The Cittaslow movement started with İzmir’s Seferihisar, has a new member, Erzurum’s Uzundere town. The "Seven Scholars” hotel in Selçuk, Izmir has rewarded a "Cittaslow Friendly Enterprize” award at the same ceremony.
International Cittaslow Executive Board Meeting was held in Italy’s Greve in Chianti the day before. The National Coordinators of Poland, Germany, South Korea, Italy, Belgium, USA, Swiss, France, China and Hungary joined the meeting to work on the new web site, web tv and educational projects. The new memberships from Germany, Italy, Thailand and Turkey were greeted by the Board.
Uzundere became the 11th Slow City in Turkey, following Artvin’s Şavşat. Cittaslow Deputy General Manager and Seferihisar Mayor Tunç Soyer accepted the membership certificate in the name of Uzundere District Governor Hacı Arslan Uzan and Mayor M. Halis Özsoy. Mayor Soyer congratulated the volunteers contributed in the application process of Uzundere and added: "A hotel in Turkey, Seven Scholars, rewarded the "Cittaslow Friendly Enterprize” award for the first time . The hotel and the managers are already eligible to such an award and I am proud to deliver the certificate on behalf of them. I am giving my utmost compliments to Bilge Yamen, Gülgün Yamen, Sevil Terzioğlu and their employees and that they carry on successfully.”
CITTASLOW TURKEY
With the latest addition of Uzundere, there are 11 Cittaslows in various regions of Turkey:
İzmir Seferihisar, Aydın Yenipazar, Muğla Akyaka, Çanakkale Gökçeada, Kırklareli Vize, Isparta Yalvaç, Sakarya Taraklı, Ordu Perşembe, Şanlıurfa Halfeti, Artvin Şavşat and Erzurum Uzundere.
The very first Cittaslow of Turkey, Seferihisar is considered to be the Cittaslow Capital of Turkey by the headquarters in Italy. Applications of the towns to join the Cittaslow network in Turkey are filed by Seferihisar to the network in Italy.
CITTASLOW
Created by the combination of the word "citta” (town) in Italian and "slow” in English, Cittaslow is used to mean a "slow town”. The Cittaslow network is a union of towns arising from the Slow Food movement in order to prevent globalisation from standardising the towns, the their local characteristics, lifestyle of the residents. It is a union joined by those towns and cities, which do not wish to be one of those homogeneous places created by globalisation, but strive to preserve their characteristics and take their town in the world’s stage.
Briefly, Cittaslow is the international network is cities, where ife is easy. It is about the towns considering their strenghts and specialities and develop strategies to preserve such characteristics. The quiet pace of life allowing the citizens and the tourists to enjoy the colors, music, history and opportunities of the town. It is about sharing the local crafts, tastes and arts with the children and guests in order to prevent them from being just memories of past generations. It is about people caring for their health. It is to continuously control air, noise, light and electromagnetic contamination to keep them in health-friendly levels. It is to take and apply measures in a many extensive duties from waste collection to scheduling the pest control. It is to incite any alternative and renewable energy resources which are non-hazardous for human beings and environment. Perhaps the most important of all is that a town distinguishes itself from thousands of other towns resembling each other.