Gaziantep Metropolitan Municipality Mayor Fatma Şahin, in her speech at the opening program of the GastroANTEP Culture Road Festival, emphasized that Gaziantep is the leverage and destination of the region and conveyed the importance of regional development together with all cities in the region.
The opening speeches at the GastroANTEP Culture Road Festival, organized in cooperation with the Gaziantep Metropolitan Municipality and the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, draw attention to the importance of the festival for the city and the region, while also emphasizing the point that the topic of gastronomy has reached in the world.
In order to introduce the local flavors of the Gazi city, which come from the sun, soil and history, to the whole world, the festival was held between September 14-22 and after the procession, the Festival Park, where the heart of GastroANTEP beats, was visited. The events started with the opening speeches after the children’s show.
This year, the theme of the festival will be “Economy is Talked About at the GastroANTEP Festival” with panels and talks to be held on the first two days, and in workshops, important chefs from Turkey and the world will shape Gaziantep’s food and vegan, vegetarian and healing products. During the festival, around five hundred cultural and artistic events will be held at nearly fifty locations, and nearly a thousand artists will meet with art lovers. In the festival spreading throughout the city, 21 different locations were also determined as the festival’s taste stops, considering certain criteria.
ŞAHİN: THERE IS ABUNDANCE, BROTHERHOOD, LOVE AND INTEREST IN THE FESTIVAL
Gaziantep Metropolitan Municipality Mayor Fatma Şahin thanked everyone who came to the festival in her opening speech and said the following:
“There is a festival in our city. There is abundance, brotherhood, love, and affection in the festival. There is a spirit of unity and the beauty you see today in the festival. There is a festival in our city. There is a very important beginning that our Minister of Culture and Tourism has combined with the Culture Road. Therefore, since you did not leave us alone, on behalf of the festival, on behalf of culture, on behalf of art, everyone who said ‘I also have something to say, something to say’ is here. I would like to thank you as the Metropolitan Municipality Mayor for being a part of this excitement under the roof of this hall, for coming and standing behind us like a mountain every time, for reviving the abundance in the eyes of the tradesmen, for increasing the hope of our farmers. You are here to start a festival where the products of women’s cooperatives bring healing to the whole world.”
HERE IS THE SPIRIT OF GAZİANTEP, WHICH RESISTS HUNGER WITH POMEGRANATE SEEDS AND HAS THE STANCE OF BEING THE FLAVOR CAPITAL OF THE WORLD
Continuing her speech, Mayor Fatma Şahin stated that today is Mevlid Kandili, and continued her words by conveying that the city is the heir of a civilization and state mind that is thousands of years old:
“While our Mawlids are being read in our mosques, on the other hand, the values that make us who we are in the city, the values that carry us to the future are here. Our Bakırcılar Bazaar, nourished by the Ahi Evran culture, we need a stance around our castle that says, ‘Shopping was done from me, not from the neighbor next to me’ with the companions’ culture. The world needs to heal. Culture and art heal. The world needs the understanding of ‘Keep people alive so the state can live’. When we founded our party 22 years ago, under the leadership of our President, we said, ‘First people, keep people alive so the state can live’. In order to teach this to our children, the heritage left to us by our ancestors a century ago is brought together in the Panorama Museum, the stance of Gaziantep, which Gazi Mustafa Kemal Atatürk showed as an example to all other provinces, there is the spirit of Gaziantep, which resists hunger with its apricot seeds and is the world’s capital of flavor.”
WE WILL MAKE THIS CITY A SMART CITY, A RESILIENT CITY IN THE NEW ERA
In the last part of his speech, he emphasized the importance of Gaziantep for the region and concluded his words with the following expressions:
“We are the leverage and destination of the region. When we look here, there is a chorus of civilization. Everyone finds themselves. There is so much to do in Gaziantep, Hatay, Kahramanmaraş, Mardin from faith tourism to nature tourism. In the new period, we will make this city a smart city, resilient. We will make this region the capital of the region from nature tourism to faith tourism, from congress tourism to health tourism. We are competing with the Italians. We have more, we have no less. We are competing with Spain’s San Sebastian, Italy’s Rome, Naples. We will combine our power in the region. We will be big, we will be alive, together we will transform the Gaziantep Spirit into a world spirit, saying ‘There is a festival in our city, we are waiting for everyone to Gaziantep’, I greet you all.”
Speaking at the program, AK Party Group Deputy Chairman and AK Party Gaziantep Deputy Abdulhamit Gül said, “The festival is a very important opportunity to unite people, friends, and hearts. There is a unity that comes from the table. The special feature of Gaziantep is that we all sit at the same table regardless of language or religion. We appreciate the success of our President Fatma Şahin in the festival, which she continues to build on every year.”
Gaziantep Governor Kemal Çeber gave information about Gaziantep’s other features besides gastronomy, saying, “When I came to Gaziantep a year ago, I thought I knew the city. But when I arrived, I saw that I only knew the tip of the iceberg. A very special city, very special lands, a very special culture and history. This city has a few things to say no matter what the subject is. Gastronomy has come to the forefront, but this city has something to say on every subject.”
TBMM Administrative Officer and MHP Gaziantep Deputy Sermet Atay also thanked everyone who contributed to the festival in his speech.
Hatay Metropolitan Municipality Mayor Mehmet Öntürk, who also came as a guest in the program, stated that Hatay and Gaziantep have a common culture and gave examples of food. He thanked Mayor Fatma Şahin for her support to Hatay in healing the wounds of the earthquake.
AK Party Gaziantep Deputies Derya Bakbak and Mesut Bozatlı, İYİ Party Gaziantep Deputy Mehmet Mustafa Gürban, Şahinbey Mayor Mehmet Tahmazoğlu, and Oğuzeli Mayor Bekir Öztekin also gave speeches at the program.
