This land of fairy tales in a manifestation of the burning of the mountains. It is the fire of the mountains, the language of the Mount Erciyes and Mount Hasan to those who want to understand. Mountains are the symbols of not only black frost, gale and freezing but also of fire and burning.
Language of the mountains: Cappadocia and Balloons
Cappadocia is the tears of Big Erciyes and Small Erciyes, that are the Mount Erciyes and Mount Hasan. It is the concrete state of their cry, scream, crying, anger and grief. Fairy chimneys are the children of the mountains. They resemble thousands of people who were born after pains of thousands of years. They are so spread in the Anatolian steps that the imagination calling them as “Fairy Chimneys” attributed them some holiness with this definition. The country of beautiful horses hosts variety of holiness and prayers with respect to every faith. This region was one of the first visited places by St. Paul, the main founding father of Christianity. The first Christians fleeing from the oppression of Rome created underground cities under the heads of the fairy chimneys and they lived the afterlife in these places for the sake of their belief. Many heart conquerors of Anatolia from Hacı Bektaş-ı Veli to Yunus Emre, from Taptuk Emre to Ahi Evran, from Somuncu Baba to Hacı Bayram Veli left their traces in these regions and blew their spirit to the steps.
Fairy chimneys which have mystical structure now have a different point of view. Point of view, indeed, because people who used to visit the fairy chimneys on the ground now started to look at the place from a different dimension: the sky. The colourful balloons emerging with the first lights of the morning adds different ambience to the place. Balloons remind many people of aliens but here the fairies get up in the morning and ascend to the sky, resembling the spirits of the fairy chimneys not an alien. Indeed, it is not certain whether that the people riding in these balloons and viewing Cappadocia by bird’s eye view are viewing the fairy chimneys or fairy chimneys are viewing their own spirit from where they are. However, this event is a great visual pleasure and undoubtedly an important source of tourism income for the people of the region.
Hayrettin Oğuz, Gezgin Magazine
