Turqueria

Orhan and Martina Yilmaz, along with their children Melissa and Timur, are the owners of Turqueria, a shop full of beautiful and interesting antiques and art work. Turqueria sells mainly gravures (a printing process using recessed areas on a metal cylinder that hold the ink), maps, old paintings, technical tools, pocket and wrist watches, old copper objects, Ottoman fabrics and jewelry.
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Şeyda Maraş

Şeyda Maraş is a diver, underwater photographer and professional cinematographer who specializes in underwater video projects. She currently works on the Bougainville Diving Boat and takes photos of divers and try divers. Most of her customers like her photos as reminders or mementos of their diving experience in Kaş and Şeyda enjoys making their experience a good one.
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Akif Gürsoy

Akif Gürsoy is one of the two sales staff at Bougainville Travel in Kaş, Turkey. Akif was born in 1964 in Turkey, but his family left immediately for Germany, where he lived until he was 13 years old. German is his native language, even though he has been away from Germany for more than 33 years. He learned English at Middle East Technical University (ODTÜ) studying management but he has never been to England or the United States.
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Tuncay Özses Kaş Marina Manager

Tuncay Özses, Marina Manager

Tuncay Özses is the Marina Manager of the New Kaş Marina on the south coast of Turkey. As Marina Manager he is responsible for all marina activities and strategic planning including the budget, personnel, marketing, and liaison with businesses, government and other officials. There are many people interested in the Kaş Marina. It is the subject of frequent conversations and inquiries in and around Kaş and people from abroad are asking questions on TripAdvisor and Lonely Planet forums regarding its opening. He is also a subscriber to the Bougainville Travel Newsletter. :-)
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Ayşe Sakarya

Ayşe Bulut Sakarya, is the front office account manager for Bougainville Travel. Ayşe was born in Kaş but because her father worked in Ziraat Bank, she lived in Finike for several years and finished elementary school there. Her family returned to Kaş and she finished high school here. After retiring, her father opened a small market or bakkal in Kaş. It became a family business and Ayşe worked there after school. The bakkal closed after supermarkets started opening in Kaş.

Türkçe'si için lütfen buraya tıklayın.

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Ülkü Erdoğan

Ülkü Erdoğan, Kaş Artist

Ülkü Erdoğan is one of the Kaş artists, an ex-pat from Istanbul. She lives in Gökseki with her husband Sunder who is also an artist who does caricatures and model boat building.

Türkçe'si için lütfen buraya tıklayın.

Ülkü and her husband Sunder, who is a miniature ship builder and caricaturist, often exhibit together. Sunder was featured last month on our BT Blogger and the BT Facebook Album.

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Halide Bilginer

Halide-Chevaliers Castle

Halide Bilginer, a member of the BT sales staff recently travelled around Syria, Jordan and Lebanon. She shared with us some interesting highlights about the places and events that happened during her trip.

(NOTE: Links to places are in bold.)

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Selwyn Hird-Kaş Marina

Selwyn Lind

An update to our previous article (see below) is a report by Selwyn Hird, a long time resident of Kaş, boat owner and sailing enthusiast. Wyn, as he is called by his friends, has owned a boat for much of his adult life. He has had experience with marinas all along the Turkish coast and most recently harboured his boat in Finike.  
Click here for our previous Kaş Marina story
We plan to post some future articles about sailing, rules, regulations and boat owning in Turkey, so keep watching our newsletter for more.
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Sunder Erdoğan

Sunder Erdoğan

Sunder Erdoğan is a local artist possessing not one but two interesting talents; he is a model boat builder and caricaturist.  Sunder was raised in the Fener-Balat district of Istanbul and first came to Kaş in 1990. He likes to reminisce about the variety of customs and cultures in his ancient home district. However, he really becomes animated when he speaks about his work as a caricaturist and model boat builder.
See our Facebook Photo Album of some caricatures and model ships built by Sunder.
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Valentine Van Herpen

Valentine Van Herpen

Valentine Van Herpen recently met with Ayşe Dağıstanlı about her work as a pottery teacher and artist.

Valentine is originally from Amsterdam and first came to Kaş over 20 years ago for a rest from a heavy work schedule. She spent two rehabilitative years in Kaş and, and, as is often typical of Kaş artists, decided not to return to live in Holland.
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Yaşar Sarıca

Emre and Yaşar at Noel Baba Cafe

Emre Çevikel met recently with Yaşar Sarıca and asked him about his experiences with Bougainville Travel. Yaşar is 32 years old and said he has been with Bougainville Travel every year since 1996 except for his 2 year stretch in the military. He was 18 when he started working at BT and he has become, in Turkish, what is commonly called a "joker" or jack of all trades, but for sure, he is also a master of them all.  He drives the transfer bus to and from the airport, he is an assistant  tour guide for trekking, canyoning, and mountain biking and he sometimes pitches in and helps the staff at the Oreo Hotel in Kaş.
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Mehmet Muhtar Amca

Mehmet Amca Demirtepe

Mehmet Amca Demirtepe, the retired Muhtar of Çukurbağ Village, met with Ayşe Dağıstanlı recently and talked about what it was like growing up in the 40's and 50's. He also talked about his role as Muhtar of Çukurbağ Village which is located a few kilometers outside of Kaş.
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Hasibe Avci

Hasibe Avcı

Hasibe Avcı was born in Kaş in 1980. Recently Hasibe was "caught in the act" on our bougainville turizm Facebook photo album because Ayşe Dağıstanlı interviewed Hasibe in the Kaş Town Tea Garden. .
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Walking with Alex Smith

Alex at Tlos, an ancient Lycian Site

Alex Smith was born, brought up and lived the vast majority of his life in the North West of England. He is married to Barbara with two adult step children aged 30 and 26. Alex and Barbara have always enjoyed the area around Kaş, Turkey ever since they first visited in 1998 and immediately loved the town. They returned intermittently in the following years and finally moved here in 2007 after retiring from their teaching jobs. Alex began doing some tour guiding work during the 2009 season and has continued to do so with walking and family groups this season. We caught up with Alex in Kaş and asked him some questions.

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Many Faceted Photographer

Tunç Üvendire, Artist, Traveler and Photographer

We recently met with Tunç Üvendire who is a professional photographer and asked him about his work as an artist. Along with his wife Semra Yilmaz Üvendire, they have created Silk Road Shop (http://www.silkroad-shop.com/)  which sells collected ethnic textiles, jewellery, artifacts and antique handicrafts collected from their travels on the ancient silk road from Turkey to China. Tunç is a many faceted artist, he is also a composer of children's songs and is about to release his first CD.
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Yonca & Mountain Bikes

Yonca Duyan is in her first year at BT and she has already established a reputation for herself. She is the only woman tour guide working for BT and is a regular all around person.

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Sibel Düzel

Sibel Düzel in Gallery Anatolia

Sibel Düzel and her Gallery Anatolia are featured this month. Sibel was born in Adana and later moved to Istanbul before she came to Kaş which has been a draw to many "ex-pat" Turkish artists. The relaxed atmosphere and eclectic mix of locals and these artists makes for a creative environment where their art is appreciated and where they can gather for ideas. Some photos of Sibel and her Gallery Anatolia can also be seen on Facebook:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=185804&l=bc31cad5b5&id=195358558077

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Ufuk Güven

Ufuk Güven; A Man between the Mountains and the Sea
"From the earliest days of adventure tourism in Turkey until today his enthusiasm for the outdoors and his hard work in running agencies and Hotels have made him one of the most well known Agency owners in the country. At BT he is charge of Operations and Personnel. Outside the Company he continues researching untouched canyons and investigating the potential of the region. He speaks French, English and German."
(BT Website: http://www.bt-turkey.com/about.php)
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Phil Buckley

Phil Buckley - Settler in an Unsettled Land
"Born in Manchester (UK) in 1966. Before coming to Turkey Phil worked in 8 European Countries as a tour leader whist pursuing a degree in Art History and European Literature. In 1992 he took a year from out his Ph.D to work as a trek leader and liked it so much he never went back to academia but chose instead to settle here. He handles product, IT and accountancy departments but can still be seen sometimes dealing with individual clients with wit & charm. He's computer addicted, married, has a daughter and a son. Speaks Turkish and French."
(BT Web site: http://www.bt-turkey.com/about.php)
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Emre Çevikel

Kaş Dive Instructor

Emre Çevikel is our guide today while we go through the fun and excitement of the PADI Open Water Diving Course. Emre is both a PADI certified Dive Instructor and a CMAS 1 star Dive Instructor. He has been diving for the last 10 years in Kaş and has been with the Bougainville Dive Team for over 8 years.
More photos of Emre and Kaş Diving on Facebook.
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