Draft:Cibali Tobacco Factory
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Cibali Tobacco Factory
| Cibali Tobacco Factory | |
|---|---|
 Interactive map of the Cibali Tobacco Factory area | |
| General information | |
| Status | Kadir Has University |
| Location | İstanbul, Türkiye |
| Coordinates | | coordinates = 41.0255°N 28.9591°E |
| Completed | 1884 |
| Closed | 1994 |
The Cibali Tobacco Factory is a historical industrial building established in 1884 in the Cibali neighborhood of the Fatih district in Istanbul.
History[1]
Establishment and Ottoman Period
In the mid-19th century, the Ottoman Empire entered a financial deadlock. To finance the Crimean War in particular, it resorted to foreign borrowing. The increase in foreign debt forced the Ottoman Empire to pay debt with new debt. As its treasury depleted and it failed to generate sufficient revenue, the state sought various ways to pay off these debts. One of these methods was attempting to cover the debts through tobacco taxes. This task was assigned to the Six Indirect Taxes Administration (Rüsum-ı Sitte İdaresi). Although the Ottoman State increased its revenues with this decision, the rise in income also attracted the attention of European states. They began to pressure the Ottoman Empire to use this income to pay off its debts. Later, the Ottoman Empire established the Ottoman Public Debt Administration (Düyun-ı Umumiye İdaresi) to pay off these debts. A council of seven representatives was appointed on behalf of the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Austria-Hungary, Italy, the Ottoman State, and the Ottoman Bank. The duty of this council was to confiscate all the taxes collected by the Rüsum-ı Sitte. Subsequently, this council made an agreement with foreign companies and established the Regie Company (Reji İdaresi). Thus, everything related to tobacco in the Ottoman Empire came under the control of foreign entities. The Cibali Tobacco Factory was established in 1884 by a French company affiliated with the Regie Company.
At that time, Cibali was a neighborhood inhabited by a poor, non-Muslim population. These characteristics made it an attractive location for establishing a tobacco factory. In those times, Muslim women did not have the right to work, so most of the working women were from the non-Muslim population. Additionally, the poverty of the local people increased the potential workforce. While the factory initially only processed tobacco, it also began manufacturing cigarettes in 1900 using a cigarette machine named "Durant" brought from France. They not only engaged in mass production but also produced custom cigarettes throughout Istanbul. After being managed by the French company for about 40 years, the factory began to be operated by the Republic of Turkey on March 1, 1925, following the establishment of the Republic.
Republican Period
When the factory was transferred from the French company to the state, it initially struggled to meet the supply demand. Through subsequent additions and improvements, it reached a tobacco processing capacity of 30,000 kilograms per day. After the state took over, the working conditions of the employees were improved, and various renovations were carried out in the factory. Until 1936, the factory operated under the Directorate of Warehouses and Manufacturing. It was then managed by the Boğaziçi group for two years, and subsequently by the Üsküdar group until 1941. In 1941, these two groups merged under the Istanbul Warehouses Directorate. Towards the end of 1940, it began to gain prominence and was selected as one of the most advanced factories belonging to the Tekel (Monopoly) Administration.
Final Period and Closure
The establishment of Tekel, one of the most important achievements of the Republican period, placed tobacco production and its industry under state assurance in Turkey, creating a strong bond between agriculture and industry. Tekel became a giant public institution with its widespread nationwide organization, cigarette factories, leaf tobacco processing workshops, warehouses, and social facilities. One of the important centers of this comprehensive structuring was the Cibali Tobacco Factory.
The Cibali Tobacco Factory was not only a production center but also an institution providing employment to thousands of workers and holding a significant place in Istanbul's social fabric. Throughout the 20th century, drawing attention as an area where female workers were intensely employed, the factory had become one of Tekel's symbols on an urban scale.
However, with the privatization policies put into effect in Turkey starting in the 1980s, the tobacco sector underwent a major transformation. With the state's withdrawal from the sector, tobacco support purchases were abolished; production, import, and sales areas were left to free-market conditions. During this process, public enterprises like Tekel were included in the privatization scope. The Cibali Tobacco Factory was directly affected by this transformation.
Within the framework of the "Transition to a Strong Economy Program" implemented after the 2001 economic crisis, the liberalization of the tobacco sector and the sale of Tekel assets were put on a legal basis with the "Tobacco Law" No. 4685 and subsequently Law No. 4733. With these regulations, the privatization of factories and properties belonging to Tekel became possible. With the establishment of the Tobacco and Alcohol Market Regulatory Authority (TAPDK), public supervision gave way to market regulations.
As a result of these developments, Tekel's production power rapidly declined. Tekel, which had an 87% market share in cigarette production in the 1980s, saw this rate drop to 30% by 2008. This decline caused deep-rooted production centers like the Cibali Tobacco Factory to become dysfunctional. Tekel's cigarette and tobacco division was sold to British American Tobacco (BAT) by the Privatization Administration in 2008. With this sale, BAT became part of the structural changes that paved the way for the closure of the Cibali Tobacco Factory, alongside factories in Adana, Samsun-Ballıca, Bitlis, Malatya, and Tokat.
During this process, the Cibali Tobacco Factory ceased its production activities and completed its historical mission. Following the privatization of Tekel, the factory building was repurposed by the public sector for other uses and eventually transformed into an academic space. Today, the factory building houses Kadir Has University, and this area, where labor-intensive production once took place, continues its life as a campus where educational and cultural activities are carried out.
The closure of the Cibali Tobacco Factory symbolizes not only the end of a factory but also the end of a public development mindset and an industrial culture based on female labor. This situation clearly reveals the effects of the neoliberal transformation process Turkey entered after 1980 on urban space, gender roles, and production relations.
Architecture
The Cibali Tobacco Factory is one of the most important symbols of the industrialization initiatives and the architectural modernization process during the late period of the Ottoman Empire. The design of the industrial complex was shaped in the early 1900s as a result of the joint work of Alexandre Vallaury and Hovsep Aznavur, who were among the prominent architects of the era.
The architectural composition was created entirely to respond to the spatial and technical needs required by tobacco processing procedures. One of the architects, Hovsep Aznavur, was an expert in blending classical European architecture with modern industrial techniques, thanks to his education at the Academy of Fine Arts in Rome (Accademia di San Luca). Demonstrating this expertise at the Cibali Tobacco Factory, Aznavur avoided excessive ornamentation in the building's design, prioritizing structural ingenuity and maximum functional efficiency. The spacious workspaces (workshops), which were vital for the production lines and workers, became the primary focal point in the planning of the structure.
The building was highly innovative for its time in terms of material use and engineering techniques. Departing from traditional stone masonry architecture, iron and steel elements inspired by industrial developments in Vienna and France were utilized. The Cibali Tobacco Factory is considered one of the key examples of the transition from traditional structures to steel-reinforced buildings in the architecture of Istanbul. Particularly taking into account that Istanbul is located in an earthquake zone and the weak ground conditions on the shores of the Golden Horn, the static plans of the building were specially calculated to provide seismic resistance.
With all these architectural and engineering details, the Cibali Tobacco Factory went beyond being a mere production facility; it became a monumental reflection of the Ottoman Empire's efforts to integrate Western engineering techniques into the local infrastructure (Tanzimat era reforms).
Women's Labor
While waiting for the tobacco seedlings to grow, drying racks (sergen) and wagons are prepared to dry the collected tobacco leaves. The tobacco harvesting work continues throughout the summer. The collection of leaves is called "tobacco breaking" (tütün kırma). The tobacco plant has five leaf regions from bottom to top: bottom, middle, under-peak, peak, and top. Each region is collected in sequence; one region is not moved onto before the other is finished.
Tobacco breaking is generally done by women. They go to the field every morning around five o'clock, before the dew falls. The leaves must be collected before the sun rises high. Mothers, daughters, and daughters-in-law work in the field until 10:00 in the morning. After returning from the field, a quick breakfast is had, and then the collected tobacco is strung onto the drying racks in the drying shed until the afternoon prayer (ikindi). Afterwards, they eat a meal and go to the field again until the evening prayer. When returning home in the evening, dinner is cooked, and household chores like barn work and cleaning are completed. At the end of the day, they go back to the drying shed and continue stringing tobacco with sleepy eyes. This work is mostly done collectively (imece) by several families coming together; these evenings spent chatting somewhat alleviate the hardship of the work.
The collected tobacco is laid on drying racks and wagons to dry. By September, all the tobacco is collected. The dried leaves are taken from these racks, made into bundles (hevenk), and lifted to the ceiling. In October, the bundles are opened, and the tobacco is stacked and prepared for sale.
While women expend great effort in the field, at home, and in the drying shed, the duties of men are mostly limited to taking the women to the field and setting up the bundles. However, with the proliferation of tobacco stringing machines, men also started to be included in this process. The sale of tobacco, contacting the merchant, and making sales contracts are the responsibilities of men. Financial affairs such as opening a bank account, taking out a loan, and managing the income obtained are also carried out by men. Women, on the other hand, remain outside the decision-making mechanisms in this process; they have no say in how the income will be spent. Burdens such as housework, childcare, caring for the elderly, and animal care remain on women's shoulders.
Tobacco production is a labor-intensive process not only in rural areas but also in the city. In 1913, out of the workers in tobacco factories in Istanbul and Izmir, 1186 were men and 923 were women. In 1915, this number was recorded as 1141 men and 1086 women. Hundreds of young girls aged 10-12 worked as laborers at the Cibali Tobacco Factory. There were different branches of work such as tobacconists, cutters, cigarette makers, packers, and inspectors. Among these groups, cigarette makers and packers usually consisted of women. Women's more delicate hands made them more competent in rolling cigarettes. Tobacco that was not rolled as cigarettes was filled into small cardboard boxes and sold as packaged tobacco. Women packers also did this meticulous work. Since the same amount of tobacco had to be placed in each package, attention and care were essential. At the Cibali Factory, where approximately 500,000 cigarettes were produced daily, each female worker was obligated to produce an average of 3,000 cigarettes a day. This meant quite an intense and exhausting work pace.
Between 1883 and 1925, there were 7 identified strikes by the Cibali Regie workers. These strikes characteristically emerged for different reasons. The characteristics of the workers were seen as determining factors regarding participation in the strikes. These characteristics were the ages, genders, and religious and ethnic identities of the workers. In these strikes, the formation of a "working-class consciousness" developing over time was observed. There is no precise information in the archival documents regarding participation in the strikes, but with certain deductions, it can be said that all workers were able to participate in 2 of the strikes. There are also no exact figures regarding the durations of the strikes. However, it is possible to say that these strike durations varied between 7 and 30 days; because the management would end the strikes by threatening to terminate the contracts of the workers who insisted on continuing their strikes.
Strikes
Between 1883 and 1925, there were 7 identified strikes by the Cibali Regie workers. These strikes characteristically emerged for different reasons. The characteristics of the workers were seen as determining factors regarding participation in the strikes. These characteristics were the ages, genders, and religious and ethnic identities of the workers. In these strikes, the formation of a "working-class consciousness" developing over time was observed. There is no precise information in the archival documents regarding participation in the strikes, but with certain deductions, it can be said that all workers were able to participate in 2 of the strikes. There are also no exact figures regarding the durations of the strikes. However, it is possible to say that these strike durations varied between 7 and 30 days; because the management would end the strikes by threatening to terminate the contracts of the workers who insisted on continuing their strikes.
First Factory Creche in Turkey
In the Cibali Tobacco Factory, where workers' solidarity was a determining factor, workers gained various social rights over time. One of the most important of these rights was the factory creche (daycare), which was opened as a result of the struggle of female workers. Almost all the children of the women working in the factory grew up in this creche. According to the account of a female worker who witnessed the period, the women workers gained their confidence in union organization through the struggle for the creche. Pregnant women collected signatures and brought the issue to the newspapers, which led to inspectors visiting the factory, and at the end of this process, the creche was opened within 15 days. This significant achievement ensured that the name and influence of women workers spread throughout the factory.
Journalist Neriman Hikmet shared her observations after visiting the creche in an interview she published in 1944. Hikmet's article revealed that the creche was not just a care room but functioned as a versatile social facility for both children and women workers. According to the information conveyed in the interview, the establishment of the creche was a result of the harsh working conditions and the difficulties experienced by female workers. Previously, women workers tried to take care of their children by bringing them into the factory and setting up hammocks among the tobacco leaves. After this practice was banned, a turning point occurred when a female worker, unable to leave her child at home, tied her child to the outer ring of the factory gate and went in to work. This incident reaching Cevad Emece, one of the managers of the period, along with the organized demands of the workers, laid the groundwork for the establishment of an official creche in the factory.
As of 1944, when the interview was conducted, this institution, which was stated to have a 16-year history, had served 766 workers' children up to that day and was hosting 143 children at that time. While children between the ages of 2 and 8 (primary school age) of the female workers in the factory were accepted to the creche, mothers with children under the age of two were granted permission to go home three times a day to breastfeed. In the facility, which had a modern operation for the conditions of the period, children arrived at the factory with their mothers at 08:00 in the morning and left with them at the end of the shift.
The facility operated as a comprehensive education and health center supporting the physical and mental development of the children. The expenses for breakfast, lunch, and afternoon snacks were completely covered by the factory management. Meals were cooked in a separate cauldron, independent of the workers' food, in accordance with the calorie needs determined by expert doctors. The health status, height, and weight measurements of the children were regularly recorded in health files by doctors working within the facility, such as Dr. Fuad Taneri and Dr. Süreyya Kadri, and free medication was provided to the children from the creche's own infirmary. In addition, accompanied by experienced governesses and teachers such as İhsan Belbes and Mukaddes Ünlü, children were given basic kindergarten education and offered play opportunities to support their mental development.
Galery
