Hasankeyf, Turkey, Sept 28 (AFP/APP):Just two roofs poke through the vast expanse of an artificial lake that has swallowed a Turkish town whose caves and pre-Ottoman ruins once drew in global tourists. The dust settling from the hammering of construction sites around the Tigris River lake outlines the makings of a brand new city, with an unfinished bazaar and roads that are all works in progress. But trader Abdurrahman Gundogdu worries whether the new version of Hasankeyf in Turkey’s mostly Kurdish southeast will ever recapture the magic it had before the Ilisu Dam erased the original town that stood here for 12,000 years. “I’m making one percent of what I used to earn before in the old town,” the 48-year-old complained, outside his empty shop filled with jewellery but no people. “There are local tourists but they have no money to spend.” ‘Magnificent project’ The dam, completed and filling with water since last year, is meant to bring electricity to an underdeveloped region that officials hope to revive with jobs and long-needed investment. “This is such a magnificent project,” President Recep Tayyip Erdogan enthused, when he was still prime minister in 2009, promising to build “a very modern” town in … Continue reading Turkey seeks new life for submerged tourist town