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World’s largest underground city to be opened to tourism in Nevsehir in 2020

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Nevsehir Mayor has announced the first part of the world’s largest underground city will be opened in 2020. The whole of the underground city will be available for tourism services in 2023. During the renovation work conducted in an area of 425 thousand square meters where a continuous settlement took place from the early Byzantine period in the 6th century until today a church carved from rock and decorated with frescoes, tunnels, BEZIRHANEs, horse stables, SIRAHANEs, workshops, daily living areas and public spaces were found.

In the region very valuable materials such as grinding stones, hand-mills, molds, pottery, metal artifacts, coins and wood handling equipment used in daily life as well as Anatolia’s largest pipe collection and around 300 KANDILs (oil lamps) were unearthed from the land. This region is now expected to be opened as a new tourism destination for those to come from all over the world.

The mayor noted that a certain part (round the castle) of the world’s largest underground city will go into service in 2020 tourism week and the whole place will be ready for tourism in 2023, 100th anniversary year of the establishment of the Republic of Turkey.

The mayor also said, “Wherever I go in the world, I share something. I say you can find an alternative to the sea anywhere. You can find it in Antalya, Marmaris. You can find it in Italy, Spain and Greece etc. But you have no way of seeing and experiencing a region like Cappadocia anywhere in the world. So I say this is a fantastic and romantic city. It’s unique in the world. Because, the project we are doing resembles nothing in the world.

NOTES

BEZIRHANE: Linseed oil (bezir) production places used by the people of the region for lighting during the period when bezirhanes were built. Linseed oil was obtained as a result of the processing of the oil extracted from the weed after a weed species was crushed and processed in the bezirhane. The oils obtained were used for the lighting of churches, rock-carved places and underground cities by means of lamps.

ŞIRAHANE: Where grape juice is extracted

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