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Giresun Province
Giresun Province
Location of Giresun Province in Turkey
Overview
Region:	Black Sea Region, Turkey
Area:	6,934 (km²)
Total Population	523,819 TUIK 2007 (est)
Licence plate code:	28
Area code:	0454
Governor Website	http://www.giresun.gov.tr

Çımaklı village in the Espiye district, Giresun

Giresun is a province of Turkey on the Black Sea coast. Its adjacent provinces are Trabzon to the east, Gümüşhane to the south-west, Erzincan to the south, Sivas to the south-east, and Ordu to the west. The provincial capital is Giresun.

[edit] Geography

Giresun is an agricultural region of great natural beauty, especially in the highlands. The lower areas near the Black Sea coast are Turkey's largest producer of hazelnuts; a Giresun folk song tells "I will not eat a single hazelnut, unless you are by my side" ^[1], while another tells of a lover shot dead under a hazelnut tree ^[2] The higher mountain areas are forest and pasture and in places there is mining of copper, zinc, iron and other metals. The mountain villages are remote, with poor roads and little else in the way of infrastructure. And the hillsides are too steep for agriculture also, so for example cornbread is the traditional meal, as they cannot grow wheat. Life here is hard and in the past many people have left to find jobs in Turkey's larger cities or abroad.

The climate is typical of this stretch of the Black Sea coast i.e. very wet. Local flora includes bilberries (Turkish "taflan").

[edit] Districts

Giresun province is divided into 16 districts (capital district in bold):

[edit] Culture

[edit] Handcrafts

Due to the dense in Giresun, woodwork is among the common handcrafts in the region. Some of small wooden handcrafts peculiar to the city are churns, külek (a storing pot for cheese), an spoons. One of the oldest handcrafts in the city is weaving. Wool, linen threads and similar raw marerials are spun in hand looms to produce various local clothes, heybe (shoulder bags) and bags. Strong threads and knitted threads are also produced in hand looms.

[edit] Cuisine

Some of the dishes peculiar to the city are corn soup (Mısır çorbası), cabbage soup (lahana çorbası), cabbge leaves stuffed with a meat fillig (Etli lahana sarması), black cabbage dish (karalahana yemeği or pancar yemeği), pilaf with anchovy (hamsili pilav), piaf with cabbage (dible), kaygana, kuymak (made of cheese, cornmeal and butter)^[3]

[edit] Places of interest

Kümbet, Karagöl and Bektaş - areas of attractive mountain pasture in the district of Dereli, where people can enjoy walks and picnics. Annual folklore festivals are held here in summer.

[edit] Notable residents

Aksu stream, Giresun

[edit] Politicians

Topal Osman - (1883, Giresun - 2 Nisan 1923, Ankara), soldier and commander in the Turkish War of Independence
Mustafa Suphi - (1883, Giresun - 1921) founder of the Communist Party of Turkey
Hasan Âli Yücel (1897, İstanbul – 1961) poet, thinker and politician, former minister of education, born to a Görele family.
İdris Küçükömer (1925, Giresun - 1987) economist and thinker
Rahşan Ecevit (1923, Bursa - ) wife of former Turkish Prime Minister, Bulent Ecevit, born to a Şebinkarahisar family
Naim Tirali (1925, Giresun - ), journalist and politician
Hayrettin Erkmen (b Tirebolu - ) former foreign minister,
Harun Karadeniz (1942, Alucra-1975) writer and student activist leader of the 1968 generation

[edit] Writers and artists

Ergin Günçe (1938, Giresun - 1983) poet
Fethi Naci (1927, Giresun - ) writer and critic
Aziz Nesin - (1915, Şebinkarahisar - 1995), writer and journalist
Bedri Rahmi Eyüboğlu (1913, Görele - 1975, Istanbul), painter and poet
Ahmet Yalçınkaya (b 1963, Giresun ) poet,
Hamit Görele (1903, Görele - 1980, Istanbul), painter
Yaman Okay (b 1951, Giresun -), actor and film director
İlyas İlbey actor, husband of Yasemin Yalçın
İlker Yasin Kanal Ds football commentator
Hulki Cevizoğlu (b 1958, Giresun - ), journalist, TV presenter and producer, specialises in political debate
Kadir Çelik (b Görele )TV producer and presenter,
Şafak Karaman (b 1967, Trabzon - ) minor celebrity and TV presenter, born to a Tirebolu family
Öztürk Serengil well-known film actor, father of Seren Serengil, grew up in Giresun
Salih Memecan (1952, Giresun - ), cartoonist of Sabah (newspaper).

[edit] Musicians

Giresun shares the folk music of the Black Sea region and is the birthplace of:

Katip Şadi (b 1932, Görele -) folk musician, player of the Kemençe, a local version of the violin.

Other musicians include:

Teoman (1967, Alucra - ), rock singer
Ozan Arif (1949, Alucra - ), poet, lyricist, balladeer of the extreme right MHP.
Bahadır Aydoğan Arabesk style singer
Mustafa Küçük folk-arabesk musician
Gökhan Semiz(1968, Istanbul- 1998 İstanbul) member of the pop music group Group Vitamin, family from Giresun

[edit] Sports people

Şenes Erzik (1942, Giresun -) Businessman and vice president of UEFA
Footballers Tolga Seyhan (b 1977 -) and Gokdeniz Karadeniz (b 1980 Giresun, currently with Rubin Kazan)
Hasan Gemici - 1952 Olympic gold medalist in freestyle wrestling

Giresunspor are a 2nd(Bank Asya 1.Lig)league football team.

[edit] Giresun in popular culture

The TV series Uy Başuma Gelenler was filmed in the village of Düzköy, its the story of a young man from Istanbul who inherits a hazelnut grove in Giresun (a Turkish twist on Monarch of the Glen.
The folk song Giresun üstünde vapur bağrıyor (Eşref Bey Ağıtı) meanwhile has been recorded by a number of artists including Ismail Hakkı Demircioğlu, and tells of a wounded soldier dying in Giresun
Giresun'un içinde has been sung by Musa Eroğlu, Selda Bağcan and Fuat Saka, who also sang Lazutlar which means corn in the local dialect and is a kind of Cider with Rosie rural idyll in verse.
Ahmet Kaya sang Mican a ballad about a local bandit in the mountains.