Siirt
Yörük tribes wove lustrous Angora mohair blankets for centuries; Siirt pistachios supply 15% of Turkey—but population fell 3.2% in 2024 alone as out-migration depletes craft labor.
Siirt exists where Angora goats graze Taurus slopes. For centuries, semi-nomadic Yörük tribes wove blankets from lustrous mohair that no other region's goats produced—hand-loomed battaniye whose sheen defined the province's craft identity. Kurdish men did the weaving; women prepared the fiber. The Siirt blanket became a collectible: antique dealers in Europe and America trade specimens from the 1920s as artifacts of a disappearing textile tradition.
The pistachio economy developed alongside textiles. Siirt pistachios—grown on steep, often unirrigated land—constitute approximately 15% of Turkey's national production, with over 4,900 registered producers tending orchards in terrain too marginal for other cash crops. Bıttım soap, made from pistachio extract for over 3,000 years, represents another niche product that export markets increasingly discover.
The demographic arithmetic undermines both traditions. Population fell from 347,412 to 336,453 in 2024 alone—a 3.2% annual decline reflecting out-migration that exceeds births. Labor force participation rates are low; local job prospects limited. The March 2024 elections returned DEM Party mayors in Kurdish-majority provinces including Siirt, amid tensions over centralized control of local governance. The Women's Development Project aims to expand battaniye production for European e-commerce, but scaling traditional craft requires labor that migration depletes.
By 2026, Siirt tests whether niche agriculture and heritage textiles can generate sufficient returns to slow population loss. The pistachios grow regardless; the mohair accumulates; but the weavers and farmers age without successors in a structural trap familiar across southeastern Anatolia.