Guide
Bektaş Yaylası is a highland pasture in the Dereli district of Giresun that serves the district and the villages nearby as their main market. The name was given in honour of Hacı Bektaş Veli by the Turkmen Çepni, his followers.
The pasture stands at 2,100 metres and lies fifty-six kilometres from the centre of Giresun by the shortest road. It can be reached on surfaced roads from Batlama in central Giresun and from Bulancak and Dereli. There are routes here well suited to walking.
Electricity, water and telephone have been in place for many years. The pasture draws a good many visitors in summer, most of them from within Türkiye, and there is a two-star hotel with eighty beds; further tourist facilities are being built. It is one of the most populous highland pastures of the Eastern Black Sea.
At Kurttepe there is ground naturally suited to skiing. The air and the water here are very cold, and a stove has to be lit even in summer. In the rainy season the weather is usually misty, but when it is clear the clouds settling into the valleys make a remarkable sight.
The traditional festival of the pasture is held on 30 June and 1 July, with the people of the surrounding country coming in numbers.
Life on the pasture begins in April, as the snow starts to melt, and people stay until about November. Through the winter months of heavy snow no one lives here but the watchman appointed by the state and one or two others. In that period all the roads are closed by snow and reaching the pasture is very difficult.
