I just had an interesting conversation this morning with the 12 year old boy who works in the bakal (corner store) by our house. Up til now he and his older brother had been the boys who bring the deliveries to our house, but I notied his older brother (13 years old) wasn't working. When I enquired, the younger said his brother was living in a tent. (cadirlarda). I was like "what?" he said it again, and then it clicked, he was out doing the seasonal migrant worker thing. I've seen villages of tents out in the country side and assumed it was some kind of nomadic situation. I just never knew someone who has done it. I'd be curious to learn about this lifestyle

I had always assumed they were gypsies or Kurdish seasonal workers. An interesting story.

The article writes that there are only 200 of that particular Yoruk tribe doing the nomad thing.

The people in the tents we see are most likely the more numerous seasonal workers - either itinerant workers or people who have a permanent base but work on the farms seasonally.

Actually Yoruks are the grandsons of first Turkic inhabitants of Anatolia. Some of them were exiled to Balkans by the early Ottoman sultans, because they were supporting Karamans. Even though me and my dad has born in Istanbul, my line probably comes down from them. More info here:

http://istanbulian.blogspot.com/2007/03/my-genealogy-my-line-comes-down-from.html

BTW nice blog, keep up the good work.