Polonezköy: Turkey’s Polish Village

The view from the Ludwik Dohoda made me want to go fox hunting.

There is a place where you can dream of kielbasa and golumpki. Unfortunately, all you can do is dream about it. You can’t have it. At least if you just pop in during the wintertime on a day trip. Don’t get me wrong, its history is interesting, and you should go there, if nothing else than for the sheer quirkiness of a Polish village in Turkey.

That’s right: a Polish village in Turkey.

At least it was once a Polish village. Today the graveyards still bear Polish names on tombstones, and restaurant signs still feature artists’ rendering of Polish couples in folk dress about to commence what appears to be a folk dance. But the fact is the little corner stores offer Pinar sausages (the major brand of meat here, the Oscar Meyer of Turkey, if you will) and the restaurants offer köfte (Turkish meatball) and kanat (grilled chicken wing) platters. Nevertheless, the Polish Catholic church, the tombstones, and the funky wooden sculpture garden done by a Polish artist will impress on you the very clear influence of the Polish identity of Polonezköy, also known as Adampol, which means village of Adam in Polish.

The three of us in front of the Ataturk House

In the first half of the 19^th century, Pols fled their homeland during the November rebellion of 1830 and about 220 settlers found their way to a pastoral woodsy area about 30 km from central Istanbul. The Turks welcomed the Poles because the Polish enemy was Russia, a big rival of the Ottoman Empire.

The settlers homesteaded and the village became a source of tourist curiosity even before World War I. Among the famous visitors to this village – where apparently 40 people still speak Polish fluently, and surely many more can return your ‘Dzien Dobry’  – was Ataturk back in 1937. I went to Polonezkoy a few days ago with my friend from Ankara, who had a car (unfortunately, the village isn’t reachable by public transportation) and a new friend from Couchsurfing, a traveler from France. The three of us were curious about the Ataturk house, so we inquired with man mowing a lawn in front. Turns out he is the owner, and he told us that Ataturk stayed at the house – for a 30-minute nap. Well, that’s enough time to mark the place as an Ataturk house in a country where he is a demi-god.

Polish cemetery

We sat and had tea with the owner, and he told us the story of how Ataturk got to have a few winks at his family’s place. Ataturk came to town with an entourage and was going to eat at another restaurant. But he saw a man shaving at that restaurant and was a little grossed out. Hearing that Ataturk had dropped his reservation, the elder lady of the Dragov family, which owned the place, put on her best clothes and went out and gave Ataturk a hug and invited him over. (Among other notable visitors were Pope John XXIII and Polish President Lech Walesa in 1994.)

The owner, Mehmet, proceeded to show us the “money room” at the Ludwik Dohoda, as the hotel is now called which has a brilliant view of fields and rolling hills. The three of us also managed to go on a nice hike along a stream, not a small feat in a corner of the world seriously lacking good hiking trails.

Many of the restaurants were closed for the season, but we did manage to get some light lunch at a courtyard restaurant run by a German expat (I love speaking Turkish with other foreigners, they are so much easier to understand!) before driving back to the metropolis. The bottom line is that Polonezköy is a great day trip or place to make a quick overnight getaway from the Istanbul. It’s easy to imagine watching the sun go down over the peaceful hills during the summer after a hectic day in the big bad Bul, while enjoying Polish food that is — hopefully — much easier to find in the summer.

At a wood sculpture garden in the middle of town is what appears to be a carving symbolizing Polish-Turkish unity.