Sincan

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Sincan is a district of Ankara Province in central Turkey, a large suburban town 27km from the city of Ankara. Area 420 km². Population (2000) 289,440. Elevation 855m.

Contents

[edit] Geography

Sincan stands on a plain surrounded by hills and watered by the Ankara River, a tributary of the Sakarya River. There is some agriculture and light industry in Sincan but there is a railway line to Ankara and most of the population commute to jobs in the city.

The symbol of the municipality is the tulip, the central square is called Lale Meydanı and every year they have a tulip festival and hand out plastic tulips in the streets.

[edit] History

As Sincan stands on the ancient Silk Road to the orient the name is said to derive from Xinjiang in China) and even today some of population speak Turkish with a dialect closer to the original central Asian Turkish communities.

There was a village here in the Ottoman Empire period and even earlier, which grew to a small town when in 1950 Atatürk commissioned a housing project here for Turkish refugees from Romania and Bulgaria.

In recent years Sincan has grown enormously with rapid immigration from many rural areas of Turkey. The town has especially attracted those with an aggressive conservative and religious outlook and thus Sincan is a stronghold for right-wing clubs, Islamic sects and Islamist political parties. This was brought to light most famously in the political crisis of February 1997, when tanks rolled through the district (presumably as a warning to the people to respect the pressure being applied to the Islamist government of the time). More recent incidents include the pouring of green paint over the statue of Atatürk in the central square.


[edit] Well-known residents

  • The Sincan Sound is a style of Turkish folk music played on electric instuments, with street slang lyrics about cars, fast food and the other elements of modern life: key performers include Oğuz Yılmaz (who also adds a political Islamlist message to his lyrics); Sincanlı Filiz (slippers on your feet, how sweet); Ankaralı Turgut (dad don't buy me a Fiat Tempra); Peçenekli Süleyman (pretty girls are joining the police, let's go and hand ourselves in) and Ankaralı Yasemin (a girl who plays an electric bağlama and sings about viagra).
  • Actor and comedian Şafak Sezer was brought up in Sincan.
  • Poet Abdurrahim Karakoç

[edit] See also


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