kınalıada

kinali house, may 2013

I took these two photographs in Istanbul. The first, a dish of plums and the second the bedroom where my grandmother slept. Kınalıada  means "Henna Island" in Turkish, as the land has a reddish colour from the iron and copper that has been mined there. Ottoman Greeks called it Proti, and they and their Armenian neighbors built Ottoman-Victorian summer villas on the island, many of which survived along with several churches.

My mother and her family were one of the many Armenian families who had a house on Kınalı   Her summers were spent there without cars, walking the whole island, swimming in the sea and running away from the stray dogs. Her house is still there, but it has unfortunately been sold years back. 

I stayed on the island at a family friends home there this past May with my mother, father, aunt and grandmother. 

The reward: the many small beaches on Kınalı hat were less crowded with day-trippers from the city, hearing Armenian on the streets, the stray dogs and cats, walking the streets of my mother's childhood.