Nişanyan donates houses in Şirince to Turkish foundation

Thursday, February 24, 2011

VERCİHAN ZİFLİOĞLU

ISTANBUL – Hürriyet Daily News

The houses in Şirince have been the center of debate recently. DHA photo

Linguist and academic Sevan Nişanyan has donated his much-debated houses in the Şirince village of the Aegean province of İzmir to an educational foundation.

Nişanyan on Thursday handed over the title deeds of his 22 buildings – some serving as boutique hotels – to the Nesin Foundation, headed by Professor Ali Nesin, son of prominent Turkish intellectual Aziz Nesin.

Some buildings – including the ones owned by Nişanyan – in Şirince, seven kilometers from Selçuk, were set to be demolished last week on the grounds that they had been illegally restored but the demolition was delayed with a last-minute decision from the Culture and Tourism Ministry.

“I will continue to manage the hotels in the name of the foundation,” Nişanyan told Hürriyet Daily News & Economic Review over the phone Thursday.

Nişanyan said the recent developments regarding the houses made him realize that “the property limits my freedom.”

“I am in debt to tens of thousands of people who have supported me for these houses,” he added. “I am paying my debt to those people by donating these houses to the Nesin Foundation, which plays a very important role in helping children.”

The Nesin Foundation owns a house in Istanbul’s Çatalca district, where it provides aid and shelter to low-income children.

Nişanyan said his fight against the demolition decision was considered by some people as a struggle to keep his possessions. “But the fight was not for money, it was for Şirince, to which I’m committed with love and passion.”

He said the donation was not a move to stop the demolitions, either. “But now no one can demolish these buildings,” said Nişanyan. “If they do, the state will remain under the ruins.”