Kemaliye today is a charming but obscure town tucked into the cliffs above the Keban Reservoir. Many of the locals still call it by its old name Eðen, which turns out to be the Turkish version of the original name Agn. The town has a historical significance far larger than its size, of which a book, unfortunately in French, has been written.

Under review: Pascal Carmont, Les Amiras: Seigneurs de l´Armenie ottomane(The Amiras: Lords of Ottoman Armenia). Paris: Salvator, 1999. 187 pages.

From the small town of Agn (today´s Kemaliye) in Anatolia´s Erzincan province, a remarkable group of enterprising and ambitious Armenians rose to the forefront of the Ottoman Empire in the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries. They are referred to simply as amiras (a variant of emirs) and these men who came from modest provincial backgrounds accomplished great things in almost every human sphere.

The full review is at:

http://www.reporter.am/go/article/2009-02-20-the-amiras-giving-armenians-back-some-of-their-history

In the Erzincan province town where I lived, there were a number of stray dogs, mostly mongrels with a good bit of Kangal in them. I never saw any of them being threatening or aggressive; in fact they were rather shy. Our cook fed leftovers to them almost every night, at first to a bitch and her puppies, later to a young dog which we adopted. He developed a territorial attitude toward our neighborhood and would run off other strays, although he got along with other neighborhood dogs which had owners. The local people had a generally benevolent attitude toward the stray dogs and many fed them scraps and leftovers, although few people befriended or played with individual animals.

Once or twice a year, in the summer generally, the local authorities would carry out a poisoning campaign and so wipe out most of the strays. They didn´t poison dogs with a collar so we got one for our friend Brusk. We also took him to the town vet for a checkup and distemper shots. The vet issued us a formal little identification booklet for him, complete with a picture. We used a different name for this document though, as Brusk is a Kurdish name and everyone concerned thought it best not to use it in an official document. Brusk was one of the nicest dogs I have ever known.

The concept of a spay/neuter campaign never occurred to anyone of course. Such campaigns have been very effective in keeping the stray population down in the U.S. town where I live but I don´t think they´ll be adopted in Turkey any time soon.

What lady in red said. I used a Sony Vaio from the U.S. for over a year in Turkey with no problems whatever. I needed only a plug adaptor for the charger. Rather than reconfigure the keyboard, however, I bought a Turkish keyboard and plugged it in to a USB port.

Many thanks to ZulfuLivaneli for doing this translation for me.

I have heard the very sad news that a man was killed at the mine where I used to work in Erzincan Province. I have found a news article about it and would very much like a good translation from the Turkish; I can make out the general meaning of it but there are details I don´t understand. One friend of mine is mentioned but I don´t believe he was hurt.

The problem is that the article includes a very graphic photo and I am afraid some other graphic detail might be included in the text. I therefore do not dare to post the text in the forum.

If anyone would be willing to look at this and translate it for me, please let me know and I will PM the article to you. As I say, there is a quite graphic photo so some details may be unsettling. This is a task for someone with a strong stomach only.

I would be very grateful for a good person´s help.

A better translation of the title would be "Apprentice Witch" or something along those lines.

I tried the quiz and, for what it´s worth, got 47 perfect of 50, for a score of 94% with an average error of 6 miles and total time of 585 seconds.

It´s a cute little game.

Most Americans know virtually nothing about other countries or even regions of the U.S. other than their own. Therefore, most Americans know nothing about Turkey.

Even those Americans who are somewhat knowledgable about the rest of the world tend to know little about Turkey. As others have noted, Americans are most knowledgable about various European countries, especially the British Isles and France, followed by the other western European countries. There is also interest in Japan and China, as well as Australia.

Turkey is almost always lumped in as a "Middle Eastern", "Islamic" or even "Arabic" country. Other than geographers, historians or those with personal connections, there is no real understanding of what these terms mean, let alone the distinctions between them.

Marion wrote a good review of Burnaby´s classic book "On Horseback Though Asia Minor":

http://www.todayszaman.com/tz-web/detaylar.do?load=detay&link=160185

I´ve been looking at the portions of this book available on GoogleBooks but after this article I may have to get an actual copy

The U.S. has had such a test for many years.

http://usgovinfo.about.com/blinstst.htm

Please, tamikadakika.

Unless you are a card-carrying member of the U.S. Republican Party, it is forbidden for you to use George Soros´ alleged support for a publication as a slur. They have established exclusive world-wide  rights to this particular gratuitous insult.

Surely you can come up with a good Turkish-origin gratuitous insult to use instead.