Hemshin

The Hemshinli (Hemşinli, Hamshen) are a people of the eastern Black Sea mountains descended from Armenians who, by tradition, settled the district of Hamshen (Tambur) in the 8th century under the Amatuni princes. Under Ottoman rule from the late 15th century most accepted Islam, a process completed by the 18th century; Christian Hamshenis who stayed Christian or moved to the Russian Caucasus became the Homshentsik of Sochi and Abkhazia, now counted among Armenians. The Muslim Hemshinli are three groups: the western Hemshinli of Rize (Hemşin, Çamlıhemşin), who speak only Turkish; the eastern or Hopa Hemshinli of Artvin, who keep Homshetsi, an archaic Western Armenian dialect largely unintelligible to standard Armenian speakers; and small Muslim communities in Russia (Krasnodar) and Central Asia, descendants of Hemshinli deported from Georgian Adjara in 1944. Turkish historians from the 1930s claimed a Turkic origin, which scholars reject; a 2011 genetic study points to the Armenian highlands. Numbers are uncertain, about 150,000-200,000 in all.

Hemshinli life is built around the yayla: each summer families move with cattle from villages on the forested slopes to high pastures, where stone and wooden houses cluster around meadows and festivals bring dispersed relatives home. Music is played on the tulum (bagpipe), the boxwood kaval and the kemençe, and the horon line dance is danced at weddings and yayla festivals (Çağırankaya, Didingola). Women traditionally wrap their heads in a patterned scarf (pushi/poşu). Communal labour (imece) once organised village work, weakened since tea farming spread. Hemshinli are famous across Türkiye as bakers and pastry makers, a trade learned by migrants in Russia before 1917, and for their wit, riddles and stories. Families are patrilineal; many households are now split between a city home and a summer village house.

Hemshinli are Sunni Muslims of the Hanafi school and practise Islam much like their Turkish and Laz neighbours, with mosques in every village and Ramadan, the two Eids and Friday prayers observed. Traces of the Christian past survive in folk custom: some communities mark feasts that fall on dates of the Armenian church calendar, such as spring and summer festivals at the yaylas, and old church and monastery sites are remembered in place names. Religion is moderate and often lightly practised among urban and leftist Hemshinli, especially in Hopa, while village elders keep a more traditional piety. Younger city-dwellers are increasingly secular.

No Scripture exists in Homshetsi, which had no written form until 1995. Most Hemshinli speak Turkish, in which the complete Bible, the JESUS film, audio recordings and Christian broadcasting are available; Western Armenian Scripture also exists. No organised outreach to the Hemshinli and no Hemshinli church is known in Türkiye; the Christian Hamshen Armenians of Sochi and Abkhazia are a possible bridge.

Before the First World War poverty in the Hemşin valleys sent thousands of men to the Russian Empire (Batumi, Crimea, Moscow, as far as Poland and Iran), where they worked as bakers and became skilled pastry makers. After the 1917 revolution many returned and opened patisseries in Istanbul, Ankara, Izmir and other Turkish cities; Turkish bakers say that almost every city's first pastry shop was founded by a Hemshinli. The trade remains a mark of Hemshinli identity.