Uzungöl Lake and Wooden Houses in Trabzon

At the head of a steep, green valley in the Çaykara district of Trabzon Province, a long sheet of water rests quietly beneath the peaks of the eastern Black Sea. Uzungöl — the name simply means "long lake" — is one of the most distinctive landscapes in north-east Türkiye, and the villages around it keep alive a form of timber architecture shaped over centuries in one of the country's wettest and most heavily forested regions.

A Lake Held Back by a Landslide

Uzungöl lies at roughly 1,090 metres above sea level, in the valley of the Haldizen mountains, where the climate is damp throughout the year and cloud often hangs low over the ridges. The lake was not made by people but by the ground itself: a slope gave way and blocked the course of a mountain stream, holding the water back behind a natural dam. The result is an elongated stretch of water that follows the shape of the valley floor, widening and narrowing as the land allows.

Fed by snowmelt and by the countless small streams that descend from the surrounding slopes, the lake changes character with the seasons. In spring it is full and cold, reflecting the young green of the hillsides; by late summer the water has dropped and the shores reveal stones and silt. The valley continues upstream beyond the lake towards high pastures, so the water is only the most visible part of a much longer corridor of mountain landscape.

Timber Houses of the Çaykara Villages

The architecture of the surrounding villages is the strongest human imprint on the valley. Houses here are built in the timber-framed manner known across the Black Sea region as çantı, in which a wooden skeleton is filled with stone, brick or timber panels and then clad in boards. Local spruce and fir provide the material, while chestnut and hazelnut wood are used for beams and joinery that must withstand damp.

Several features recur: broad overhanging eaves that throw rain away from the walls, deep balconies used for drying produce and for sitting out in summer, and stone foundations that lift the timber clear of wet ground. Roofs are steeply pitched, as the rainfall demands. The older houses sit scattered across the slopes rather than in tight rows, each positioned to catch the sun and to leave the best land free for cultivation. Village mosques in the district often echo the same vocabulary, with wooden columns, carved details and shingled or metal-covered roofs.

Forest, Streams and Mountain Scenery

The vegetation around Uzungöl is typical of the humid Black Sea belt. Oriental spruce and fir dominate the higher ground, mixed lower down with beech, alder and hornbeam, while the undergrowth is thick with rhododendron, laurel and ferns. Moss covers stones and tree trunks for much of the year. The result is a deep, layered green that softens the sharp outlines of the valley and makes the landscape look close and enclosed rather than open.

The area is protected as a nature park, and the combination of lake, forest and steep slopes supports a varied birdlife as well as smaller mammals and the fish that give the lake its reputation among anglers. Waterfalls and side streams break the forest at intervals along the roads and footpaths, and in spring the melting snow swells them considerably.

Pastures, Tea and the Rhythm of the Year

Above the treeline, the summer pastures — known locally as yayla — have long been part of the annual cycle. Families once moved their animals up to these high meadows in the warm months and returned to the villages before the first snow, and this transhumance still shapes local life, even where it is now practised on a smaller scale. Tea gardens spread across the lower slopes, their bright trimmed contours a familiar sight in Trabzon Province, and smallholdings keep cattle, beehives and kitchen plots.

The cooking of the district follows the same pattern of mountain and dairy. Cornmeal dishes, soups made with beans and greens, fresh cheese, butter and honey appear on most tables, and trout from the cold water is a longstanding local speciality. The food is simple and seasonal rather than elaborate, built around what the valley can produce in a short growing season.

Walking and Exploring the Surrounding Valleys

Uzungöl is reached by road from Trabzon through the coastal town of Of and up into the Çaykara valley, a journey of roughly a hundred kilometres that climbs steadily away from the sea. Once there, the lake and its immediate shores can be explored on foot, and a network of tracks and old paths leads further into the mountains towards the pastures. Higher ground rewards walkers with views back over the water and across the layered ridges beyond.

Nearby villages, river valleys and forest roads make good half-day excursions, and the changing weather gives each outing a different atmosphere. Visitors who take the time to look beyond the shoreline will find that Uzungöl is less a single viewpoint than a gateway into a whole upland world of timber, water and forest.