In an effort to afford a glimpse into Kayseri’s rich sociocultural past, this book traces the physical and built environment that has been left from the Armenian and Greek communities of the region and presents the relationship of the urban culture of Ottoman Kayseri to its rural hinterland by way of statistical information and visual material. The book comprises mainly the results of the fieldwork in Kayseri in the summer and fall of 2015 that was jointly undertaken by the Hrant Dink Foundation and the Association for the Protection of Cultural Heritage. Accompanied by contextualizing introductory articles that shed light on the social and economic history of the Armenian and Greek communities in Kayseri, this book attests to te fact that Kayseri that we know today in very much the product of the cultural, ethnic, and religious diversity it once enjoyed.

At the end of the 19^th century, non-Muslims constituted one-third of the population of the Kayseri Province. A significant number of their buildings have unexpectedly withstood the perils to this day, and yet they are deterioriating at an alarming pace. This book, which should be considered a 2015 photograph of this cultural heritage, was prepared with the hope that it will contribute to the processes of reconciling with the past. The latter is the prerequisite for the cultural heritage of the peoples who have been forcefully expelled from their homelands to not be neglected but to instead be protected like other cultural heritage.

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