Hikmet Kaya, a retired forest technician from Turkey, is being praised as the main driving force behind an impressive ecological achievement – turning a barren hill in Sinop city into a green oasis of million trees.

During his 24-year tenure as Head of Afforestation at Boyabat Forestry Operations Department in Sinop’s Boyabat district, Hikmet Kaya focused on afforestation, planting over 25 million saplings on a barren hill overlooking Sinop and turning it into a green oasis. He began work in 1978, and focused on afforestation in the steppe areas of Boyabat, relying both on specialized teams and the local community to transform inhospitable land into a green oasis for both humans and animals. Even though he retired in 2002, Hikmet Kaya’s project lived on, and today he is regarded as somewhat of a local hero.

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In an attempt to increase the daily milk yield of his cows, a farmer in Turkey is experimenting with virtual reality goggles that make the bovines think they are in the middle of a green pasture in summer.

İzzet Koçak’s family has been rearing cattle on a farm in Aksaray, Turkey for three generations, and the business has endured for so long because they have always tried to keep up with the times. Now it’s Izzet’s turn to make sure the family business does well enough to be passed on to the next generation, and he is going all-in on unconventional solutions. After experimenting with soothing music designed to relax the cows, the Turkish farmer is now experimenting with special VR goggles that allegedly make the animals believe that they are grazing in a sunny pasture, instead of a gloomy indoor farm in the middle of winter.

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A 20-year-old Turkish woman recently sparked a heated online debate after marrying the man who disfigured and almost blinded her with acid after a breakup.

Earlier this month, Berfin Ozek tied the knot with 23-year-old Casim Ozan Celtik, the same man who threw acid in her face two years ago, after they broke up. The two had been dating for some time, but, following a heated argument, they separated, and Casim allegedly decided that if he couldn’t have her, no other man would either, so he attacked her with acid. The substance left the poor woman disfigured, almost completely blind in one eye, and in considerable pain. Still, she somehow found the power to not only forgive her assailant but also fall back in love with him and accept his marriage proposal.

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For the last 11 years, “Turkey’s first and only stress coach” has been making a living by letting people punch him, without ever punching back.

Hasan Riza Gunay started working as a human punching bag in 2010, after finding inspiration in Turkish director Kemal Sunal’s classic movie “Sark Bulbulu” (Eastern Nightingale), in which the protagonist voluntarily allows himself to be beaten. He realized that while some people relieve stress by exercising, meditating or sleeping, other need to let off some steam by screaming, or better yet, hitting someone. So he turned his realization into an unusual business, allowing himself to be punched by strangers, for money. He has been working as a “stress coach” for a decade now and hopes to train others to pick up his role before he becomes too old to take a punch.

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One of the last thing you expect to see in the middle of an urban paved street is a grave complete with a large tombstone, but that’s exactly what you’re treated to when driving through the Turkish city of Sivas.

Yeni Mahalle Hamzaoğlu is one of the several streets that traverse the relatively new Şarkışla district of Sivas, in central Turkey, but there’s something special about it. At one point, motorists need to make sure that they don’t drive straight into a grave located right in the middle of the asphalt. It’s been there for several years now, but only recently gained national attention, after photos and drone footage went viral on social media.

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Burj Al Babas is an abandoned housing development in Turkey, which consists of hundreds of miniature Disney-like chateaus stretching out almost as far as the eye can see.

It was supposed to be a bustling holiday retreat for the world’s super-rich, a neighborhood of castle-inspired villas spread around in a picturesque valley, near the the historic village of Mudurnu, in northwestern Turkey. Instead, today Burj Al Babas is one of the world’s largest ghost towns, featuring hundreds of unfinished villas, some of which have already started to deteriorate. It’s a story of big ambitions, sky-high property prices and economic woes that ultimately spelled the end of the dream that was Burj Al Babas.

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The Bulgarian St. Stephen Church in Istanbul, Turkey, has the detailed ornaments of an Orthodox stone church, but it’s actually made of prefabricated cast iron elements.

Sometimes referred to as ‘The Iron Church’, St. Stephen Church is considered the largest prefabricated cast iron building in the world. It consists of thousands of prefabricated pieces of cast iron, from large walls, to small, intricate decorations, all of which weigh over 500 tons. As almost the entire structure and its exquisite décor are cast out of iron, a close inspection reveals the heads of the large screws holding it together everywhere you look.

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Hundreds of new sinkholes have been reported in Turkey’s agriculturally-focused Konya Province since the start of the year, almost double the number registered last year, and apparently it’s yet another man-made problem.

Konya Provine, located in the eponymous Konya Plain, has always been known as Turkey’s breadbasket or green silo, because of the vast sea of wheat spanning every which way, as far as the eye can see. But while Konya remains the country’s main agricultural center, the persistent drought plaguing farmers in this area has caused an unforeseen problem that has only been getting worse in recent years – sinkholes. As cultivators increasingly turn to groundwater to keep their crops alive, the giant caverns drained of water eventually collapse under the weight of the soil above, creating holes tens of meters across and up to 150-meters-deep.

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Media outlets worldwide have been reporting the shocking case of a young Turkish woman who had allegedly been allegedly conning her poor mother into sending her money by claiming that she was studying medicine at the prestigious Oxford University, in the UK. In reality, she was living it up while working as a real estate agent in Istanbul.

25-year-old Merve Bozkurt has attracted a lot of criticism for her actions, after it was revealed that she had been lying to her penniless mother for years, as a way of getting extra money from her. The woman went to great lengths to make her parent believe that she had been admitted at the prestigious English university, where she was studying to become a doctor. She even sent her mother photos of herself wearing a white robe and face mask, to create the illusion that she was doing hands-on medical training. All the while, the poor mother was selling flowers in front of a cemetery in the city of Antakya, to support her daughter.

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A retired postman from Turkey and a beautiful white swan have been inseparable for nearly four decades, and the story of their amazing friendship has melted the hearts of millions.

When Recep Mirzan spotted a wounded swan in a filed in Turkey’s Edirne province, in 1984, he had no idea that he was about to meet his best friend. He was in a car with a group of friends, when he spotted a swan that appeared to have a broken wing in an empty field. Mirzan quickly realized that leaving the bird there was the same as signing its death sentence, as predators would have most likely eaten it, so he stopped the car and took the bird with him. He kept in the car until evening, when he took it home and started nursing it back to health.

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Poor families in the Turkish city of Istanbul have been visited by a mysterious patron paying off their debts at grocery stores and leaving envelopes of cash on their doorsteps over the past year.

Last week, many poor people in Tuzla, a shipbuilding district on the Asian side of Istanbul ,were happy to find out that their debts at local grocery stores had been paid by an unknown male benefactor who claimed to be doing the selfless deeds “only to earn God’s blessing”. After the crash of the Turkish lira last year, food prices soared, as did the prices of utilities like electricity, and the unemployment rate. The rising cost of living has been hard to keep up with some people, but this mysterious benefactor is doing his best to help the poorest people in Istanbul.

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Viewers of an exhibition match between two major football clubs last Sunday were outraged to see what looked like a child puffing away on a cigarette in the stands. However, the smoker turned out to be a lot older than he appeared.

During a televised exhibition match between Bursaspor and Fenerbahce, two of Turkey’s biggest football clubs, viewers were treated to some disturbing-looking scenes. As the reporter interviewed someone on the pitch while the players were warming up, the cameras jumped to a couple of young Bursa fans in the stands, one of whom was eagerly puffing on a tobacco cigarettes. Everyone was outraged, and the short clip spread on social media like wildfire.

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İbrahim Sedef, an experienced beekeeper from Turkey’s Black Sea Region, has come up with an ingenious way of having his honey tested by the same bears that used to steal it.

Agricultural engineer and beekeeper İbrahim Sedef had been struggling to deal with thieving bears for over four months, but nothing worked. When he tried covering his precious beehives with steel cages, the bears toppled to get to the precious honey, when he reinforced the cages with a cement base, they just dug in the ground and toppled them again. Even raising the hives higher up didn’t help as the bears just climbed up to reach them. So earlier this month, Sedef decided to stop looking for solutions and at least use the bears’ appetite for honey to his advantage.

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A 19-year-old convicted killer in Turkey managed to escape from prison by allegedly switching places with his twin brother when he came to visit him.

Murat A. was serving a long prison sentence for murder at the E Tipi Kapası Prison in Mersin, southern Turkey when his twin brother, Huseyin, came to visit him last Thursday. They were apparently allowed to meet face to face and they used this opportunity to swap places. A photo of the two shows that they are not exactly identical, but it turns out they looked enough alike to trick prison guards into allowing Murat to just walk out of the detention facility. It’s not yet clear why the inmate’s brother agreed to take his place in a maximum security prison, but an investigation is ongoing.

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Mansur Çalar, a 33-year-old soccer player from Turkey, has been accused of using a concealed sharp object to repeatedly slash players of the opposing team during a third-division game last weekend.

Allegations against the footballer started pouring in on Monday after several players from Turkish club Sakaryaspor, the club Çalar’s team, Amedspor, had played against a day before, started posting photos of sustained slash wounds online. Some had scratch-like marks on their arms, others on their backs and necks, but they all accused Mansur Çalar, asking that he be reprimanded. Both the accused and his club dismissed the allegations, but then a video collage showing Çalar’s behavior in several tense moments during the Sunday match went viral online and authorities opened an official investigation.

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