While Antalya forgets, he writes: Hüseyin Çimrin!

Antalya, where the sun shines like a postcard for 12 months of the year, where a plane lands every two minutes during the summer season, and which is flooded with tourists from all over the world in every season!

However, how many people are left who truly know, live, and feel Antalya is a bit of a mystery...

When Antalya is mentioned, the first things discussed are usually: "Is Side better, or Kemer?", "Should we go all-inclusive? Or is half-board enough?" History? Culture? Who cares. Let them visit Perge... Let us sunbathe in Lara and enjoy the newly opened cafes.

Unfortunately, the all-inclusive system has kept even foreign tourists away from the city center for years. However, a curious tourist would leave their hotel and visit the Hadrian's Gate, the Fluted Minaret (Yivli Minare), and the ancient cities of Termessos, Olympos, and Phaselis. Yet, in the city center, a new historical artifact is found every day during the Hıdırlık Tower excavations.

This city is not just a combination of sunscreen and towels. In every stone of Kaleiçi, in the aqueducts of Aspendos, in the shadow of the Fluted Minaret, the footsteps of the past echo. But who cares! Those historical stones only serve as background aesthetics while we pass by. Just a backdrop for selfies.

Antalya lives on top of a 4,000-year-old civilization. But unfortunately, the local people born into this historical wealth lead lives quite devoid of urban culture.

A generation is growing up that tells tourists asking, "Where is the Antalya Museum?", "We last went there on a school trip."

I am the granddaughter of one of the first immigrants who came to Antalya by steamship from Thessaloniki during the 1924 population exchange. My father's side is from the Tekelioğlu tribe. As a journalist carrying the genes of both nomadic and immigrant heritage, I must admit that I am saddened for Antalya. Why has the city center been left so dilapidated and old? Is it so hard to find funding from UNESCO?

Hüseyin Çimrin (Antalya City Historian), a lover of Antalya who has spent 50 years of his life meticulously weaving together research on the history of Antalya, has been struggling for years: "This city is not an open-air hotel where you just go into the sea; it should also be a center of attraction with its history and culture," he says. He is right. But unfortunately, we usually mistake culture for a kebab menu or hotel animation shows.

The result? We have become a tourism giant, but it is as if we have wiped our local memory with bleach. We are like tourists in our own city. And perhaps the most ironic thing is: those who love Antalya the most are the ones who only spend a week here!

Hüseyin Çimrin is one of those who never gives up. He has been trying to promote Antalya for years with over 40 books, covering everything from its culinary culture to its history, and from the city's children's games to its legends, seeing Antalya in all its different beauties. He shuts himself in his study on the top floor of his house in Haşimişcan and has been writing for years. Hüseyin Çimrin has impressed me deeply with his last two works.

Antalya City Dictionary from Foundation to Present and Antalya City Chronology.

Antalya City Historian Çimrin has perhaps achieved a first in the world. From Foundation to Present (158 BC - 2025 AD), the Antalya City Chronology is exactly 703 pages! It is a crazy work, compiled day by day from the date the King of Pergamon, Attalos, founded it in 158 BC by naming it Attaleia, until December 30, 2024, where you lose yourself while turning the pages! With a one-man effort, how did Hüseyin Çimrin find this chronological information day by day? How did he compile it? How did he organize it?

Çimrin did not just scan archives from all world sources; he went from house to house in Antalya. For years, he chased information with his fingernails. Wherever the word Antalya appears, Hüseyin Çimrin is always there, in pursuit of that information!

For example, he answers geoscientists who say, "There won't be a major earthquake in Antalya," with the dates in his city chronology. There have been major earthquakes in Antalya. Kaş and Altınkum were once under a tsunami.

I opened a random page from the Antalya City Chronology, which the Antalya Chamber of Commerce and Industry (ATSO) brought to the city.

March 12, 1930: Atatürk, saying that he was very pleased with Antalya and the people of Antalya, that he would come again, and that he would bring a train to this beautiful land, departed for Ankara at 10:25 today amidst shouts of "Pasha, we look forward to your return, don't keep us waiting too long."

May 9, 1930: The price of bread will drop to 10 kuruş by the end of this month. December 31, 1935: The Fluted Minaret and its Mosque, which were damaged in an earthquake four years ago, have been restored by the General Directorate of Foundations.

December 26, 1978: MHP Chairman Türkeş said that martial law should be declared in Antalya. This work by Hüseyin Çimrin, who has etched every day of Antalya into history from 158 BC to December 31, 2024, could enter the Guinness Book of World Records. The Antalya City Chronology from the pen of Hüseyin Çimrin is also valuable in terms of witnessing what a city that is a center of attraction for the world has experienced throughout history. This work, which Hüseyin Çimrin has gifted to Turkey with years of dedicated effort at a desk overlooking orange trees in his house in Yenikapı, with the love of Antalya in his heart, is a universal contribution to Antalya's urban culture. World historians will claim it. As for strengthening the urban identity of the people of Antalya, it is a priceless gift to them.