Old mosque sold to baker for firewood

SAMSUN - Anatolia News Agency

The 300-year-old mosque has been saved by the district governor from being firewood for a bakery. AA photo

A 300-year-old historical wooden mosque in the village of Yenidoğan in the Black Sea province of Samsun has been saved from a fiery fate by the district governor.

Following the completion of a concrete mosque in the village, the wooden mosque was sold to a local baker who had planned to burn the structure down, destroying its 300-year-old history. Upon learning the news, District Governor Kadir Perçin convinced the baker to sell him the mosque as part of a project aimed at protecting historical wooden structures.

Perçin initiated a project known as Ambarköy to preserve wooden structures in the district for the next generations and designated a team of 21 people to locate wooden mosques and buildings in nearby villages.

Extra 50 liras paid

“While our teams were searching for abandoned wooden structures they came across a 300-year-old wooden mosque in Yenidoğan,” Perçin told Anatolia news agency. “In our research we found that the mosque had been sold to a baker to be burnt. The baker, however, did not want to give the mosque back, so we contacted the village council [and found that] due to the construction of a concrete mosque, the wooden one was sold to the baker to be burnt as wood for 1,450 Turkish Liras. We offered [the baker] an extra 50 liras to buy the mosque back.”

Within its 300-year history, the wooden mosque has been replaced only three times, Perçin said.
To preserve the structure, the 200-square-meter mosque was rebuilt on a 64-square-meter plot of land in Ambarköy village as a two-story building.

“We used the original foundation of the mosque as a base by making small changes to the entrance of the mosque. The mosque did not originally have door, so we placed an ornamental door [at its entrance]. It was rebuilt with its original pieces except for the roof and the door. The work took three months,” he said.