Get Your Fake Fruit, Liver and Wrestling

Its purpose? To hold fake fruit of course!

As our bus from Istanbul passed a statue of colorful fruit in a bowl, it was clear Edirne wasn’t going to be an average mid-sized Turkish city. As I sat in a creaky stadium and watched oil-covered wrestlers of all shapes and sizes dueling in the long grass, it was clear Edirne is a unique world city as well.

Shortly after passing the giant bowl of produce, my travel companion and I split because she had to make her quad-annual border run in nearby Bulgaria – a bizarre yet familiar expat formality of crossing the border for 15 minutes to get a new visa for three months. But this wasn’t until we had the world famous Edirne ciger tava — fried liver. It consists of small pieces of the organ lightly fried in sunflower oil, which is abundant on the Thracian plain. We went to Niyazi Usta, recommended to us by a local shopkeeper as the best ciger joint in town. It didn’t disappoint. Served alongside oral bonfire-inducing red peppers, as well as salad and bread, those little nibblers of protein goodness have an intense, gamy  flavor that’s somewhat subdued by the slightly sweet oil. I made my friend, who is very picky about which meats she eats, try a piece. “Not bad,” she said to my surprise.

Afterwards, I pressed on to the outskirts of town to watch some dudes in leather pants get oiled up and roll around on the ground (it’s always how you spin it, right?), i.e. Yagli Gures, i.e. Turkish oil wrestling! Thinking it would just be a field and a parking lot, I was greeted with the Turkish equivalent of a county fair, only this centuries-old gathering had picnickers in every nook and cranny of the surrounding woods cracking sunflower seeds with boys practicing their wrestling moves, large rotisserie hens impaled by oversized stakes and sellers of acibadem (an almond-based Turkish cookie) walking around with their goods balanced on their heads. I thought I was leaving after hearing that prices to get in the stadium started at 30 bucks (I only had time for a short stay),but I managed to go around the back and snuck in a gate fronting the cheap seats.

A wrestler moves his arms up and down (left) either to evenly distribute the oil around his body, or just to warm up. Others duke it out.

Inside one can easily imagine what this competition looked like 649 years ago when the tradition began (it’s the longest continual sporting event in the world). Replace the creaky wooden stadium with tents and horses, and the collared shirts with Turkish robes and turbans, and you are back to a time when Turkish clans would meet from all corners of the empire. The loudspeaker boomed with names of wrestlers entering and leaving, much as someone long ago may have called out the names of athletes from tribes around Anatolia. “Mehmet Gucel…Tokat!”  “Serdar Koseoglu…Antalya!”

Not being much of a wrestling fan per se, I couldn’t really cheer when something dramatic happened. Dramatic things happened infrequently too (or maybe I don’t know what to look for) because the oil made truly grabbing one another about as easy as grabbing fish out of water dancing on a slippery boat. People get into it though. But I had to leave. I wish I could’ve stayed to watch the final, heavyweight match was to be broadcasted on national TV, but my border running friend returned from her distinctly unique yet usual errand and we sauntered off to check out Selimiye Camii on top of a hill in the heart of town.

The famous fried liver (right) next to peppers from Dante's inferno, salad and ayran.

Built in the 16^th century by the most famous Ottoman architect, Mimar Sinan, Selimiye stands in the middle of a complex of a medrese, hospital, bath and market, though now mainly just a market filled with Edirne’s famous fake-fruit shaped soaps (hence the fruit statue). The patterns on its ceiling are breathtaking, and the complexity of the little nubs and cornices surrounding and below the dome are more intricate than those of other major Turkish mosques. Selimiye is my third favorite mosque behind the Ulu Camii in Bursa and Suleymaniye Camii in Istanbul (the latter of which should be fully restored by now!).

Another note about Edirne: perhaps because it is a frontier town less than 50 km from the Bulgarian and Greek borders, it seems like people are used to foreigners speaking Turkish. In most places, you are either totally fluent, or a total foreigner who knows maybe five words and how to count to ten. In Edirne, the pacing and intonation of the lighter skinned locals is more slow and clear.

Or maybe that’s just a reflection of the laid back, Balkan-esque farm life on the plain, where seeds are planted in the spring and

Selimiye Mosque

there is plenty of time to down raki in the evenings. Whatever it is, gazing out over the river and its ancient arched bridge toward a long, flat horizon, you can’t help but think what a taxi driver said to my friend on her border run: Edirne has got everything!