For the last 8,000 years, mankind has been cultivating the soil on Diyarbakır’s Hevsel Gardens, a UNESCO-recognized site that adorns the color palette of autumn at its best.
Fed by the Tigris River in eastern Turkey, Hevsel Gardens is a natural and vivid masterpiece in autumn. Adorned with beautiful foliage, Hevsel Gardens never fails to mesmerize visitors. The gardens host photo safari teams who want to capture the best shots of the season. The professional and amateur photographers enjoy a three-hour trip across the gardens with their cameras.
Participating in one of the photo safaris organized by photographer Mehmet Kılıçoğlu, actor Zekeriya Karakaş said that coming to the magical Hevsel Gardens from the chaos of Istanbul has been therapy for him. Stating that he has been enjoying his time at the gardens, Karakaş said: “This is one of the first settlements in the region. The landscape is amazing. Glad to be here.”
Sedat Hattısarı, a member of the Fotono21 Foundation said the scenery is an opportunity for photographers to take great photos, especially of the poplar trees in the gardens. “We advise photography enthusiasts to take a trip to the Hevsel Gardens,” said Hattısarı.
Located on an escarpment of the Upper Tigres River Basin that is part of the Fertile Crescent, the city of Diyarbakır and the landscape around has been an important center since the Hellenistic period, through the Roman, Sassanid, Byzantine, Islamic and Ottoman times to the present. The Hevsel Gardens are considered to be the major agricultural site that have been feeding the people of the region for thousands of years.