Çukurköy or Çukur Köyü

A Village in Yomra, Trabzon, Turkey

Çukurköy is a village in Yomra, Trabzon, Turkey. The old name of this village is Küçük Şana (Small Şana). Many years ago, this village had depended on a small coastal town near the east of the Black Sea, which is name is Şana. This small town had two villages. The name of the first one is Küçük Şana while that of the second one is Büyük Şana (Great Şana). In the period of Turkish Republic, the first village's name had become Çukurköy or Çukur Köyü.

The Meaning of Şana

There is two mythes on the meaning of Şana.

The first one is related to Evliya Çelebi: One times Evliya Çelebi visits Şana, admires this small coastal town and bawls: "Şahane". This word means "devastating", "glorious", "tremendous", "fantastic", "extraordinary beautiful" or "wonderful" in Turkish language - its etymology goes to Persian Language. The word "şahane" becomes shorter when time passing and renders into Şana within the tunnel of time. However, this mythe is not cogent, persuasive, and convincing.

A more plausible myth is related to Laz language (a dialect of Georgian language -Gürcüce or Gürcü Dili in Turkish-. According to this mythe, "şana" means "festival" in the mentioned language. If this mythe is true, then it is possible to say that many people was Laz in the early times of the history of the east Black Sea region but has been Turkized in modern times, especially in last period of Ottoman Empire and the Republican Era in Turkey.

More information

The population size of the referred village is approximately 750 people.

Its economy depends on agriculture, the main product is hazelnut.

A small river passes throughout the village. Its name is Küçük Şana Deresi (Small Şana River).

In recent years, many young people emigrate rapidly to urban areas, especially to enormous cities such as İstanbul, Ankara, İzmir, Antalya, Adana, Eskişehir, Bursa and so on. Now, nearly, only the old individuals have been lived in the village. It seems that the village will be empty in the near future.

Link to the section named "Köylerimiz" in the official website of district, i.e., http://www.yomra.gov.tr/ for seeing the other villages of Yomra.