Fındıklı ( Laz and Georgian: ვიწე ''Vits'e'') is a town and district of

Rize Province Rize Province ( tr, Rize ili) is a province of northeast Turkey, on the eastern Black Sea coast between Trabzon and Artvin. The province of Erzurum is to the south. It was formerly known as Lazistan, the designation of the term of Lazistan ...

on the

Black Sea The Black Sea is a marginal mediterranean sea of the Atlantic Ocean lying between Europe and Asia, east of the Balkans, south of the East European Plain, west of the Caucasus, and north of Anatolia. It is bounded by Bulgaria, Georgia, Rom ...

coast of Turkey, east of the city of

Rize Rize ( Greek: ρίζα, Laz: რიზინი, Georgian: რიზე, , Ottoman Turkish: ريزه) is the capital city of Rize Province in the eastern part of the Black Sea Region of Turkey. Rize is a typically Turkish provincial capital wi ...

Etymology

The town was formerly known as ''Vitze'' (Laz and Georgian: ''Vits'e''), which some claim means "twig" or "branch" in the Laz language and was renamed Fındıklı ("place with hazelnuts" in Turkish) after the hazelnuts grown in the town, although these have now mostly been replaced with tea. Scholar

Özhan Öztürk Özhan Öztürk (born 1968) is a Turkish writer and researcher. He wrote a Turkish Folklore Encyclopaedia and an encyclopaedic dictionary of the culture and folklore of the peoples of the Black Sea region of Turkey. Works * ''Karadeniz Ans ...

claims that the town's former and native name comes from the word ''vis'', meaning "town" in the now-extinct

Thracian language The Thracian language () is an extinct and poorly attested language, spoken in ancient times in Southeast Europe by the Thracians. The linguistic affinities of the Thracian language are poorly understood, but it is generally agreed that it wa ...

and other Indo-European languages (Old Persian ''vith'',

Avesta The Avesta () is the primary collection of religious texts of Zoroastrianism, composed in the Avestan language. The Avesta texts fall into several different categories, arranged either by dialect, or by usage. The principal text in the lit ...

''visa'',

Sanskrit Sanskrit (; attributively , ; nominally , , ) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan languages, Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in South Asia after its predecessor languages had Trans-cultural diffusion ...

''vesah'',

Gothic Gothic or Gothics may refer to: People and languages *Goths or Gothic people, the ethnonym of a group of East Germanic tribes **Gothic language, an extinct East Germanic language spoken by the Goths **Crimean Gothic, the Gothic language spoken b ...

''weihs'', etc.). Öztürk claims that Istanbul's old name Byzantion; the town of Vize in Kırklareli Province in western

Thracian The Thracians (; grc, Θρᾷκες ''Thrāikes''; la, Thraci) were an Indo-European speaking people who inhabited large parts of Eastern and Southeastern Europe in ancient history.. "The Thracians were an Indo-European people who occupied ...

region of Turkey; the towns of Viçe, Visir, Aşağı Viçe, Arhavi (Arkeo + Vice, "old town"), Visera, and Vizera in the

Pontus Pontus or Pontos may refer to: * Short Latin name for the Pontus Euxinus, the Greek name for the Black Sea (aka the Euxine sea) * Pontus (mythology), a sea god in Greek mythology * Pontus (region), on the southern coast of the Black Sea, in modern ...

region of Turkey (where Fındıklı is also located); the towns of Bizirne and Bizeri in the

Paphlagonia Paphlagonia (; el, Παφλαγονία, Paphlagonía, modern translit. ''Paflagonía''; tr, Paflagonya) was an ancient region on the Black Sea coast of north-central Anatolia, situated between Bithynia to the west and Pontus (region), Pontus t ...

region of Turkey; the towns of Visa, Visani, Viziru, and Vizireni in Romania; and the town of Vis in

Bulgaria Bulgaria (; bg, България, Bǎlgariya), officially the Republic of Bulgaria,, ) is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the eastern flank of the Balkans, and is bordered by Romania to the north, Serbia and North Macedo ...

derive their names from the same origin.

Pontus: Antik Çağ’dan Günümüze Karadeniz’in Etnik ve Siyasi Tarihi
. Genesis Yayınları. Ankara, 2011. 2. Baskı p. 247-348.

Geography

Like most

districts, Fındıklı consists of a small strip of coast and a larger area of hills and mountains behind (which lead up into the Kaçkar Mountains). There is little flat land in Fındıklı and most of the population lives in two large valleys, the '' Çağlayan'' ( Laz: აბუ ''Abu'') and the '' Arılı'' (ფიცხალა ''Pitsxala''). The climate is typical of the Black Sea coast, six months of dark cloud, four months overcast, six weeks of light cloud and 19 days of sunshine, with light rain at some point during every one of the 365 days of the year. These conditions are ideal for the crops that drive the local economy, namely tea,

hazelnut The hazelnut is the fruit of the hazel tree and therefore includes any of the nuts deriving from species of the genus '' Corylus'', especially the nuts of the species ''Corylus avellana''. They are also known as cobnuts or filberts according ...

s, and some other fruits. The town currently produces around 32,000 tons of tea and 750 tons of hazelnuts each year. Other produce include

milk Milk is a white liquid food produced by the mammary glands of mammals. It is the primary source of nutrition for young mammals (including breastfed human infants) before they are able to digest solid food. Immune factors and immune-modulat ...

meat Meat is animal flesh that is eaten as food. Humans have hunted, farmed, and scavenged animals for meat since prehistoric times. The establishment of settlements in the Neolithic Revolution allowed the domestication of animals such as chic ...

, eggs,

honey Honey is a sweet and viscous substance made by several bees, the best-known of which are honey bees. Honey is made and stored to nourish bee colonies. Bees produce honey by gathering and then refining the sugary secretions of plants (primar ...

and fish, and the new development is the planting of kiwi fruit. Fındıklı itself is a small market town of 9,980 people. There is little developed industry, and the younger generations regularly migrate away to jobs in larger cities. The people are mostly ethnic Laz. Fındıklı Rize

History

See

for the history the area, once part of the

Colchis In Greco-Roman geography, Colchis (; ) was an exonym for the Georgian polity of Egrisi ( ka, ეგრისი) located on the coast of the Black Sea, centered in present-day western Georgia. Its population, the Colchians are generally though ...

i.e.

Lazica Lazica ( ka, ეგრისი, ; lzz, ლაზიკა, ; grc-gre, Λαζική, ; fa, لازستان, ; hy, Եգեր, ) was the Latin name given to the territory of Colchis during the Roman/Byzantine period, from about the 1st centur ...

Roman Empire The Roman Empire ( la, Imperium Romanum ; grc-gre, Βασιλεία τῶν Ῥωμαίων, Basileía tôn Rhōmaíōn) was the post-Roman Republic, Republican period of ancient Rome. As a polity, it included large territorial holdings aro ...

Kingdom of Georgia The Kingdom of Georgia ( ka, საქართველოს სამეფო, tr), also known as the Georgian Empire, was a medieval Eurasian monarchy that was founded in circa 1008 AD. It reached its Golden Age of political and economic ...

and the

Empire of Trebizond The Empire of Trebizond, or Trapezuntine Empire, was a monarchy and one of three successor rump states of the Byzantine Empire, along with the Despotate of the Morea and the Principality of Theodoro, that flourished during the 13th through ...

, brought into the

Ottoman Empire The Ottoman Empire, * ; is an archaic version. The definite article forms and were synonymous * and el, Оθωμανική Αυτοκρατορία, Othōmanikē Avtokratoria, label=none * info page on book at Martin Luther University ...

in 1509, and briefly occupied by Russia at the end of

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was List of wars and anthropogenic disasters by death toll, one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, ...

Twin towns

Fındıklı is twinned with:

References

External links

District governor's official website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Findikli Populated places in Rize Province Populated coastal places in Turkey Districts of Rize Province Towns in Turkey Laz settlements in Turkey