Задание 16 из ЕГЭ по английскому языку: задача 18

It was a sunny June morning when I arrived in the historic city of Safranbolu in northern Turkey. The former Ottoman town was abuzz with life — an old caravanserai was welcoming new guests and alluring boutiques were selling everything from handmade soaps to saffron-flavoured lokum. Yet, what caught my eye were the hundreds of timber-laced mansions that dotted the town’s quaint alleyways. With gleaming white stone facades, red-gabled roofs, and brown casement windows, they looked straight out of a fairy tale.

Nestled deep within the Karabuk province of Turkey’s Black Sea region, Safranbolu was an important caravan stop along the Silk Road, the ancient trading route between China and the West. The city was known for its burgeoning saffron trade and became a prominent Ottoman town in the 18th Century, its cobbled streets chock-full of mosques, hammams, and these traditional Turkish mansions called konaklar.

Today, there are more than 2,000 Ottoman-era konaklar in Safranbolu. Many are home to locals, while others have been transformed into boutique hotels, restaurants, cafés, and museums. Not only are they beautiful to look at, but these konaklar are outstanding examples of sustainable architecture and socially responsible building design. However, while their importance saw the city inscribed on the Unesco World Heritage list in 1994, many people outside Turkey still remain oblivious to their existence.

Safranbolu has a unique topography and climate. The Old Town is located on the slopes of a deep ravine. Summers are balmy and clear, whereas winters are cold and snowy. Çamlıca Konağı, a 300-year-old konak-turned-boutique hotel, like hundreds of other Safranbolu konaklar, is perfectly designed to adapt to these temperature variations.

“Our homes are made with locally sourced wood and stone that provide excellent thermal insulation across seasons, without harming the environment,” said Fatih Dökmeci, a local architect who has restored more than 100 konaklar in Safranbolu.

As I walked through the wide stone hallway of Çamlıca Konağı and climbed the wooden stairs to my spacious suite on the first floor, I was surprised by how well ventilated the entire mansion was, even in the middle of a hot summer’s day. The sofa room — a central hall that connected all other rooms on the first floor — was especially airy and comfortable.

My tour of the mansion revealed something even more interesting: the ceilings of the guest rooms on the first floor were significantly lower than those of the reception hall and the breakfast lounge on the ground floor. Özen, the owner of the hotel, explained that this was purposefully done so that less energy would be used to heat these rooms in winter, making the mansions extremely energy efficient. She added that in the past, the people of Safranbolu would have their kitchen on the first floor so heat from the stove could be repurposed for heating the rooms. “Kitchens have long moved downstairs but Safranbolu families still spend warm and cosy winters on the low-roofed first floors of their konaklar,” she told me.

Özen told me that it was an important part of their culture to respect the needs of others who inhabited the same locality. That’s why they ended up constructing their houses in harmony with the entire neighbourhood and not just as standalone structures. “Building my own house like that made me a little less selfish and a little more human,” Özen said.

Özen, who has always lived in a traditional Turkish house, is proud of her heritage. “Living in a konak gives me the warmth of community and makes me feel closer to nature,” she said. “I want to share some of that warmth with my guests and help them experience the care and love that I have experienced here. By restoring Çamlıca Konağı, I not only intend to save our heritage but also teach the future generation the importance of being kind to nature and other human beings.”

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Why are Turkish mansions extremely energy efficient in winter?

1. Low ceilings of the first floor allow warmth to spread all over the mansion in winter.
2. Mansions are adaptive to extreme weather conditions because of their windows’ outline.
3. The second floor is cooler than the first floor which makes the mansion temperature contrast.
4. The mansions are not heated in winter.