Understand
Mardin lies at the heart of homeland of Syriacs Süryaniler, an ancient people who trace their origin to Akkadian Empire, established in Mesopotamia around 2200 BC. Syriac is a Semitic language directly related to the native tongue of Jesus Christ, Aramaic. Syriac Orthodoxy was established after the first division in Christianity in 431, much earlier than the Great Schism of 11th century between the churches of Rome and Constantinople. While the Syriac population in Mardin dwindled due to emigration nowadays Assyrians are more numerous in Sweden than in all of Turkey, they are still very much present in the city, along with more or less all other regional cultures, including Turks, Kurds, and Arabs.
Mardin served as the capital of Turkic Artuqid dynasty between 12th and 15th centuries, which resulted in much of the Islamic heritage madrasahs and mosques visible in the city today.
Unofficially closed to tourism throughout 90's due to long lasting Turkey-PKK conflict in the surrounding countryside and that possibly explains why it is omitted from most of the guidebooks to the area, Mardin has recently started to catch up with tourism still don't expect hordes of package tourists, for sure, and rewards the intrepid traveller who took the effort to go there with a sense of discovery, along with plenty of beautiful architecture and vistas.
Orientation
The main street of old city, which traverses the town from one end to another through its centre, is called 1. Cadde or Cumhuriyet Caddesi for part of its route. At the eastern end of the old town, it makes a sharp U-turn, and runs along the entire southern edge of city, making another U-turn at the western end of the town and thus completing a loop.
While the maps and aerial photos of old city may look like a labyrinth, it is pretty hard to get lost in narrow alleysâdepending on which side of main drag you are on, take downhill or uphill alleys you will come across one by one in a succession, and within 15 minutes at most, you will be back at main street.
The main avenue of the physically almost totally seperated northern suburb of YeniÅehir is Vali Ozan Bulvarı, which eventually turns into the street zigzaging on the side of the hill while climbing up to old city. You will possibly not spend too much time in YeniÅehir unless you chose to stay at one of the hotels there, but whether coming in from west Urfa or northwest Diyarbakır, Vali Ozan will be the first road you will set foot in Mardin.