Man spends millions to create small forest in Ağrı

AĞRI

A man has spent millions of liras to make his childhood dreams come true: Creating a forest in his village in the eastern province of Ağrı.

Businessman Kadir Ardin, 53, moved to the Örtülü village, which is located on the foothills of the mighty Mount Ağrı (Ararat), after retirement in 2015.

Ardin purchased some 30,000 square meters of land there and started to work on it. He extracted the underground water, planted 5,000 tree saplings and set up an irrigation system in the middle of the steppe.

His relentless work finally paid off. Now he has a forest just like he imagined when he was a kid, with different kinds of plants, including fruit trees.

He also built an artificial, small waterfall on the land and bungalow houses.

“I spent some 5 million Turkish Liras on my childhood dream. I used to visit our village [Örtülü] with my family when the school closed for summer. I always dreamed of moving there one day,” Ardin said.

Ardin planted 5,000 saplings, including 3,000 thousand fruit tree saplings.

“When I started to do this, people did not believe in me. They thought trees would not grow on land in the middle of the steppe. But I did not give up and struggled for seven years. Now, this land developed into a small forest with trout ponds, a tiny waterfall and bungalow houses,” he said.

Ardin is currently building a restaurant as he wants to explore the opportunities for tourism activity.

“Mount Ağrı offers huge potential. People from all over the world visit the province, and we serve them in our forest,” he said.