Cave festival in Turkey

The "Tuzluca Fest" Book, Culture, and Children's Festival, organized by the Iğdır Governorship and the Tuzluca District Governorate in the caves located inside the Salt Mountain in the Tuzluca district, concluded on September 11-15.

Numerous citizens, as well as several authors and artists, attended the event held in the caves formed as a result of salt mining activities carried out from the past to the present.

Approximately 25,000 people participated over the course of 5 days in the organization, where many activities such as art, a book fair, a children's carnival, and theater performances were held 80 meters underground.

The event, which was organized to promote the region, attract visitors to the Salt Caves, and bring the local people together with social activities, is planned to be made a traditional annual event.

Tuzluca District Governor Abdullatif Yılmaz told an AA reporter that all the festival's events were well-attended.

Stating that the Salt Caves are an important location mentioned in Evliya Çelebi's Seyahatname (Book of Travels), Yılmaz said, "All our artists, authors, and performance groups held events with our citizens. As far as we can see, there was a very high level of participation from Ağrı, Kars, and surrounding provinces."

Noting that the high turnout was gratifying, Yılmaz said, "This is actually an indicator of how well the festival went. We estimate that approximately 25,000 people attended our 5-day festival. This participation will definitely benefit the region. With this festival, we have introduced Tuzluca to many people who had not heard of it before and had little knowledge of Iğdır. I hope that when the festival continues, we will make this healing rock salt cave even more widely known."

"We witnessed that a cave festival can be held in Turkey"

Expressing that the participants also liked the festival very much and that it left a positive impression, Yılmaz added:

"Our authors, in particular, said that it was the first time in their lives they had held a talk in a cave and that they were very impressed. God willing, we plan to hold the second one next year by making it even better with more excitement and more activities. As far as I know, a festival had never been held in a cave in Turkey before; we actually achieved two things with this festival. First, we witnessed that a cave festival could be held in Turkey and we made it happen. Second, we showed how successful a cave festival could be."