WHERE AM I? --Travel Game

____, for example, [..] was architecturally a Kurdish city, and thus an affront to the false, unicultural facade of Ataturk's Turkey. The narrow streets fed into the last great bazaar in Turkey that had not evolved into a modern shopping mall - complete with cobblers, gunsmiths, tailors, spice dealers and tobacco merchants. Huge heaps of cured tobacco stood near stalls where warlike knives were being sharpened. Tumbledown courtyards were filled with men in tradictional clothing at old tables sipping tea, as though Ataturk's revolution against Moslem dress had never happened. The dust and the exhaust from motorized bikes thickened the air. Instead of hand-woven carpets and kilims for tourists with money to spare, this bazaar sold only machine-made items for village people. In physical appearance, ___ was like an Arab bazaar but with a spontaneity missing from the Arab souks of Syria and Iraq.

Sanliurfa, formerly Urfa, or Edessa, Arabic Ar-ruha, city, southeastern Turkey. It lies in a fertile plain and is ringed by limestone hills on three sides. The city is very old and controls a strategic pass to the south through which runs a road used since antiquity to travel between Anatolia and northern Mesopotamia. The modern name derives from the early Aramaic name, Urhai, which was changed to Edessa when the town was refounded as a military settlement in the 3rd century BC. Freeing itself from imposed Hellenism, Edessa, as capital of the principality of Osroëne, was a major centre of Syrian culture; it figured prominently in the conflicts between Parthia and Rome.

Christianity reached Edessa about AD 150, and the city became the seat of what was soon the most important bishopric in Syria. A sizable body of early Christian literature in the Syriac language was produced at Edessa.

After having been captured by the Sasanid Persians on more than one occasion, Edessa was taken by the Arabs about 638. Thereafter it saw many changes of rule, including occupation by the crusaders in 1098, until it was annexed to the Ottoman Empire at some point between 1516 and 1637. It then remained Turkish, except for a short occupation by forces of the Ottoman governor of Egypt, Muhammad 'Ali Pasha, in the late 1830s.

The city's monuments include the ruins of an ancient citadel situated on one of the hills overlooking the town, part of the old city walls, flood-prevention works built in the 6th century by the Byzantine emperor Justinian, and the 17th-century madrasah (religious school) and mosque of 'Abd ar-Rahman. Modern Sanliurfa is a local market for the agricultural and livestock products of the surrounding region. The main exports are butter and wool. The city is linked by main roads with Gaziantep to the west, Mardin to the northeast, Adiyaman to the northwest, and northern Syria to the south. Pop. (1990) 276,528.

Sanliurfa?-'Glorious Urfa'?-is a Kurdish city, steeped in biblical history. Abraham, it is said, was born here in a cave. After smashing King Nimrod's statues (in the name of anti-idolatry) he was thrown from the mountain here into a fire. But the fire turned to water and the burning wood to fish, symbolised today by the idyllic Balikligol (pools of sacred carp) at the Rizvaniye Mosque. Urfa remains largely untouched by the westernization seen throughout much of Turkey?-at least within the corridors and caravanserais of the Sipahi Bazaar.

We arrived Urfa without a suitable guidebook and hadn't a map or a clue as to where we were going. [..] As we walked through the streets, numerous people called out greetings to us and offered help in finding our destination. [..] Over the next day and a half we were introduced to Turkish hospitality. Everywhere we went people wanted to talk?-regardless of the fact that we didn't share a language. We were surprised at the willingness and ability of the local folds to sit with us and engage us in a conversation of sorts without the benefit of a shared language.

Aside from the sanctity of the mosques and their surrounding gardens, we especially enjoyed the bazaar in Sanliurfa. This is the last great bazaar in Turkey?-somewhat reminiscent of the colorful souqs of Aleppo in Syria to the south but less chaotic and with a more welcoming air. Seven caravanserais are found within the bazaar. Entering one of these is like stepping back in time. Men in caps and sports jackets idling away the hours?-hunched over small tables playing cards and chess. On a second floor, wrapping around a stone balcony overlooking the courtyard, tailor after tailor hand-making trousers; taking a break for a cup of sweetened tea. The whole scene imbued with the graininess of an old film.

A third of the Euphrates River is redirected to Turkey's Harran Plateau. That's a third less water for Syria and Iraq further downstream. In his book "The Ends of the Earth", Robert Kaplan quotes the dam's manager. "Water is a weapon. We can stop the flow of water into Syria and Iraq for up to eight months without overflowing our dams, in order to regulate the Arabs' political behavior."

Construction of the dams and accompanying irrigation tunnels is ongoing. The GAP project (Guneydogu Anadolu Projesi) is an attempt by the state to address Kurdish complaints that government expenditures for services in the southeast have been far lower than in the rest of Turkey. The planned irrigation tunnels will be the largest in the world and will continue a trend that is radically altering the landscape of the region. The amount of arable land and corresponding crop yields will increase exponentially. New lakes will produce an abundance of hydroelectric power as well as tourism and fish raising."