Rize
(2002 pop. 82,000). Rize, the largest Turkish town east of Trabzon on the Black Sea coast, is the capital of Rize Province (2002 pop. 363,300) and the center of Turkish tea cultivation. Its ancient name was Rhizaion; a fortress east of the modern town was built by the Byzantine emperor Justinian along the frontier with Persia. This fortress was rebuilt and expanded by the Grand Comneni of Trebizond.
Rize has been the home of Persian Armenians, Georgians, Pontic Greeks, and settlers from the European lands of the Ottoman empire, such as Rumeli, Bosnia, and Morea, who were granted lands by Mehmet the Conqueror. In the sixteenth century the majority of the population was Christian, with many villages having Greek names. Rize follows the traditional Black Sea non-nucleated settlement pattern of villages and neighborhoods spread out over a large area outside the city center.
Local production, aside from tea, includes citrus and other fruits, nuts, corn, small-scale boats, and a local specialty textile called peshtemal, a kind of striped linen, which has been in constant production since the Comnenian period and was exported to Baghdad and Egypt during Ottoman times. Tea was introduced in the 1920s, and Rize tea is the main Turkish domestic tea.
Further Reading
Freely, John. (1991) Classical Turkey. London: Penguin Books.
Hann, C. M. (1990) Tea and the Domestication of the Turkish State. School of Oriental and African Studies Modern Turkish Studies Programme, Occasional Papers 1. Huntingdon, U.K.: Eothen Press.
This is the complete article, containing 238 words
(approx. 1 page at 300 words per page).
