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The Turkish banking sector has also made significant progress in parallel with the structural changes undertaken to produce a more financially liberal Turkish economy. With the efforts to restructure the Turkish economy and integrate it into the modern financial system, Turkish banks have achieved important changes in their institutional structures and in the quality of their products and services.

These include iron and metals, machinery, buses, chemicals, cement, ceramics, glass, cotton, textiles, leather, agricultural goods, tobacco, fruits, and foodstuffs.

There are three big social security institutions established by the state:

– The Retirement Trust (Emekli Sandigi)
– The Social Insurance Board (Sosyal Sigortalar Kurumu)
– The Social Insurance Board for businessmen, craftsmen and others (Bag-Kur)

Every working person pays a %20 percent of his/her salary to the state (This is being done automatically by the properties). In return of this man are being retired after 30 to 35 years working and could make usage of the free health service of the government. Because the standards of many hospitals are below average, many people who could effort it do pay an additional fee to private health or life insurance companies.

Large areas in the South, West and Northwest are covered by Mediterranean vegetation, consisting mainly of thick, scrubby underbrush in the lowlands and deciduous or coniferous forests at higher altitudes up to the timberline. The humid northern margins of the country are the most densely wooded regions of Turkey. On the eastern Black Sea coast there are subtropical forests. The Anatolian interior is a region of steppes. Forests of mostly oak and coniferous trees exist only on the elevated areas.

The forest areas comprise of 25% of the total area of Turkey. 99% of the forests belong to the state. Forests in Turkey are very rich regarding plant types. As a country with different climates and different ecosystems, Turkey has a tremendously rich flora and fauna. The number of species of flowers in Turkey is approximately 9,000, out of which 3,000 are endemic, whereas in Europe there are 11,500 species.

Village Types in Turkey:

– Coastal Villages in Turkey
– Mountain Villages in Turkey
– Forest Villages in Turkey
– Southern and Eastern Villages in Turkey

As a country of highlands, Turkey naturally has many mountain villages. In places higher than 1,800 m / 5,900 ft, you can find people living for the summer months with their herds of sheep, cattle or goats who return to their permanent houses in the winter. This is called yaylacilik. Apart from these very high places, there are also permanent mountain villages whose geographical conditions mean that they are generally very small and perhaps without a school. Where there is no school students have to travel to a neighboring village. Economically, as there is often no suitable land for agriculture, animal husbandry is dominant in these mountain villages.

The traditional Anatolian city developed in conformity with one of the basic principals of modern urban planning; that is, necessity for the location of the residential and commercial quarters separately. From greater to smaller the traditional living units are as follows; city, district (mahalle), street (sokak), courtyard (avlu), paved entrance hall (taslik), central reception room (sofa) and room (oda). Regional differences in Anatolia led to the use of a great variety of building systems, materials and plans.

Southeastern Anatolia is characterized by the use of stone, Central Anatolia by the use of a combination of stone and adobe (originally Hittite style), while the Aegean and Mediterranean regions are characterized by their cubic stone structures. In the inner Aegean region, the upper floors are built on the timber frame principle with mud brick filling, while in the Eastern Black Sea region the houses are made entirely of wood. This variety can be explained both as a result of climatic differences and of the very different cultures that have existed in Anatolia during the course of the centuries.

Courtyard Garden Entrance Area
Traditional houses always had a garden, quite irrespective of the size of the house itself. The Turks built the garden before proceeding to build the house. This attracted the attention of the French architect Le Corbusier who is regarded as one of the greatest of our age and he wrote: “The Turk first of all lays out the garden and plants trees; the Frenchman cuts down the trees to build the house.” The gardens were planted with climbing roses, honey-suckle, geraniums and fruit trees. Lanterns used to be hung at different places in the gardens.

As a result of the agricultural social basis, old houses had large garden gates, wide enough to allow the passage of the horse and carts. The handles performed the function of door-knockers; when the door opened, the bell suspended behind the door would ring and inform the residents that someone had arrived. For practical reasons, the store-room, pantry, granary and stable were placed on the ground floor. The kitchen, bath, bakery, fountain (sometimes a well with a pump) and toilet were located outside in the garden.

The sofa
The sofa was the central space to which the other rooms opened out. Foodstuffs for winter use were prepared either in the sofa or in the garden; the carpets, kilims and other fabrics were woven in the sofa.

The room
The rooms were multi-functional. During the daytime they were used as living rooms with a hearth, during meal times as dining rooms and at night as bedrooms with bathrooms. One part of the cupboard served as the bathroom. and water was carried in buckets or just heated on a brazier. The wall cupboards filled with mattresses, quilts and sheets might well be regarded as prototypes of the “fold-out beds” to be found in some modern houses.

The windows were long and narrow. Balconies were not common. Instead, they had bay-windows which provided 3-sided vision of the street. According to Islamic belief women especially had to protect their privacy from potential onlookers, so they sat unseen behind the curtains. The rooms were surrounded on 3 sides by divans, with white lace covers or carpets upon which cushions would be laid. A favored pleasure of traditional life used to be fresh Turkish coffee in the traditional living room.

Anatolian house types
As a result of an old rule, the way to make houses depends upon the natural conditions of regions. According to the basic mentality, in forest areas houses will be made of wood, or in places where there are quantities of stones, houses will be built of stones.

a) Mud-brick houses
Bricks made of mud including high amounts of clay are commonly used in rural Anatolia, especially in regions where stone and wood are rare. Nearly one third of all village houses are made with mud-bricks in Anatolia. The size of a brick is about 20-30 cm / 8-9 inches and is made stronger by adding pieces of straw or dried plants into its mud before drying.

When the walls are laid with bricks, the roof is covered with pieces of trunk and these are filled with tree branches or plants. The last stage involves covering the roof with clay and pressing it flat with a cylindrical instrument. These flat roofs provide many advantages for villagers, such as a place to sleep on during hot summer nights, to dry fruit and vegetables, and to preserve things like straw or dried dung.

b) Stone houses
Another common method of building houses is using suitable stones. Stone is the dominant building material in the Taurus Mountains, the Aegean region and parts of eastern Anatolia. Some stones are easy to shape, in which case, stones are placed on top of each other like bricks and it is even possible to build houses with more than one floor. Cappadocian stones are good examples for this kind of building. To prevent a house collapse, big wooden beams are used as supports inside the walls.

c) Wooden houses
Wooden houses are typical in the Black Sea area. In forest or mountain villages houses are generally made of wood. Long pieces of trunk are joined by clamps or big nails and different materials such as pieces of stones, mud plaster, dried plants and such are filled in between. In humid areas, spaces between the trunks which act as rafters are left empty and not filled.

d) Brick houses
In some villages, but mostly in towns and cities, the most common material is bricks produced from special soil in factories. Bricks are attached to each other by cement. This is comparatively the strongest system and with this technique it is possible to build many floors. In addition to these are houses made with new construction materials produced parallel to technological developments.

54% of the national population is rural in Turkey. In rural Turkey the focus of life is agriculture. In a typical village, houses with their courtyards are built around a central place. Land for agriculture surrounds the village. In each village, there is usually a mosque, a school, a coffeehouse, guest rooms and some small shops. Village life starts very early, usually before sunrise. After cleaning and tidying up the house, the animals are taken care of. Milking the sheep or cows and eating breakfast are early morning tasks before the serious work starts.

Only after all this do children go to school and people to the fields to work. The large majority of Anatolian villages are self sufficient. They produce their own food according to their production range and for winter they prepare food grown in the summer or autumn months. Among the foods they prepare are flour, bulgur (pounded wheat), oil, kavurma (preserved fried meat), dried vegetables and fruit, yufka (dried thin layers of pastry), macaroni, jam, pickles, tomato paste, molasses, cheese, butter, etc.

They obtain their other needs like clothing from bigger settlements in the vicinity. The tools used in daily life are clearly very old in design. The light wooden plow, or saban in Tr., is drawn easily by one pair of oxen. It has an iron tipped share but no moldboard so that it does not turn a furrow. Sowing is traditionally done by hand and reaping with a sickle or scythe. The crops are carried to the village for storage on four wheeled horse drawn carts or on the traditional two wheeled oxcart, the kagni.

Threshing involves driving an ox drawn sledge about five feet long over the crops, round and round, day after day. Flint teeth on the underside of the sledge break the grain from the ears and chop the straw into chaff. This mixture is winnowed by hand with wooden forks and put into woolen sacks. In homes, people sit on rugs or mats spread on the floor. Houses have built-in divans running along the walls and very often a stone or wooden floor. Tables and chairs, once rare, are now becoming more common.

Most peasants wear cloth caps and the famous Turkish baggy trousers which are exceedingly full in the seat. Shepherds, whose work may involve withstanding intense cold, wear a special large cloak, kepenek, made of felted wool and a hood with attached scarf that winds around the head and protects the ears. Village women still generally prefer traditional costume. They wear some locally customary combination of baggy trousers, skirts and aprons. In many areas it is still possible to identify a woman’s town or village and her marital status by her dress; village women in Turkey have never worn the veil, but they have traditionally covered their heads and mouths with a large scarf.

Most village areas contain weavers, masons, carpenters and smiths including tinsmiths. Some villagers go to town for craft services and a number of craftsmen travel around the villages particularly specialists, such as sieve makers or sawyers. Women are measured by rigid standards of purity; sex is a forbidden topic between close kin; and a young couple is forbidden to show any interest in each other if anyone else, even a member of the household, is present. A man leaving for a trip does not say good bye to his wife publicly, nor does he greet her publicly on his return.

Most Anatolian villages can be described as economically homogeneous, differences in wealth are small with many Turkish villagers owning their own land. The frequency with which large landowners once dominated the socioeconomic structure diminished significantly in the early republican period. Where large landowners do exist, they dominate the political, economic and social life of the village by linking it with national life. The criteria for social ranking are usually wealth, descent, occupation and social conformity, among which wealth is coming increasingly more important.

Although there are village headmen from an administrative point of view, they may not be the real leaders in places where wealthier people are eager to be dominant or in control. The relationship between wealth and social rank is nowhere better seen than in the institution of the guest room. Perhaps only 10% of the houses have guest rooms, because only the wealthy can afford them. Most evenings men gather in these rooms and spend much of their time there, particularly during the winter months.

Village Types in Turkey

Although most of the population is Moslem, the remaining is composed of Orthodox Christians, Gregorian Christians, Catholic, Suryani and Protestant Christians, and Jews. Turkey is a secular country and everyone has freedom of religion and beliefs. No one can be forced to participate in religious ceremonies or rites against their will and no blame can be attached to anyone because of their beliefs. The 600 years Islamic reigned Ottoman empire collapsed in the 1920’s and after the independence war leaded by Kemal Ataturk the principle of secularism introduced to the Turkish people.

Turkey is the only country among the Islamic countries which has included secularism in her Constitution and practices it. With the abolition of the Caliphate and the Ministry of Shariah (Islamic Law) and Foundations, on 3 March 1924 during the Republic period, significant steps were taken on the course to secularism and by providing the unification of education and later the unification of the judiciary.

These steps were followed by other steps such as the Hat Reform, closure of the Sects and Convents, changing the weekly holiday from Friday to Sunday and the adoption of the Latin alphabet and the Gregorian calendar. Finally, with an amendment put into practice with Law No. 3115 dated 5 February 1937, “secularism” became a constitutional principle. Although the concept of “secularism” was included in the Constitution of the Republic of Turkey in 1937, the principle of secularism had existed “de facto” since the foundation of the Republic.

Along with the abolition of the Caliphate on 3 March 1924, on the same date, the “Chairmanship of Religious Affairs” responsible for the administration of religious affairs was formed, within the state structure, as an organization connected to the Prime Ministry. The function of this organization is to carry out activities related to the beliefs of the Islamic religion, the principles of worship and morality, and to enlighten society on the subject of religious issues and to manage the places of worship. The organization of the Chairmanship of Religious Affairs with its present functional structure is composed of the central and rural organizations and the organizations abroad.

The Chairmanship of Religious Affairs is represented by Muftis in the provinces and counties. It is organized to assist Moslem Turkish citizens in Turkey, and those working abroad, to fulfill their religious services, with its staff of more than 80 thousand persons. The Chairmanship of Religious Affairs tries to instill the principles of Islam, such as unity, cooperation and helping one another, among the Turkish people according to the principles specified in the Constitution of the Republic of Turkey, by aiming at national solidarity and unity and remaining above all kinds of political views and thoughts.

The young population is the most dynamic and sensitive group in Turkey. The number of youth in the 12-24 age group constitutes 31 percent of the population in Turkey, which has a rather young population. Today, problems related to youth are among the important subjects dwelled upon on the agenda of Turkey. The expectations for the future of youth has been increasing gradually. The State engages in activities with the cooperation of national and international institutions, organizations and universities in order to determine the problems of the youth and to find solutions to these problems, within the framework of the economic, social and cultural structure. Significant progress has started to be made in recent years on the subject of the organization of youth by means of foundations, associations and youth organizations in the social and cultural fields.

The State and Youth
The services on subjects, such as education, health, working life, social security, employment, cultural life, utilization of free time and protection from harmful habits of the youth are provided by different ministries. Close to 14 ministries are directly involved with these subjects and other ministries, institutions and organizations are indirectly involved. It is planned to establish a Higher Council of Youth, formed by the representatives of public institutions and organizations and private organizations engaged in providing services for youth because these services and activities are multi-faceted and involve many institutions and organizations.

Thus, it is projected that youth services will be carried out in a more effective manner and their productivity will be increased. The utilization of the free time of youth is carried out by the General Directorate of Youth and Sports. The General Directorate besides providing sports services and activities, also provides services to youth and coordination of activities such as youth camps, youth centers, youth clubs and international organizations. The Youth Centers are cultural institutions that provide the opportunity and prepare the environment for utilizing the free time of youth in social, cultural and sports activities connected to the Provincial Directorates of Youth and Sports.

These centers organize activities to increase the knowledge and capabilities of the youth in various fields, such as art, science, sports, cartoon and handicrafts, and awards youth in these fields. The Youth Centers which also provide guidance and consultation services to assist in the solution of youth problems, organize various activities which provide the opportunity for youth to exhibit what they have done throughout the year. Furthermore, they inform the youth to protect them from harmful habits through conferences, panel discussions, symposia, competitions and other activities.

Positive results have been obtained from the activities made to increase the functions of the youth centers, and to have more youth become members of these centers. A total of 104 youth centers with 22,000 members are active in Turkey’s provincial and county centers as of 2000. The youth in the country is also provided with guidance services through 52 Youth Information and Guidance Bureaus. The celebration ceremonies of the “19 May Youth and Sports Holiday” that was presented to youth by Ataturk. Central and Regional Youth Camps organized by the General Directorate of Youth and Sports in the summer, provide the opportunity for the utilization of the free time of the youth outside of their fields of education and work.

In 1999, 6,293 young people attended the youth camps numbering 14. The week, including the “19 May Commemoration of Ataturk, and Youth and Sports Holiday”, has been celebrated as “Youth Week” in Turkey since 1983. Youth Week helps young people between 12-24 years of age living in the cities, towns and villages to get together every year and engage in cultural, artistic and sports activities in an atmosphere of fraternity and friendship and to become acquainted with each other. Youth Week have been celebrated at an international level since 1998.

The General Directorate of the Institution of Higher Education Loans and Dormitories was established in 1962 to solve the loan and housing problems and give assistance for the education of the youth in higher education. Student Information Offices have been established in large cities, in order to provide the various needs of youth who are attending schools. Dormitories and student boarding houses give services to solve the housing needs of the students receiving higher education.