Research Project: Turkish Board Games (posted by Eliza)

Intro

My family LOVES board games, so I was immediately hooked on the idea of my Turkish research project being about what we can learn about Turkish culture by playing Turkish board games; backgammon and okey.  Backgammon’s ancestors were born around 2000 years ago with the Romans. The Romans had a game called “Ludus Duodecim Scriptorum” and now you can go to Syedra Ancient City in Alanya, Antalya to see the very old board game (Erdogan). We didn't get the chance to go to Syedra but we did go to Ephesus and we saw some ancient board games there. For people in the 20th century, backgammon wasn’t the game that everyone played. Until that is, a Russian named Alexis Obolensky came along. Alexis learned to play backgammon from his Turkish gardener. During the 1960s and 1970s, Alexis traveled widely promoting backgammon both as a gambling and tournament game (Roeder). 

Okey comes from rummikub, created by the Romanian Ephraim Hertzano in the 1940s. You have probably wondered at one point or another why rummikub is played with tiles instead of cards. That is because when Ephraim was a young man, Romania was ruled by a strict communist regime that banned cards. However, they did not ban tiles, and Ephraim took advantage of that using tiles in the place of cards. Rummikub literally means Rummi played with cubes. Later Ephraim and his wife moved to Israel where they sold handcrafted rummikub sets and spread the game all the way to Anatolia where it got fashioned into okey (Gravett). 

Methodology and Thesis

To answer my question, I read two books and thirteen articles from sources like TurkeyToday, National Geographic, and DW News. I also watched a bunch of videos that helped me learn how to play backgammon and okey. I also went to a museum in Istanbul that explains the history of coffee culture and at the site of the oldest coffee company in the country. I interviewed Mirac, our tour guide in Konya, and Osman, a Kurdish person in Kas, and Mustafa, a soldier in Foça. The biggest part of my project was just experiencing playing backgammon and okey in local coffeehouses with old guys who are painters, mechanics, police officers, and teachers.

Overall, I think that I have learned a lot about Turkish coffeehouse culture, gender roles, and cigarette culture by playing Turkish boardgames.

Section 1

You need to have a place to play backgammon with your buds, right? Well, in Turkey coffeehouses are that place. The first coffeehouse in Istanbul was made way back in 1555, by two merchants from Syria, who brought coffee from Yemen (McGovern). At the time, coffee houses were called kahvehane. Coffee quickly increased in popularity, and by the 1600s there were over 600 coffee houses in Istanbul. By the 1800s, there were 2,500 coffeehouses in Istanbul (Maspul). As you probably know, Turkey is 99.8% Muslim. The Quran says that drinking alcohol is a "vile act" and the working of Satan. Therefore, pubs and bars are looked down on, so people go to coffeehouses instead. In 2013, UNESCO declared Turkish coffee to be an "Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity" (CNN). Mirac says that during iftar the coffeehouses are where everyone goes to watch sports. As Mirac explains, coffeehouses are important because ever since he and his friends started to have kids, coffeehouses became the only place they could socialize away from home. He says they all have to put their phones on the table and whichever wife calls first has to pay for everyone's drinks.

Section 2

The second thing I have noticed is women or, more accurately, the absence of women in the coffeehouses. In the first coffeehouse that was built by the two merchants, women were not allowed, but that is not a big surprise - it was 1555 after all (McGovern). Now read this passage from Istanbul: City of Majesty at the Crossroads of the World by Thomas F. Madden: “Muslim women in Constantinople were kept strictly confined to their homes. When a Muslim woman was forced to travel, she was covered head to foot or shielded all around by heavy curtains carried by slaves. They were forbidden to have anything to do with the world outside their home” (Madden). This book is talking about the time era of 1500 to 1800, certainly not just 1555. Both Maric and Osman said that they don’t play backgammon or okey with women, although Maric did say that in university neighborhoods there was much more diversity of who was playing backgammon and okey together. One reason why you see so many men playing is because women spend four times the amount of time on caregiving and domestic duties and don’t have time for games (Isildak). Not to mention that less than one third of women in Turkey are in the labor force (Isildak). The 11th president of Turkey, Abdullah Gül, worked on women's rights when he was president (DW News). Many articles say Erdogan is not doing anything about women's rights. For instance, Asli Telseren says, “The government has used rhetoric on the importance of family and the role of women within the family, as an essential tool for re-consolidating patriarchal social structure” (Telseren). I have not seen many women in the coffeehouses playing games. I agree with Mirac because there were definitely some women playing Turkish boardgames in Çanakale, which is a university town. Other than that, it is very striking how few women play or generally in coffeehouses in towns like Kas and Foça.

Section 3

The third thing I have noticed when playing backgammon and okey is how everyone seems to be smoking. Turkey has the 9th most smokers per capita in the world; 50% of men smoke and 25% of women above 18 smoke. 18-19 million people smoke in Turkey (Erdogan). When I was playing okey in Kas you could barely see anything. I'm being serious. It was that smoky. Together, Turkey uses up 5.4 billion packs of cigarettes every year and if you divide that number by every adult in the country everyone smokes 64 packs per year (Al Jazeera). 174,000 people get lung cancer every year and 85,000 of those die, so that means every day 300 Turkish smokers die. You may be wondering why the government isn't doing anything, but they actually are. If your coffeehouse is found with smokers inside you have to pay a fine which is usually between 442 US dollars for the first violation and 2,151 US dollars for a second violation, and for a third violation the coffeehouse has to close (Qakmu). A coffeehouse owner tried to follow the rules and lost 80% of his customers, so now he just allows smoking and pays the fines or bribes. The government has also been putting up bans. For instance, the 1996 ban on cigarette ads, the 2008 ban on smoking in confined public spaces, and the 2013 ban on smoking inside cars (Erdogan). The government enforced these bans with police officers but dad and I played okey in a confined public space with a police officer who was smoking. The government also requires you to produce cigarette packs that have gross pictures of diseases that you could get if you smoke. The grossest one I've seen so far is a rotting foot with gangrene. So yes, the government is doing things, but no, the smokers are not listening.

Conclusion

In conclusion, I think that board game backgammon and okey are essential in Turkish culture. I wish that the United States had a similar culture around having coffeehouses instead of pubs because it is less rowdy. I like backgammon more than many other games because it consists mostly of strategy. and i like okey because it is very lively, and you can't seem to get bored playing it.

Works Cited

"Backgammon: The Cruelest Game in Art." Ludolatry, YouTube.com. 2021.

Bektas, Sena. "Role Models and Gender Roles in Turkey." Women's Campaign International. 

2025.

Crane, Michael. "Tavla in Turkey." Backgammon Galore. 1996.

Erdogan, Koray. "Why Are Turks Heavy Smokers?" Turkiye Today. 2025.

"In Turkey, Your Coffee Comes with a Side of Destiny." CNN. 2025.

Isildak, Muratcan. "Breaking Barriers: How Turkey's Gender Labor Market Shapes Women's 

Future Jobs." Modern Diplomacy. 2025.

Madden, Thomas F. Istanbul: City of Majesty at the Crossroads of the World. 2016.

McGovern, Connor. "How Istanbul's Ancient Coffee Culture Is Holding Its Own." National 

Geographic. 2022.

Roeder, Oliver. Seven Games: A Human History. 2022.

Telseren, Asli. "Gender Inequality and Feminism." International Sociological Association. 2022.

"These Turkish Women Practice Self Defense." DW News. 2024.

"Turkey Battles Lung Cancer with Smoking Ban." Al Jazeera. 2017.

"Turkey, Where Cigarette Smoke and Fines Don't Scare Anyone." Qakmu. 2025.

"Turkish Coffee Culture and Tradition." UNESCO. 2013.