Steel Pot Comes Up, Tinners Go Down

Living in Malkara, Hacıevhat District, Erenler region, approximately 30 house of people have many problems… The biggest problem tinners have is the unemployement issue they have encountered after their traditional profession became unvaluable.

Almost all of them, the ancestors of tinners, living next to each other in their small houses in Hacıevhat District, came to Turkey from Salonika, Drama region. After invention and mass production of steel pot, their traditional profession as tinners lost demand and this fact put these craftsmen and hardworking people on the spot. Tiner who have expressed that this situation was the biggest reason behind their most important problem of unemployement are recently engaged with seasonal work fields longing for their craftsmanship times.

They make their living through selling the coal pieces which are the leftovers of coal-carrying excavation trucks in winter time. In summer, most of them camp near villages and work in the fields. Some of them move to Şarköy and work as public porters with their relatives. Tinners of Malkara are not happy with their current occupations. They Express that they used to earn a lot more when they were tinners. Nearly all of them claim that if it was possible, they wpuld go on with their original and traditional profession.

Tinners no longer prefer their traditional transportation vehicle; horse cars. Fort he purpose of carriage, they use swat cars with a water engine on four wheels. Their loyal swats carry them from one olace to another where they work.

The tinners are troubled; these wonderful people who hope to find a solution to their unemployement problems express their issues with bashfulness. Tinner women explain that they cannot benefit by social relief programs and they highlight that in spite of all their efforts tehy cannot solve their existing problems and they wait for the authorized people to help them. In truth, it is impossible not to acknowledge that women/men, old/young, all these people struggle to survive in extremely bad conditions.

A considerable part of the children cannot finish their elementary education. With the current situation of the young generation, the level of illiteracy among old people is not surprising. In one hand unemployement and in the other hand educational impossibilities and the lack of communication with other societies, tinners feel alienated and isolated from society. While a little part of the regional people can communicate with different sections of society, a considerable part of the tinners of Malkara spend their lives only with their families, they live and work with them.

Their biggest expectations are to live in peace with their neighbors and, the most important of all, to getr id of the problem of unemployement into which they are drifted by losing their traditional profession thanks to which their ancestors made a living. Our tinner brothers continue to support themselves with temporary jobs, altough hand to mouth, on the other hand they wait for a friendly support.