Small is Beautiful in Turkey

In Turkey when you want to take a bus to town, you take a dolmush. This is a small minibus seating maximum 12 passengers. But generally they squeeze in many more standing, as dolmush in Turkish means stuffed. Yes, we have the dish with the same name when you stuff grape leaves or cabbage with minced meat or many other things in it. These minibuses have their numbered routes and go whenever there are customers, generally every 5 to 15 minutes. No timetable, no tickets, no fixed bus stops! You just stand beside the road an stretch out your hand, and it picks you up and leaves you anywhere along his route.

This is really Small Business. Far from the large buses we have in the west, but very efficient, very fast, convenient and cheap. It works due to a good interaction between the driver and the customers, with the blessing of the community.

Let’s take no 1 to Sanayi

Outside Kuşadasi is their industrial site called Sanayi sitesi, a large site of at least 50 hectares. Let’s take Dolmush No 1 to Sanayi!

There is a mosque in the middle, of course. Regular prayers are in the air, here as in most Muslim towns. Work then stops for some minutes, if possible. Not the rush we have in Europe. They give of their time to God.

They even have a free offering a year after a person has died to honour his memory. It is general practise to serve doughnuts’ free to every passing person. So there are often long queues seen in the street when specialized firms engage in this business.

You may also see many small huts like this on the industrial site. This is a combination of a tea house and small restaurant open from early morning until late afternoon serving breakfast and light lunches, as well as Turkish tea the whole day.

This is the meeting point for the shop owners to gossip and play cards, back gammon or other games.

I talked to the owner of this small hut and he had been working as a cook in Germany many years. He did not like the stress and competition there. This is a much easier life here and this small hut supported him, his wife and child as well as his mother in law very well. They all contributed to the running of the establishment!

Steel workers

You learn a lot by just strolling along looking at all the small shops at the site. This Genuine Small Business, occupying just 100 or 200 square metre each and with very little machinery, just what is needed to do the necessary jobs. They are good craftsmen, like we had in the west until Big Business took over and turned us to exchangeable slaves.

Here Doğan and his helpers are manufacturing a complicated sliding window on the floor. Welding with a minimum of safety equipment and mostly using just hand tools.

While Doğan prefers to lie on the floor, another shop not far away prefers to have welding tables at least.

When they need steel bars or other steel products they just phone Mehmet at Sever near the site entrance. He is 31 years old and has worked there since he had done his military service. His collaborators take out the bars needed and deliver them to the clients in no time. Service still exist in Turkey and is a must to succed.

The other side of the coin is, that no spray booths are found. All painting is done in the open air!

Wood workers

The carpenters need wood. Süleyman, who now runs the business his father started, delivers this. He buys trees from Turkey or Romania and saws them down the size needed. He has his own tractor and serves the whole town 30 km around the site.

Some carpenters have modern good equipment and make complete kitchen equipment according to your specification. The make and mount it very fast. Halil is proud of this red kitchen cabinet, which is part of a big order to refurbish a whole kitchen.

Hakan is another good craftsman. He makes chairs, tables and bookshelves of high quality.

Scrap and chickens

There is a lot of scrap at the site. And you find the most amazing things there.

This doll sits on a pile of pipes and the Permashield paint at his feet is not allowed in Europe any more.

Motor cycle and car parts are found everywhere. And hens and chickens go around this in complete freedom. How can they survive?

Washing machines are dismantled and electric cables are taken care of. With a lot of Turkish tea, frequently served from the small tea hut.

The recycling of cans is not very well established, but here they are stored; on top of the roof at the scrap shack, partly crushed flat partly in plastic sacs.

Above the scrap is the hen house. Here they live and are fed wintertime by their owner. In summer they go out on their own to find something edible.

Time to take Dolmush no 1 back home. The drivers enjoy another tea and offer us the same. No hurry. Better to wait a bit if more customers should show up.

The driver can open the door to the dolmush automatically. I place myself just beside the door. When the dolmush stops in the town centre I shoot this picture. The shoe shiner is an old well-known gentleman who 30 years ago used to go around as a sandwich man. He had a horn shouting to invite people to go to the outdoor film area on Sundays. He now polishes the shoes of the young generation, whose interest is more directed to contacts over the mobile phone and to shine, than to work. Is this inevitable? Remember: SMALL IS BEAUTIFUL!

/Gösta