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All images © by Roberto Piperno, owner of the domain. Write to romapip@quipo.it. Text edited by Rosamie Moore.
In Search of Oil Cunda (Alibey)/Aivali
(coats of arms at a gate of the Metelino fortress)

The Genoese lords of Metelino had a foothold on the Asian continent where they controlled the islet of Cunda (Alibey) which is located very near the mainland (today a bridge allows cars to reach the island).

View of Cunda
View of Cunda

Cunda had an almost entirely Greek population until 1923 when its inhabitants had to leave and were replaced with Turks who in turn had left their homes in Crete. The appearance of the town is without doubt very Greek.

Ruined churches
Ruined churches

A short stroll through the streets of Cunda shows that its many churches are in ruins after so many years of abandonment.

Wind mills
Windmills

At the top of the town there are some round towers which at least in more recent times were used as windmills: it is possible that they had a military purpose in an earlier period.

View towards the mainland
View towards the mainland

The islet of Cunda protects a very calm bay: on the mainland there is a relatively large town (Aivali/Ayvalik) which greatly developed in the second half of the XIXth century.

Olive oil
Old equipment for squeezing olives and a modern advertisement

Cunda is still known for its olive groves and olive oil, although its main resource nowadays comes from tourism and from its many summer residents.

An old villa in Cunda and a church turned into a mosque in Ayvalik
An old Greek villa in Cunda and a church turned into a mosque in Ayvalik (the statue portraying a whirling dervish is a modern addition meant to give a Turkish flavour to Cunda)

At Ayvalik they sell a T-shirt showing in the background a minaret and a bell tower and in the foreground the sentence: Ayvalik, crossroad of civilizations. It is a welcome sign that while in some other parts of the world enmity and hate seem to prevail, here (and also in Mytilini), the view of so many abandoned buildings where ordinary people lived ordinary lives has eventually brought a change in the minds and hearts of the new generations.

Ruined mosques in Mitilini
Ruined mosques in Mytilini

The image used as a background for this page shows a detail of an Ottoman building.

Return to Metelino.



SEE THESE OTHER EXHIBITIONS (for a full list see my detailed index).

Cosmopolitan AlexandriaVenetian Fortresses in GreeceA Genoese trade route