86. Today in 1920s Turkey: 14 May 1927 (Toll Trolls on a Bridge)
Türkçe
Böylesine şaşdık kaldık:
Bafra Belediyesi Kızılırmak köprüsünden geçenlerden para alıyormuş. Bu parayı veremeyecek kadar fakir olan zavallı köylülerin de şapkalarını, yumurta sepetlerini, kuşaklarını kalan köprü başında bekleyen memurlar rehin alıp parayı getirinceye kadar saklıyorlarmış. Geçenler, köprünün iki başında böyle binbir türlü rehinlerin birikip orasını pazar yerine çevirdiğini söylüyorlar. Bu yüz kızartacak hal değil mi acaba? Her halde dahiliye vekaletimizin nazar-ı dikkatini celp ederiz.
English
We are dumbfounded by such a thing:
The Bafra Municipality has been taking money from those crossing the Kızılırmak bridge. The officials standing at the entrance to the bridge have been accepting hats, egg baskets, and waistbands as pawns from the unfortunate villagers too poor to pay the toll-holding onto them until payment for the toll is returned. Those who have passed through say that so many “pawns” have been left that either side of the bridge have been turned into a (flea) marketplace. Is this not a shameful situation? We would like to bring this to the attention of our ministry of interior affairs.
Comments:
This story reports on what seems to be only semi-authorized operation of toll collection on a bridge in provincial Anatolia. Karagöz is a magazine that claims to be a “people’s” newspaper catering to the working class. As such, the journal often includes, for instance, PSA-type announcements such as this one featured alongside this story in the same issue of Karagöz. The newspaper also includes a regular “People’s Column” (Halk Sütunu) which answers letters and telegraphs received from readers. Thus, it is conceivable that either a writer for the magazine directly experienced the unorthodox collection methods of the toll operators while traveling to Bafra or a reader may have sent in a letter exposing what is happening in his own hometown.
What is not explicitly said is that many of the villagers who leave their belongings at the bridge never end up returning with the money and thus never reclaim their pawn (or in Turkish, “hostage” or rehin). Of course, this does not mean that the villagers did not cross back (assuming they live on one side and conduct business on the other). It just means that the villager who could not afford one ticket across probably cannot afford two tickets. So while procuring the funds for the “return” will still be necessary, the first trip over the bridge, along with its pawn, is considered a loss taken.
As a result, the toll trolls ended up with a lot of barter items, but no currency. So perhaps they needed to make some of the money back with a garage sale.
Either way, hopefully 1927’s ministry of interior eventually took a look at this…
Originally published at https://steemit.com on May 14, 2017.
