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The area south of the castle of Nevşehir was inhabited mainly by Christians until 1923 and the people exchange between Turkey and Greece. Later many Turks moved into the abandoned houses, changed them, built new ones, destroyed some etc. Nowadays the government had decided to renew the whole area and forced the people to move away. Some buildings have been declared as of historic interest and all the other ones are meanwhile pulled down. - On the other side of the street, in northern direction, one can see a child sitting in the shadow on the ground. In the wall behind him is one of originally 16 wells (I could find only 2). They go back to priest Yiorgis (born 1760) who was able to get the Sultan's permission to build the wells. For the water they had dug narrow tunnels into the tuff rock, to transport it from the area of the southern village Göre to Nevsehir. The other well, close to the Greek hamam, is still working and the tunnel visible. - Compare this image from June 2012 with this one from August 2014:
Cappadocia is a part of central Turkey. Eruptions of several volcanoes (e.g. Erciyes Dag, Hasan Dag) had covered the area with tuff. Erosion dug valleys and created an uncountable number of different shaped rocks. The tuff's ability to store water made the valleys much more fertile than the higher surroundings. After the arrival of the first people, they soon started to dig caves into the soft stone. By the time they developed the ability to dig cities into the underground with tunnels of several kilometers. A sophisticated pipe- and tunnel-system cared for fresh air and water, to enable the people to hide from enemies for a long time. In the 5th century hermits started to settle in the valleys and to paint their caves. In the next centuries more and more hermits and monks arrived and a rich cave-architecture with colourfull wallpaintings developed. The most famous are the churches of Goereme and the Peristrema Valley (=Ihlara Valley) between Ihlara and Selime. Today thousands of tourists from all over the world are visiting the area.
