Lysistrata

Lysistrata is a one-act theatrical play written by Aristophanes in BC 411. The play, which is thought to have been staged for the first time in the spring of BC411, is considered one of the first anti-war plays in the history of theatre. It is about the events that develop when the women who are tired of waiting for their men to return from the war, decide not to share their beds with the men in order to end the war. When the men fail to put an end to the war, Lysistrata thinks that women should take over and force peace. First they will refuse to have sleep with their men, then they will seize the Acropolis, the state reserve money stored in the Parthenon, and they will collapse the war power of Athens. Lysistrata gathers women, including Lampito of Sparta and women from other hostile states. Although the women are reluctant at first, they accept Lysistrata's plan and vow to carry it out. It is Aristophanes' third play. Known as the author's best established, most humane comedy, the play has been staged by hundreds of theater companies in many countries around the world. A similar incident was described in the movie "The Shalwar Case". I will tell you another similar incident today. "Kalecik Karası" grapes, known by the name of the same place, are grown in Kalecik, a small county of Ankara. Local investors who want to produce grapes, they rent vacant areas from Treasury for 49 years. The investor makes the land suitable for agriculture, then plants of "Kalecik Karası" grapes and looks after them. In about 5-7 years, the vines grow, develop, and begin to produce large-seeded local black grapes. These grapes are not for table consumption. Grape juice is squeezed, then grape juice is used to make vinegar, molasses and wine. Some regional villages have grown these grapes in their own places for centuries, some of them have seriously aged wines. Landowners who want to make wine for industrial sales, collect the grapes with day-to-day agricultural workers, load them on trucks, and take them to nearby wineries during the vintage season. Some sell them all to nearby factories, some buy them in bottled or oak barrels in exchange for grapes. These young wines are aged, bottled after 2-4 years and then released to the market. There are VinArt, Kavaklıdere and Diren wineries producing Kalecik Karası wines in the county. Kalecik Karası is also produced on the slopes of Alacati, Thrace and Cappadocia in other regions, but the plants of these regions are mixed with other grapes and are genetically degraded. Therefore, it is necessary to prioritize the grapes and factories of Kalecik region for Kalecik Karası wine. In one of these factories, factory managers wondered, "How is traditional wine produced in nearby villages?", Local people of nearby villages produce wine, but they do not put it on the market, they consume it domestically. Few are on sale at the weekly open farmer's market, with little offered to guests as courtesy during family home visits. Managers then send mostly male food engineers to the nearby village cafe to learn how to make wine locally. Young people enter the cafe, greets a group of old men and then they ask about the local winemaking method. A grandfather, who is a leader among the elderly, twists his machete mustache, then explained the situation as follows: "I don't know how to make wine, I just drink a fair amount every day. Women make wine here." Young people go to the fountain this time, they ask the same question there, the women answer, "Women make wine here, what happens to you men?" They see that this business of information gathering is not working, they cannot get information, the young woman among food engineers has been sent to the fountain. Village women take the young female food engineers to their homes and explain the traditional wine-making ritual in detail. During the vintage period, from mid-August to the beginning of October, the grapes on the vines are picked by the men, these grapes are squeezed by the men as only washed from the rain, the grape juice is filled indoors in wooden barrels that were buried in the ground centuries ago, there is always yeast in the barrels. The lids are closed. Every month, the covers are opened and the foam created on the top is removed. When the first young wine is produced in six months or a year, then it is pumped into aging barrels, aged there, and then bottled. The wine is presented to their father. Of course, good wine is given to a good father. The mother of the house does not give good wine to the man of the house who treats her badly, they only make vinegar that year. The fathers don't know about the elders' winemaking, but they drink the finest home-made wine all year. After hearing this story, I went to the nearest kiosk in the city. I found the 2020 production of Diren Winery's red Kalecik Karası wine, it had a price of 65 liras before Christmas, now it is sold for 85 liras. There are various fruit flavors with a predominance of plum, no alcohol is felt, no astringency, no acid. Go to the public bazaar of Kalecik district for vintage, if you are respectful and polite, maybe they will give you half a glass for a tasting as courtesy. Ankara, 5 March 2022

Ukraine, Russia, Turkey OpEd

In 1976, I attended a technical training program organized by the United Nations in Moscow for a period of four months on behalf of Turkey. I had just graduated from school and started to work in a public institution. The Soviet Union was experiencing the Brezhnev era. The cold war continued, Moscow was closed to the rest of the world and the West. The UN gathered young engineers from thirty different developing countries of the world. They gave us technical training in machining at a technical university in Moscow. They taught us simple Russian for communication in the market or on the street, the Russian lessons were held in English. Professors were Russian. Our English practice was better than theirs. They made a itinerary to take us to a Soviet city every month. First we went to the city of Leningrad by train, where we wandered around for a week. The next month we stayed in Tashkent for a week. Then we stayed in Yerevan, Armenia for the third month, and we saw and toured the Metsamor nuclear power plant. There was Kiev, Ukraine in the program also, scheduled for the last month of our course, but I had to return early to my home country. I could not participate in Kiev program. Years passed, I always thought of making a Kiev program for myself, but it did not happen. It was said to compete with Moscow with its Orthodox churches, Opera, Concert halls, museums and wide streets. It was a rich country with its vast plains mainly producing wheat and other grains, coal with high calorific value and precious rare mineral resources. Now, images of Ukraine appear on the Internet and TV news, and I watch in horror. Being neighbor to its northern neighbor is a difficult geographical fate. The northern neighbor does not want a NATO or EU member formation in the countries that borders itself. In the difficult economic conditions of 1989 and after, Bulgaria, Romania, Poland and the Baltic countries joined NATO, but such adhoc formations are impossible from now on. Georgia wanted to enter NATO, but the superpower neighbor did not allow it. Azerbaijan always got on well with Russia and did not embark on such adventures. Former Soviet members in the Central Asian republics always followed in the footsteps of their elder brother. Finland and Sweden have been independent since WWII and are not part of any defense pact. We often act in our own interests. Due to the fate of Turkish geography, we have a fuel dependency on our northern neighbor. We could not free ourselves from this addiction. We have been a member of NATO since 1952, but we are taking our foreign policy of acting independently and using our past WW2 experince and abstaining from the WW2 process. We use our protection opportunities provided by the Montreux agreement on Bosphorus. Unfortunately, the Ukrainian administration and people do not have much choice, they have no opportunity to act otherwise. Ukranians cannot withstand much in the face of almost unlimited human and weapon power of its Eastern neighbor. The effect of Stringent and Javelin weapons from the USA and EU countries will be limited, foreign troop support is impossible. Freezing the bank accounts of the upper administrators and financial SWIFT sanctions are not enough for the neighbors. I hope and wish everything will get through with the least damage, I would say.