The Message Of The Mayor
We are experiencing the excitement and happiness of meeting with you, our esteemed fellow citizens, again after a long hiatus for our International Şile Cloth Festival. Unfortunately, we could not hold our International Şile Cloth Festival in the last two years which we had to stop our social life all over the world and had to postpone our festival due to the pandemic, We continued to beautify Şile, to work and produce for Şile, without ever breaking our morale or lowering our energy. I would like to express my gratitude to you, our dear fellow citizens, for all the support and dedication you have given us while serving this purpose.
Our festival program, which we gave as a gift and which we will organize for the 33rd time this year with great enthusiasm, will offer the opportunity to rediscover our Şile Cloth, which we are proud of with its geographical indication, and the cultural and natural beauties of Şile. During our festival, we will experience the happiness of hosting Turkey’s leading artists in our district.
The International Şile Cloth Festival, which we experience with great excitement, has a special importance as one of the oldest festivals in Istanbul, in addition to its cultural value. Şile is the apple of the eye of Istanbul with its settled village life, commitment to its culture and traditions, historical texture and natural beauties. As Şile Municipality, we have always aimed to protect our historical and cultural values and to carry the cultural heritage of our district to the level it deserves. We are working hard to introduce Şile Cloth, the most important symbol of Şile, one of our most original and deep-rooted legacies that will carry us to this goal, and the gateway of our district to the world.
We feel even more motivated to carry the traces of the past to the future as we watch the art that our grandmothers, mothers and aunts dream of, which has been passed down from generation to generation for more than a century, and which Şile Cloth has transformed into today. We will continue to work to protect, keep alive and bring to the level it deserves the Şile Cloth, in which our women have told all their dreams, bittersweet memories and experiences with nearly a hundred motifs over the years.
We invite everyone to experience and feel Şile, the cradle of natural and historical heritage, where we preserve all the culture and tradition from the past and blend it with what our age brings. We are waiting for all our fellow countrymen and all our guests to the International Şile Cloth Culture and Art Festival, which will be held for the 33rd time this year.