Minorities in Turkey form a substantial part of the country's population, with at least an estimated 20% of the populace belonging to an ethnic minority. Among these, the small community of Hemshin inhabits the region of the Kaçkar Mountains, an extension of the Caucasus that separates the Black Sea from Anatolia. The Hemshin moved here from Armenia and were originally Catholic. Most of them were members of the Armenian Apostolic group, but over the centuries evolved into a distinct ethnic group. They converted to Islam in the 1890s through 1920's to save themselves from death. The present community of Hemshin is exclusively Islamic and Turkish speaking. Some of the Hemshin still speak the ancient Anatolian (western) Armenian dialect in the northeast. They have fair skin and a distinct folk culture, the women use to wear bright colored headscarfs adorned with small coins dangling from the edges, which they tie in a peculiar way to declare their availability for marriage. The main traditional occupations is cultivating tea in terraces clinging to steep hills. The landscape is filled with winch wires stretching across the gorge, which are used as pulley systems to hoist goods up to the wooden tea houses. During summer, Hemshin move to the remote and highest yayla, or summer pastures, that host bunched groups of dwellings, usually stone-built to waist height. Despite their rooted culture, the "Turkey for the Turks" ideology promoted by the government offered no security for minorities, with the tiny Hemshin group having especially compelling reasons to keep its head down due to its descendant from Armenians.
