient nature and involves different ethnic groups as a cultural mosaic. 

It is also available for cycyling. Because the city center is so flat and everyday about 3 000 cyclists are in the traffic. In fact the word "düzce" means "quite flat". However, the periphery is covered by mountains full of plateaus. 


In 1999 the city was flatten by a big earthquake. But now it is being rebuilt and growing.

The City center in Düzce

An old man watching rafters on the river Melen


Tugba says more about the earthquake:

"It affected mainly 3 cities one of which was ours. We were sleeping when it started. It let us go out safe. But the building were badly damaged. Then the town was destroyed in the second earthquake 2 months later. We were safe. No injury."
The Earthquake in Düzce in 1999

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