Day 7: Bursa

 

As we enjoyed a more relaxed Sunday afternoon we cracked down Monday morning: we’re in the hotel lobby by 6:30am to catch the ferry boat at 7:30 that was taking us to Bursa.

As we arrived in Bursa our first stop was an olive production farm. This is the largest cooperative that produces black olives instead of green olives. They have over 5 million olive trees, and they process olives for about 8 other cooperatives and 30 olive producers. This olive farm controls 1/3 of the black olive production and Germany is their top export market. The group was very surprised that the green tanks that the olives are held in can hold up 8 - 9 tons.  The tanks are over 10 feet deep. An interesting fact is that olives are harvested in November and at this production system there are 2 different ways to process the olives. They are either put into tanks where only salt and water are added and stay in these tanks for 6 months at room temperature, or the olives can stay in the tanks for 3 months by heating the olives, which makes the process faster. The method chosen depends on market demand for olives.

After the olive farm, we arrived at Uludağ University where we got to meet one of our professor’s good friends from graduate school, Dr. Ozden Cobanoglu.  Dr. Ozden guided us all day in Bursa. We had an opportunity to meet with some college students from the Uludağ University who were studying veterinary medicine. Lots of connections were made with these students despite the language barrier. As we left Uludağ University on our way to downtown Bursa we just so happened to see a Case dealership, where almost all of us agricultural kids on the bus had a happy moment that there was more than just large cities in Turkey!

We arrived next at the tombs of the first Ottoman, Osman I.  Osman I was the founder of the Ottoman Empire and he lived from about the mid-1200s to early 1300s.  We also visited the Grand Mosque in Bursa.

Next, we went to a silk market where there was any kind of scarf, head wear, or body wear you could think of.  They showed us that real silk will not burn when lit on fire, which was neat for all of us to see. As we left the silk shops, we stopped at the Umurbey Silk Production and Design Center, where we met the owner of the operation, which was started by his great-grandparents. The only electricity that is used in this building are the ceiling lights. Silk is taken from a white cocoon that a worm has made and did not make it into the moth stage. In this production system there are over 120 colors in the silk carpets and there is natural die used to make all the colors. It takes about 9 months to make silk. There are many knots involved in making silk; for example, one silk product we saw had 200 knots per square centimeter. What was the most rewarding for both the producer and us was that the USA is their top export market.

We then had supper and jumped into a bus for over 4 hours to Ankara, which is the capital of Turkey. A late night so now time to get some sleep!

Raelynn Burg