TEPEKÖY=AGRİDYA  

    My dear Tepeköy. World's beautiful Tepeköy. Can anything be beautiful and precious as a person's birth place? Old original name is AGRIDYA. Its meaning is small farms in old Greek. It is the eagle nest of the island. It is placed in the middle of the steep hill of the highest mountain of the island. It saw the half of the island as birdlike. Tepeköy's history goes back to very old days. It goes back to 1500 years. The old one was like a small village. One is FLIO and one is SOTIR. But as time passes it combines and in 1625, today's AGRIDYA was formed. Sotir district was written as "trade's men guild" in old Ottoman archievs it means inspection district. Tepeköy view is great. You can see not only the half part of the island but also Thrace and Gallipoli peninsula. As near you can watch the greenest part and highest mountains. The village's water come from inside of the mountain's rocks. You can find fountains or water source in every corner. Our village has seven lakes flows continously and these lakes have four small waterfalls. You can ask why these Agridya ancestors built their homes in such a high place and why not in a down flat place. Yes, it has reasons.  

1) In the past to protect themselves against pirates  

2) Benefit from flat and productive soils.  

3) To live in airy and good view places.  

    Before 1964, our village population is 1200 people. But from known reasons, they had to immigrate. Now, the population is 32 people.  

    Tepeköy's land is completely mountainous that's why people make all the mountains and slope of hills with hoes and with thier own hands and make them terraces and they did not left any unplanted soil. When they find a wild pear or an olive they grafted them. All round were orchards, gardens and planted farms. Collecting oil was like a bayram. Valley under the village filled with smoke and people sing and talk. Tepeköy people produce all their needs coming from the soil by themselves.  

HOUSES OF TEPEKÖY  

    They are typical Greek homes. Craftsman in Tepeköy made homes by stones which they carved with hammer and pencil. Although connection material is from mud , it did not get affected from natural conditions and earthquake. Craftsmen were all villagers and they compete with each other about who will going to make the best construction. But today, people come from Anatolia and considered themselves as craftsman were all under the wall they built if the material is not cement.  

CHURCHES  

    Church, devoted to Virgin Mary was built in 1832. It was renovated in 1928 and it still stand straight and distrubute hope to the left ones.

 SCHOOLS  

    Firstly, it was built as a mix school in 1868. In 1885, a Tepeköy villager who went to Egypt to earn money built a school with the money he sent next to the church and it still stand straight. In 1954, the new school built collectively by villagers coul work untill 1975. Unforunately, the kindergarten could not work.

SMALL INDUSTRY AND HAND CRAFTS OF TEPEKÖY

    Do you think that there can be a small industry at the top of the mountain. It can be. Tepeköy's hard working and determined people can do it without getting any help.  

 1) Two olive oil factory were the modern factories of 1950s.

 2) Two soap factory. Establishment date is 1947.

 3) 9 wowen workshop. By producing different kinds of hard clothing.

 4) Two taverns

 5) Three flat cheese factory

 6)  Three shoe factory

7) Three tailor workshop  

8)Four carpenter workshop

 9) Thirteen flour mill working with water and windmill

 10) Five grocery and two butchery shop. All of them are only in Tepeköy.

    Every home has a wowen work-bench. In these work benches our mothers produce fabric enough for our underwear.  A lot of things are coming out of these work benches. Coloured rugs, blankets and many more.

     Tepeköy people are  very hard working people otherwise they could not live in those mountains and they love entertainment. Their weddings and bayrams are so lively. Especially in name days. In that days, those who have name day opened thier houses to everyone.To the fellows and to the enemies. In those days people who are enemy excuse each other. Both men and womwn entertain together. According to the words of a primary school teacher coming from Trabzon:"I meet civilization in Tepeköy. " There were no blood-feud, no murder, no injury by gun, no raping, no escaping girls in Tepeköy. All of these were weird for Tepeköy. There was no lock in vineyard houses. Churches were open day and night. Bu now is it like that?

 Then? Then you know. Those bad politicians, those bad Cyprus. They forced Tepeköy to immigrate as they did to the other villages. With a small suitcase they left everything behind and immigrate like migrating birds. They did not know where to go or where to stop. They went into the unknown. Till New Zealand and Argentina. That's why Imbroz felt what the people felt comig from Bulgaria and feel pain. But they felt with a pain that there is a difference. A lot of people gave tent, home and food to the Bulgarians. Everybody saw us as a foreigner in everywhere. Imbroz people felt and lived this and felt the pain. Tepeköy people understood that they can only thrust to God and to themselves. That's why they try to be strong. They are very hard working and they can do whatever job they can find. These people who immigrate by a boat and with a small suitcase cleaned the steps of a building, cleaned shit but they worked so hard that they went to visit their ancestor's grave with a Mercedes after 30-40 years. Their children and their grandchildren  born abroad came to find their roots like KUNTA KINTE. God damn those policies. Let the immigration end in world. Let it be in nowhere. Let people live where they born. In wherever in world those politicians.

 And NOW

    Untill 1996 Tepeköy was a ghost village. All of the village was in ruin and in a bad condition. No one knew Tepeköy and visit there till that time. A handful of people with their own destiny. They were in a bad physcological situation. There was no vineyard or garden.

    At that time something unusal happen. BARBA YORGO came. Some time ago he immigrate from the island like the others and settled to Istanbul. Yorgo's situation is good in Istanbul. But his mind was in Tepeköy. The place where he and his ancestors were born. After 38 years of Istanbul life he could not live without his village and left Istanbul and came to Tepeköy permanently. First he repaired his own house. He told others to repair their homes and succeed on this. Tepeköy began to be built again. He establish a wine factory for manufacturing home wine. He has many friends. He calls them and invites them. Tepeköy was on televesion and in newspapers suddenly. Today, Tepeköy is most popular and the most visited and talked village of the island. The people living there left physcological problems behind. Three people started to produce home wine. They started to produce honey. You can find the most puriest and the most qualified honey in Tepeköy. The people who immigrate get courage. People all around the world came here for Virgin Mary bayram and visit their village. To say the truth, 50% of the island's tourism come from people who immigrate from here. For the whole year island's tradesman wait these days.

 Tepeköy is the only original GREEK village of Turkey. Let us together protect this only village. Its culture is all of our culture. These soils are ours. This country is our country. Both Yorgo and Mehmet.