Is ‘here’ still there? explores the fragile intersection of memory, place and change through the voices of Sinop's residents. By engaging in conversations with the locals about the ice factory, the shipyard neighborhood, the marketplace building, and the fortress prison complex, Is ‘here’ still there? weaves a tapestry of personal and communal histories through landmark structures of Sinop.

By capturing their recollections of these places, once integral to the fabric of daily life, but now all transformed and repurposed, and playing them within the locations being described, Is ‘here’ still there? invites listeners to re-imagine the past lives of these places and to engage with the ephemeral nature of memory.

We hear the voices of perhaps the last generation of people in Sinop, who still remember these places as they once were; functioning in their intended capacities. As these voices describe those places long ago - when the marketplace was vibrant with merchants and customers, when the ice-making building provided ice to fishers and residents alike, when the shipyard neighborhood had a “less than savory” reputation, and the prison complex had inmates rather than tourists - they evoke a sense of nostalgia and reflection on what has been lost and what has been gained, for better or for worse.

Conversations with :

Sinop Fortress Prison :

-Mr. Ali, Lived next to Sinop Fortress Prison as a child.
Anonymous, A gentleman responsible for demolishing the non-historic buildings of Sinop Fortress Prison
-Hatice Çiçeksever, Sinop Resident
-Mr. Hakan & Mr. Fatih, Sinop Residents
-Mr. Ahmet, Sinop Fortress Prison warden

Transcription of sound placement:

A: My childhood was spent on a street next to the historical prison, Sinop Prison. We moved to that street when I was about five or six. It was our own house, the house we lived in on that street. One of my biggest memories, something I recall from that time, was a fire. I was around five or six years old then. A fire had broken out, and I saw the flames rising from the roof of the prison from our house’s window. I was deeply affected by it, as it was the first time I had seen such a large fire at such a young age. There was panic, there were loud noises, and people were shouting. Naturally, as a child, you are deeply affected by such things. That is what I remember.

From our house, we could see a wooded area, which we called a trench, between our house and the prison wall. Now, that area has been turned into Sabahattin Ali Street, cleared by the municipality. After that trench, we could see the old fortification walls and the soldiers’ watchtowers. We could hear the soldiers’ whistles, and at certain times, when the prisoners were let out into the yard, we could hear their shouts. We would watch the soldiers on guard, with the light shining on them at night and morning. Of course, it was impossible to see inside the prison from the outside. The walls were so high that even if you climbed to the roof, you could not see the inside. Naturally, we were curious about the lives of the prisoners inside, and their conditions, but unfortunately, we could not enter or see anything from the outside. I also remember something else from my childhood: one day, our window got broken. I believe it was hit by one of the letters used in the prison’s printing press, likely thrown by the prisoners. Our window was shattered. That’s another memory I have. Other than that, we did not know much about what was happening inside.

Some of our neighbors in the neighborhood used to plant crops in that wooded area we called the trench where there were wild plants and even some wild animals like martens. It was a neglected place but some neighbors would plant things like tomatoes and peppers in the summer, growing their little gardens there. As I recall, there was probably a bakery at the entrance of the main road. They demolished the bakery, and the area from the main road down to the sea was turned into a park. Benches and plenty of seating areas were placed, and the area was lit up. It was nice. Of course, the wildlife disappeared from there. Then, they named the road Sabahattin Ali Street.

You could not just go into the trench area I mentioned. It was very hard to access; you had to jump from buildings and pass through backyards. But then, the mayor at the time declared the area a park, improved it, and turned it into a proper Street. Because of the elevation difference, the prison walls were higher than our house. The only thing we remember clearly are the bright lights from the watchtowers. We could see those lights, but as I mentioned earlier, it was impossible to see inside the prison, not even from the roof. Of course, our elders, our parents and grandparents, might have more memories from those times, but it was like a closed box in the end. From the outside, all you could see were the walls and the soldiers. These are the things I remember.

Now, they did this: when the new prison was built, the inmates in the historic prison were moved into the new one. They opened the old one to the public for tours, so people could walk around and see what was inside. Believe it or not, I went and visited it five or six years after it opened. It was right across from my house, the building was so familiar to me that it felt normal, like a school or a house in the neighborhood. After all, it was a prison in the middle of the neighborhood. One day, a friend of mine came from out of town with his wife and said, "Hey Ali, we want to tour the prison." I said, "Honestly, that sounds like a good idea. It has been five or six years since it opened, and I have not even visited it myself." I said, "Thanks to you, this gives me a good excuse to finally visit. That is how I visited it. A friend of mine from Bafra had come with his wife, and we went together. But honestly, the atmosphere there is very different. There are places where executions took place, dungeons, and only certain prisons have that kind of history. You have probably heard about it too, famous people like Sabahattin Ali were imprisoned there, along with mafia bosses and other well-known figures in the past… They modernized it a bit now, I think. The older version, before the renovations, felt more authentic. When I visited, I could almost feel the weight of that history.

B: I did construction work over there. Let me tell you what was in there. There was a bakery. There was a military unit, a military barracks. The current bakery moved up to the top, where the minibus stops are now. There used to be the house of the prison warden, an old wooden house. Right across from it, down below next to the fortificatşons, there was a concrete building where the military unit was stationed. Those were cleared out. The two of them…

A: Ok now? I remember there was a bakery at the beginning of Sabahattin Ali Street.

B: Not at the beginning of Sabahattin Ali Street.

A: On Sakarya Street.

B: No, not Sakarya Street! No! It was right at the top. Do you know where? At the entrance, just above where the current bus stops are.

A: But there was a bakery down below, for God's sake brother!

B: That was the generator room, the old generator room. They turned it into a bakery.

A: On Sakarya Street, after you pass the mosque.

B: Okay.

A: Passed Sakarya Mosque.

B: Okay.

A: There is Hotel Gül.

B: Okay.

A: There were small shops next to it.

B: Okay.

A: There was a bakery next to those shops.

B: The bakery next to the shops was not the prison’s bakery.

A: It was not!

B: The prison had its own bakery.

A: I am not talking about the prison’s bakery. That small bakery was demolished. The street was opened up, they built the road on top of it.

B: The buildings were cleared, they laid down the road. .

A: That is what I am talking about.

B: I am talking about the inside of the prison because people now pay to visit. There is a door down below.

A: Oh, they had their bakery, right? In the prison.

B: Of course, the prison had its bakery back then. There is a door down below.

A: Yes, they cleaned out the buildings inside the prison.

B: I tore down the buildings inside the prison...

A: The buildings that were built later.

B: The additional buildings that were built later. There’s a door, the main entrance, the Lonca Gate. And there’s another door down below, the stick entrance gate.

A: Do you have any memories from inside the prison?

C: No. I just tore down the additional buildings and cleared the rubble back then.

A: The prison courtyard?

B: Let me tell you, the current military unit was right across from the shipyard, the arm of the shipyard. The place where the military unit is is between those two locations. That place was where Sinop's first minting occurred, what do you call it?

A: The mint.

B: What do you call minting?

A: The mint.

B: There was a mint there. It was located between the two prison wings, the two wards. Historians and museologists have mentioned this as well. Also, many cannonballs were found; a tremendous number, close to a hundred cannonballs were recovered, and all of them were collected and brought in.

A: Well, but you did this cleaning…

B: Of course...

A: You do it when?

B: Yes, I did it in 2010.

A Oh.

B: In 2010, I did the environmental cleaning of that area, the old state of the prison...

A: …to restore it to its former state.

B: I did the environmental cleaning to bring it back to its old, historical state.

A: So, the additions that were made later...

B: They were demolished, you know, with heavy machinery and so on...

A: There are no longer any prisoners there.

B: Of course not, they have removed the door as well, and the large entrance gate of the prison has been taken down. The old sliding iron door. There used to be a sliding iron gate that could be moved from one side to the other. There are still two sections for children upstairs. There was a youth detention center, a place called a reform school, which I wish everyone could visit. I would love it if everyone could visit that old building. Also, the area where the cells are located, what did they call them? The cells of the people... People… "cells." There are many of those as well, and Sabahattin Ali's cell was there too. The cells where he wrote...

B: Including the toilet... Let me put it this way: it is like a cell that is one and a half by one and a half, or two by two meters. Yes, one and a half by two meters. There is no bigger cell there. There are big doors, iron doors… There are places where food is served from below. The toilet is there, the bed is there, the handwashing area is there, everything is in there. Everything is inside the cell. They were the wet cells of the youth detention centre. Then there are the main cells below. We didn’t have the chance to explore those at that time. I mean, from the main hall, there were carpentry workshops inside...

There were also weaving workshops, not casting workshops. They did weaving work, and there were carpet and rug workshops. At that time, we could not explore them much because we were busy with demolition. That is about all I know about the prison. I was one of the cleaners there at that time. In other words, I had to deal with the dirt. If I may say so, the 'filth.' But we cleaned the place to uncover the structures of the historical prison and the fortress.

B: For about a month, two trucks were constantly hauling away debris. I demolished, filled, and disposed of the rubble. There was landscaping done around the area. A significant amount of waste was removed, around thirty truckloads of filth, to be precise. The new building was made of stone and brick, and when it was demolished, there was also a three-floor old building that was later turned into the director's house, which was also torn down. The bakery was removed too. They were taken down to reveal the old silhouette because additional buildings had been constructed on the historic prison later on. Since it was a prison, the needs of the inmates took precedence, and historical significance didn’t matter much at the time. They had built a military structure there, thinking, "What should we do with this place?" There was a large furnace because they needed to supply bread for the inmates. It was quite an impressive baker's furnace. They decided to build a lodge for the director, constructing a three-story building that was three stories visible from the prison side and one and a half stories visible from the back.

A: The elevation. Yes.

B: Yes, because of the elevation difference. Below that, there was Sinop’s old historical gate. Before Sinop existed, one of the three gates of the ancient wall was inside the prison. What was it called? Was it the Lonca Gate? I am not sure which one exactly, but it was an entrance named something like Lonca Gate. I do not know the exact names. It was from that period. The best remark for Sinop Historical Prison was given by a traveler. Ali, what was his name?

A: Who are you talking about?

B: A traveler or ‘seyyah’. He came and wrote about it. It was not Mehmet Çelebi. He was from Konya... It could be Çelebi as well. He wrote, "There were such guards that..."

A: Was he a prisoner?

B: Huh?

A: Was he an inmate here?

B: Did he sevre time? No, not an inmate. He was a traveler...

A: Just touring around.

B: He was touring, a traveler, "seyyah" means traveler. He wrote something like, "There were such guards that you could hang a man from guard's every single mustache hair." And right at the entrance, in the tower, when you first enter the prison, to the right, inside the tower was a room like a solitary confinement room nobody could enter or leave. They would tie people up with chains, almost like a crucifixion, he wrote, this traveler, but I do not remember his name. The current prison building was originally a military structure, located at the entrance to Sinop, including the prison fortress. When you entered from the top gate, there used to be a bakery on the right side, and next to it, a lodge.

Then there were smaller things around, like laundry rooms. There were these little laundry rooms, one after the other. They were all demolished and cleared. Those were later additions, and they had nothing to do with the historical part. When we were demolishing one of those laundry rooms, behind it, there was a pile of dirt because of the elevation difference, and that area had collapsed slightly. While cleaning it, we found an incredible number of cannonballs. When I say cannonballs, I mean stone ones, the kind they used to launch with catapults at ships. This place used to be a shipyard long ago, and those cannonballs were from that time, hundreds of years old. Some of the cannonballs were small, about 10 centimeters in diameter. But the others were bigger, around 30 centimeters in diameter. Not perfectly round, but close to it. These were at least 30 centimeters, and they were made of flint, not just any stone. Handmade, crafted with precision. Alright, I have got to go now. See you later!

A: I am 73 years old. The Sinop of my time is considered as the 1968 generation. We lived exceptionally well, it was a beautiful city. Do you know what makes Sinop so special, my dear? Sinop is a peninsula. The house where we’re having this conversation was built in 1940, but this area is much older. Do you see the mosque next door? That is an Ottoman mosque. A little further, you can see the most famous prison in Turkey. Right next to it is the military recruitment office. As you went further into the city, they built the main market hall around the 1960s, no not the 1960s, 1950s. The city was centered in the heart of this peninsula. You could walk everywhere and go without fear.

There were small cinemas, and on weekends, people would decorate donkeys and ride them into the harbor. Planes would land in Akliman, to deliver mail and cargo to the Americans and everyone would go watch the planes land. They would even bring gifts. Sinop was a small city, both historically rich and full of life. It was a very charming place. Why? Because there was no over development. The houses were built in a zigzag pattern according to the wind. Most of them were wooden and detached, like this very old house we are in. The wind would pass between the houses, so we did not have dampness or the oppressive heat like now. It was truly wonderful.

A: There was this huge guard at the prison, a big, burly guy who would sit right in front of us. The prison housed famous inmates, like Sabahattin Ali, known for the song. But they (the inmates) never harmed the city. In old photos, you can see that the sea started right at the prison walls. Women with animals would go there to collect leftover bread. But now, a road runs through that area, and the prison is now further inland, so you can not see how it used to be. It was beautiful back then. I can show you from our terrace now, you can still see the prison from here. The prison had towers, and soldiers would patrol them. We were always curious to see the soldiers. Our house is nearby, with a view of the fortification towers and sometimes prisoners would come and stand right there. We would see them and think about their lives, and their experiences.

There was no traffic back then. When the inmate transport bus came to drop off new inmates, drivers would go, "Oh," saying, "Another infamous prisoner has come." For example, the husband of a famous actress, though I can not remember his name right now, was an inmate, and everyone would talk about it. The unique thing about Sinop Prison is that it is surrounded by fortress walls, so there is no way to escape. It was right next to the sea, and there were cells for dangerous prisoners above the water, with the sea flowing underneath. Spending your life there must have been terrible. But the prison also had some nice things. They made beadwork, model sailboats, walnut cigarette boxes, and handcrafted items. We still have some of those at home, I’ll show you. It was almost like a rehabilitation center. It was not an ugly or frightening place just because it was a prison. It had a certain beauty to it.

H: When the old prison was first officially unregistered and the new one was opened,I was studying at the fine arts high school here in Sinop. We used to go there and sketch it. But we were not good at archiving, so none of those works remain. The place stood abandoned for years. As the number of visitors increased, the prison’s popularity grew, especially after a TV series filmed in Sinop. However, we weren’t ready for that kind of attention, there wasn’t anything to truly explain its history. There were no guides, just a man with a big mustache, one of the last guards to retire from there. Nobody liked him, but he managed to tell some stories; good or bad, even if they were not true. He would tell tales like, "We did this, we did that," or "We made them lie down, we made them get up…" from that period. I still don't think there are any tangible stories about the realities of the prison.

Since we are somewhat involved in tourism, the companies doing business here… Big tourism companies have their portfolios and give a tour of the prison to one of their clients. The person walks around and sees four walls. Yes, there’s a history, there are new videos about it. But when they see it, they say “Yeah, I have seen it, okay,” and that’s it. The companies complain that they can not show the same thing to their clients repeatedly. Because of this, the popularity of the prison has been gradually declining.

The number of truly impressed people is quite few because we can not build a proper narrative around it. Since it was originally a castle turned into a prison, the conditions were harsh, and it wasn’t suitable as a prison. So, they just placed people there. But it was not a healthy environment. It’s a building that breathes moisture, water, and dampness, which can take a toll on a person. It gained a reputation because of the hardships people faced while living there. Of course, it also has a historical structure, having housed many civilizations over time. In my opinion, the prison’s popularity spiked after the TV series, but if you look back, even in the early films, they filmed scenes outside the Sinop Prison gates. So, there is something about it that we do not fully understand.

A: Because this place was a place of exile. Sinop Prison was famous for that. Before the period Hakan was talking about, there was something else like what Sabahattin Ali wrote in his famous song lyrics, "The waves come and lick the walls." Back then, the waves used to truly lick the walls of the prison, but later, they filled in that area. In my opinion, that is where the greatest betrayal of Sinop started. Sinop could have been like Venice, but the whole story was cut off with that filling. Then they kept filling in other places, and eventually, we messed up the city. But the prison has a tragic history tied to it. For example, there were people sentenced to death, who later received a pardon, but they still ended up dying. The conditions were so bad; dampness, extreme humidity, physically unbearable conditions. Just terrible in every sense.

When we were filming something related to the prison, we interviewed two people, though we could not speak to one of them because he had passed away. People were thrown into dungeons, as the prison's entrance was essentially a dungeon. It was an extremely harsh place. Sinop Prison mostly held political prisoners at the time; my father spent 18 days there, and a friend’s father was also imprisoned there. Both right-wing and left-wing people were imprisoned there. The story I mentioned is about three prisoners—one right-wing, one left-wing, and another all thrown into the dungeon together. The conditions were so bad that they had no idea what to do; where to eat, what to drink, where to relieve themselves, excuse my language. After staying there for a week with no light or anything, they came out as close friends, hugging each other to survive.

H: I guess that’s what rehabilitation means, right?

A: Because under those conditions, you lose everything, even ideology, your whole sense of purpose. That is why Sinop Prison is mostly remembered through such stories; the harsh conditions of that time. But now, it has been transformed into something entirely new. Whether that is a good thing or a bad thing is really up for debate.

H: Yes, its functionality, its whole identity has changed. Just like what happened to the old icehouse is happening to the prison as well...

A: It was 1989, I started (my duty as a prison guard) on July 31. The inmates were first transferred to the new prison in 1996, but I moved there in 1998. I retired in 2016. At first, I was assigned to the entrance gate here. The staff entrance and the inmate entrance were both from here. Staff would come in, sign in downstairs, and then go to their designated blocks. When a prisoner first arrived, they would bring them to what we called the "kapı altı" (down below) area. Do you want me to explain the process to the inmates? They would be brought there, undergo a full body search, and after being handed over by the military or police, they would be searched again. Based on their condition, they would be assigned to different sections, or if they were more troublesome, we had solitary cells at the back where they would stay for a night. After that, a decision would be made, a committee would meet to determine whether they should remain in solitary confinement or be released.

The first place the inmate arrives is here, at what we call "kapı altı." My voice is a bit on the quiet side, eh? Here, an inmate goes through a body search and is processed before being sent to their designated section. From here, they can not go beyond the fortress. We used to have workshops here; carpentry, rug-making, even a shoe repair shop but they demolished all these buildings, it is a shame. Go inside and look around, you could not see a trace of them. There used to be offices here. There was an escape once, and I was here when it happened. We experienced it all… Now, over there we had a dungeon, but during my time, no one was ever put in there. It was used as storage, a coal storage room. Over here was the visiting area. Inmates would come from the other side.

This was the administration building. There used to be a checkpoint here. I was assigned there. If only you could see it, the place that used to be like a garden is now it looks like this. There were people stationed here. One night, I was on night watch, along with other colleagues at the checkpoint. We had someone stationed here, someone below. Around midnight while we were sitting, we heard a loud noise above us, something rattled the tin roof. We wondered what it was, maybe someone was coming? We looked up, and there was an opening. We thought it was a cat, figured it went inside, and said, "It is just a cat." Then, for the first time in my life, I saw a marten. It was this long creature that came down. We thought it was a cat and started chasing after it. When the big rats saw it, they started running out from the grates. Since it could not go anywhere, we chased it, and it darted out from behind the fig trees by the wall and disappeared. That was the last we saw of it. That is what happened.

This part used to be a juvenile prison. The inmates would go from here to the workshops. Let’s say there were about 150 child inmates, not all, but around 70, 80, or 90 would go down to the workshops. We would stand guard at the doors. Of course, no child could leave without permission, but they would walk around the yard. When I say 'children,' these were kids from the East, a bit under eighteen, but late entries into the registry, and some of them were strong enough to easily throw me around if they wanted to. They would wander around the yards, those who did not work. We had carpenter shops and blacksmith shops. The kids would walk around there. They would sleep in this building, on the upper floors.

This area was called 'observation,' and there were single cells for those who could not stay in the general dormitories or who wanted to be alone, the troublemakers. On the right side of this building was the library, and on the left was the prayer room. We used to go up to the second floor, where the dormitories were. There were two or three of us guards, and they would lock us inside with about a hundred inmates. The doors of the cells were open, and there were around thirty kids in each dormitory. We had a blacksmith shop, an armory, a basketball court, and a fountain here. This was the first observation area, and that over there was the second. We had a tea station and a dining hall over here. There was also a bakery. We used to eat over there. On weekends, when there were no workshops, we would be here with a hundred inmates. We would take them upstairs; sometimes there would be fights, and we would hear someone smash a window and cut themselves.

One of the observation areas had its entrance right here. We had a bakery here, but they tore it down. It is such a shame, they ruined this whole prison. There used to be a bakery, and below that was the kitchen. There were dining halls around here too, but they destroyed all of it. Over here, there was a bathhouse for the children where they could get drinks. There was a guard station here, and our trash bins were behind the building. There was a firewood and coal storage area over here as well. But we could not see down from here like we can now; a roof used to block the view. This was the juvenile section of the prison, for kids aged 16 to 18. However, in the East, children were registered late, so some of them, despite being considered children, were huge and could have thrown me around if they wanted to. I was tiny next to them.

There was also a section downstairs for some older prisoners, especially those who worked in the workshops, like carpenters. The well-behaved ones stayed down there. The observation cells were tough places. The women’s section was just down here, in the area we called ‘Malkara,’ which had solitary cells. Men and women, there used to be around fifteen to twenty women, were held separately. This area used to be our school. Prisoners would walk around here while we stayed inside. When I started working here, there were Palestinian prisoners. They had attacked the Egyptian Consulate in Ankara and were awaiting execution. One of them, named Muhammed, spoke such fluent Turkish, it was impressive. I also saw a prisoner on death row during my first assignment. His name was ‘Seyfettin Uzun’, but by the time I was there, executions had been outlawed.

I spent a lot of time working at the front gate, but I also worked in the solitary confinement cells, where they would place the troublemakers. Eventually, they would be sent back to the dormitories. I never saw anyone sent to the dungeon during my time, but before I arrived, there was an incident where the prison was set on fire, with ten guards and a hundred prisoners. The juvenile inmates were young but physically big and tough, some could easily toss me around. In the dormitories, there were about a hundred inmates, and we were locked in there with them. Smoking was forbidden, but when I’d walk into a dormitory, I’d see smoke in the air. They’d try to hide their cigarettes under the beds, which sometimes caught fire. I’d come in and say, ‘Open the windows,’ on purpose, knowing they were smoking. Children, though, are different from adults. They lose their temper quickly. We had gardens, fruit trees, and cornfields. There was a bathhouse, a kitchen, and a storage room. There was even a fig tree here, and our school was nearby. Prisoners used to walk around here. The women's section was over there.

That was the dormitory where Sabahattin Ali was held; the third dormitory, as they say, was not from my time. But those doors were built later. There was also a school here, a small school across from where we are now. (one day) We were on duty there. We were conducting an interview with an inmate, and there was another troublesome child in the observation area. All of a sudden the observation area got all mixed up, and we went there. We saw that one of the children was a big kid who had been taken out of the public dorm. One of them had a glass pressed against his throat, saying, ‘Do not come near!’ It was a narrow observation area, and we were pleading, saying, ‘Please, don’t do it!’ We left the child there for a while. We experienced that situation. Later, we took the necessary reports and reconciled the child with the other one, the one he had a fight with. Of course, we did not place them in the same area again. It was a difficult place.

We had a school over here. I was not on duty when the prison burned down, but as you said, I started in ‘89, and the fire occurred in ‘87. They told us all about it. At that time, they filled the dungeons with people to save them from the fire. You would go toward the back side of the prison from here. All of these were dormitories; the small windows you see up there are dormitories. There used to be a guardhouse here, but they demolished it. We had a furnace and a canteen. There were barbershops, but they demolished those too. There was a breakout during my time. If only I could tell you the story of the escape, I would. It happened while I was there; the atmosphere was chaotic. Before I started to work in the prison, they used to say to me, ‘You are going underground, you are going underwater,’ or something like that. But when I came, the head warden Murat, who was older than us, said, ‘It is not like that.’ Now, the solitary cells are a bit lower down; the drains go to the sea, and the waves bring in the water, flooding the inside. That is what they talked about. I did not experience such a thing. But we were hesitant to work in the back. Why? Because we were afraid of the big troublemakers.

However, as I said, I did not stay long in the back. But this place was a storage area during our time; it was the carpenters' storage. There was a carpentry shop and looms for weaving carpets. I remember there was a bell that said ‘London’ and had ‘1888’ written on it. They took that away, maybe from the Ministry of Culture. I can never forget that bell; it was in that area. Down there, there were toilets, which were not used much. The juvenile inmates would wander around here. Soldiers patrolled this area. We could not go down there; it was the end of the prison area. Again, there was a carpentry shop and a tailor shop. I do not remember that spot by the road where it looks like a well. Because there were toilets there, I can not remember that at all. Only the front parts were open. There were buildings in between. But I never forget that bell; it comes to my mind from time to time. Where was it? Was it on that wall? It was written ‘London,’ 1888, green. I don’t even forget the color; if I saw it, I would recognize it. It was taken away.

Did the Ministry of Culture take it? It was at the corner of the building. I never seen these walls before; I saw them later when the demolished additional buildings revealed the old walls. This was the storage of the carpentry workshop. There was a fountain here, a canteen, and a dining hall from which food was served to the inmates. Well, the last execution was in 1982. They said the execution happened here. It had occurred here, the last execution. We did not see it, but there was a friend from that time, who has since passed away. We met with the son of the inmate who was executed. We met with the son of the last executed person from Balıkesir. There was a mosque; there was a door where soldiers would open it for us. There was a very good and orderly system. They have beautifully restored Ankara Ulucanlar (Prison Museum), and although I have not been there; I have heard about it. They left it as it was, but when this prison was closed down, the Ministry of Culture was put in charge, and they demolished the additional buildings.

They tore down the places I mentioned in the observation area. Instead of doing that, they could have repaired the children’s prison I showed you instead of demolishing it. We had workshops up there; they demolished all the ironworks. I think I worked there for about ten to fifteen years. They weren’t supposed to demolish that kitchen. The oven wasn’t supposed to be destroyed; it was to be left original, and the contractor would repair it. Okay, those were later additions and interventions, but now when people come, they say, ‘Man, there’s nothing in the prison.’ I said, ‘No, there were all sorts of different things; they demolished it.’ I mentioned the cabins where the guards were waiting; they demolished those too. There were fruit trees; there was a bathhouse. The bathhouse remains by the mosque. The bathhouse was where the inmates went to bathe.