Monument to Karagöz

This monument is opposite the Karagöz museum. You can see the beautiful spring tulips by the side of the monument. Tulip is a very popular flower in Turkey.

Karagöz Museum

This is a museum dedicated to the Karagöz puppet tradition. Inside you can see examples of the puppets, which are made of painted leather very thin so that it is transparent when the light shines through it. There are also old programmes from puppet shows held in the past.

Karagöz

This photo is from a traditional turkish puppet shadow play shop...you can see some caracters hanging..the famous one is called "karagöz-black eye" and his friend "hacivat"..

the puppet tradition is taken from central asia but the shadow theatre is coming from egypt..the shadow theatre involves two main figures casting their shadows on a screen..

there are so many legends about these caracters...in the otoman empire time(like in 15th century) they came to Bursa and karagoz was a gipsy and hacivat was a noble man..they both had started to work in the construction of "ulu cami" (the biggest mosque in bursa)...they were so different from each other and they were always arguing while working and misunderstanding each other..the other workers couldn't work because their conversations were so funny..and the sultan of that time killed them both because the construction of the mosque was not going well...

they were killed but their funny conversations lived..turks are growing up with their stories and shadow theatre tradition especially in Bursa..

anyway this is just one story about them there are lot more...