The weddings usually starts in the evening and ends in the morning. If the wedding is in another village, the youth of the village takes girls to the wedding by renting a bus and visiting the houses one by one to get permission from the families of them. Not to give permission to the young boy who is at the door is deemed as disrespectfulness and not welcomed. If there is a wedding or a funeral in a village, it belongs to the entire village not to that house. All of the young people and the village are organized. Gathering together before the wedding, the young people distribute the duties among themselves from the dining service and the committee to welcome the guests to the houses at which the guest will stay. The weddings end up in the morning and zexes, the meetings, are made in a house or in the village coffee house till the dawn. Some games are played at the meetings. Kashens (can also be said as cavalier or boyfriend) joke and chat with each other. The elderly do not interfere and are not involved in these meetings. They never interfere in that controlling can be thought to be disrespectfulness. Even if it is village, everybody is neatly dressed. It is not possible to see someone in nightdresses or pyjamas as long as you won't make a surprise visit. When a girl guest comes to the village, the boys of the village bicker with each other as mise en scene, giving punishment to one another, joking and holding meeting to pay respect to the guest. The same thing applies to male guests, of course. In the villages, you can not realize class distinction. Flaunt is considered to be shame. All weddings and festivals happen in the gardens in the same way. Houses look alike. The biggest shame is the violence against women. The sharpest penalty is ostracization, that is, the social exclusion.
So many things that can be comparable to this. I can write pages and pages, but I could tell that much briefly. A third object was added to the project last month as well. As you know, these villages were driven from the Caucasus. And the villages, relatives and graves of the grandfathers of most of them are in the Caucasus. A lot of people returned and live there. But those staying here wonder and long for there. And those living there wonder their relatives living in Turkey. I went to the Caucasus with the sponsorship of Bandırma Mayor Dursun Mirza. The regions that I used to live, my father used to live, his grave is there, and my brother is living there now. Therefore, it was a very trip in that I have a full command of the languages. I found and photographed the village, Penexes, from which my village, Karaçalılık village came from, and Penexes from which a few of villages came from, the other village, Psenif, and yet another village, Anhui of Abkhazia, some of its people came to settle in Düzce. Thus, the project turned out to be a bridge in the Caucasus. While exhibiting their photographs in their own villages, I can exhibit the villages from which they came and the places they have longed for. In the same way, I will do the same thing in the Caucasus.
It was a project that I enjoyed so much and sometimes have economic difficulties but I've never given up. Since I was raised in this culture and mostly possesses this; the Circassian villages. But I hope that other fellows will have a bash at these kinds of works. Believe me, I'd be very happy. For example, I'd like to see the nomad villages in the mountain tops. When overwhelmed with such a plastic life and confusion, disturbed with that the discourse of the peasantry turns into an action, I find pleasure in persistently saying that the villages are the greatest treasures and in bringing this into the light with the project.