Living in a Historic City: Growing Up in Ancient Çorum and Connecting With the Past

How does living in a historic city shape belonging? Explore how people raised near Hattusa relate to their past, through local data and psychology.

A child posing for a photo in front of the Lion Gate at Hattusa on a school trip rarely grasps that those stones were carved thousands of years before they were born. Years later, in another city, when someone asks "Where are you from?", answering "the place where the Hittite capital stood" lends the sentence an unexpected weight. Living in a historic city is an experience that goes largely unnoticed in daily life, yet seeps deep into a person's sense of identity. Çorum holds a special place in Turkey in this respect: within its provincial borders lie an ancient capital on the UNESCO World Heritage List, a tablet archive included in the Memory of the World register, and excavations that have continued for more than a century. In this article I will look at the figures behind this heritage, its social meaning and the psychological dimensions of the bond people from Çorum form with the past — without mythologising it, simply as it is.

Living in a Historic City: What Do the Numbers Say?

Let us begin with the concrete data. Hattusa was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 1986; it was the fourth property from Turkey to be added. In 2006 its name was updated to "Hattusha: the Hittite Capital". The cuneiform tablets found at Boğazköy are also on UNESCO's Memory of the World register; UNESCO describes this archive as roughly 25,000 tablets. It is not common in Turkey for a single place to be associated with both a World Heritage site and a Memory of the World entry.

Scientific excavations at Hattusa began in 1906 and entered their 120th year in 2026. That same year, the excavation team was reported to include 105 local workers alongside 55 scientists. The excavation at Alacahöyük began in 1935 and is regarded as the first national excavation of the Republican era. In other words, this heritage does not belong only to the past; today it is also a source of income and part of the daily work of some families in Çorum.

Visitor figures paint an interesting picture. According to the report of the Provincial Council's Tourism Committee, in 2023 the Çorum Museum, Alacahöyük, and the Boğazköy Museum together with the Hattusa archaeological site welcomed a total of 117,424 visitors. Of these, 108,670 were domestic visitors — around 92.5 per cent. The share of foreign visitors was about 13.3 per cent at Hattusa, and much lower at Alacahöyük and the Çorum Museum. In the Cultural Heritage Statistics of TÜİK (the Turkish Statistical Institute), the number of museum and archaeological site visitors across Turkey that year was over 55.7 million; Çorum's share of this total was approximately two in every thousand.

The traces of the pandemic are visible too. According to figures reported by a secondary source, the combined number of visitors to Hattusa, Yazılıkaya and the Boğazköy Museum was around 52,000 in 2019 and fell to around 22,000 in 2020; in 2023, the figure of 56,833 announced for the Boğazköy Museum and Hattusa suggests that visits climbed slightly above the 2019 level. Because the scopes may not overlap exactly, this comparison should be read as a rough trend. Still, it is fair to say that people returned to these sites after the lockdown period.

The limits of these figures should also be stated: visitor numbers do not show who came and why, or how many came on school trips or family outings. Nor could I find any survey-based academic study on place attachment or urban identity in Çorum. The interpretations below are therefore grounded in data but make no claim to certainty.

A Sociological Reading: Heritage as a Neighbourhood, Not a Showcase

The fact that the vast majority of visitors are domestic suggests that Çorum's heritage is less a tourist showcase and more a local and regional meeting place. School trips, weekend family outings, and saying "Let's take you to Alacahöyük" when hosting guests turn heritage into a point of contact between generations. A grandmother and grandchild standing in front of the same stone are moments when family memory and the city's memory become intertwined.

Possible factors can be listed as follows:

• A sense of continuity: Events such as the International Çorum Hittite Fair and Festival, held since 1981, have carried the Hittite name into the everyday language of the city. In this way, the past becomes part of the city's ordinary agenda.
• A layered urban fabric: It also matters that the heritage is not limited to the Hittites. The Clock Tower, dating from 1894, and the 15th-century Koyunbaba Bridge in Osmancık show that different eras have been lived one on top of another in the same landscape.
• Local labour: Local workers on the excavations make people feel that history is not "the business of scientists from elsewhere", but that the neighbour from the village is also part of this story.
• The risk of becoming invisible: Something of value that is always right next to you can become ordinary over time. The feeling of "it's always here anyway" can turn heritage into something people are proud of yet rarely visit.

Then there is the dimension of moving away and migration. Many people from Çorum live in other cities for education or work; for them, the historic sites of their hometown can become an even more distinct marker of identity when seen from afar. A place that seems ordinary up close becomes a story worth telling once you are at a distance.

These factors do not establish definite causation, but they remind us that a city's relationship with its past cannot be measured by visitor numbers alone.

What Does Living in a Historic City Mean Psychologically?

In environmental psychology, the concept of place attachment has long been studied. The framework proposed by Scannell and Gifford in 2010 considers place attachment along three dimensions: person (the meaning an individual or community attaches to a place), process (the emotions, thoughts and behaviours directed towards that place) and place (its physical and social characteristics). Lewicka's comprehensive 2011 review likewise summarises a substantial body of research showing that attachment to place is associated with identity, a sense of security and community participation.

Seen through this lens, living in a historic city can serve several psychological functions:

Continuity of self: When answering the question "Who am I?", people draw not only on their personal memories but also on the story of the place they belong to. In a changing world, unchanging stones can offer an inner sense of continuity. This is why returning to a familiar place can be comforting at times when life has been shaken, for example after a loss or a move.

Belonging and pride: The feeling that "this is an important place" can nourish belonging, especially in adolescence and young adulthood. The need to belong is one of our basic psychological needs; I discussed this in more detail in my article on the need to belong.

Time perspective: Knowing that thousands of years ago people here also married, argued and mourned does not shrink our own problems, but it can help us see them as part of a wider human story.

But there is another side to the coin. For some people, living in a historic city can also feel like a burden:

• implicit expectations such as "You come from such a deep-rooted place, you ought to become something too",
• change, innovation or different lifestyles being regarded as "against tradition",
• a sense of guilt along the lines of "I have abandoned my roots" among young people who leave the city,
• idealisation of the past and constant comparison of the present with it.

Let us say a young person who moved to a big city for university hears the line "Things are different round here" every time they come home for the holidays. On the one hand they sincerely agree; on the other, they feel caught between this sentence and their wish to forge their own path. Belonging is supportive when it is combined with flexibility; when it turns into a rigid expectation of loyalty, it can generate anxiety and guilt.

Between Roots and Wings for Adolescents and Young People

Adolescence is a period in which identity is intensely questioned. During this time, young people weigh the ready-made answers they have received from their family and surroundings, accepting some and rejecting others. In the search for identity in adolescence, the story of a place offers young people both something to lean on and something to push against.

For a young person growing up surrounded by history, questions like these may arise: "If I stay here, will I feel trapped?", "If I leave, will I lose a part of myself?", "Does my story fit into the story of this city?" These questions are healthy; the problem begins when a young person is offered only one correct answer.

Parents and teachers play an important role here. Presenting heritage not as "something we own" but as "something we are curious about" makes room for young people to build their own relationship with it. When a school trip stops being a roll call and is enriched with a question like "What do you think a young person living here at that time would have been busy with?", history functions less as rote memorisation and more as a mirror.

Suggestions for Building a Healthy Bond With the Past

Place attachment does not form on its own; it is nourished by experiences, meanings and relationships. A few practical suggestions for individuals and families:

1. Turn visits into a family ritual. Going to Hattusa, Alacahöyük or the Çorum Museum once a year, as the seasons change, creates a recurring and anticipated memory for children. Rituals support a sense of security during uncertain times.
2. Make the story personal. Saying "the Hittites" remains abstract. Reading with your child what was written on the tablets about family, marriage or inheritance makes people from the past feel familiar.
3. Record your elders' memories. Writing down or recording what grandparents who remember the city's former appearance have to say helps the older person feel valued and helps the child connect with their roots.
4. Nurture curiosity, not comparison. Instead of the narrative "Everything was better in the old days", ask "What was it like before, and what has changed now?" Idealising the past can turn into belittling the present.
5. Keep the door open for those who leave. Instead of telling family members who study or work in another city "You've cut yourself off from here", involve them in the city's new developments when they return. A bond grows stronger through invitation, not guilt.
6. Examine your own relationship. Does living in a historic city make you feel proud, burdened, or both? The answer to this question can make the decisions you take about the city — staying, leaving, returning — more conscious.

Belonging to a place does not mean conforming to all of its expectations; it means being able to relate to that place in your own language and with your own voice.

A similar principle applies to institutions: when school trips, museum activities and local festivals become events where participants can share their own memories and questions, rather than mere transfers of information, place attachment finds healthier ground.

When Should You Seek Professional Support?

Forming a relationship with the past is usually a spontaneous and nourishing process. In some cases, however, this relationship can turn into a source of intense distress. The following signs suggest that talking to a professional may be helpful:

• if the decision to leave or stay in the city has been gnawing at you for months and is affecting your day-to-day functioning,
• if the conflict between family expectations and your own wishes keeps leading to arguments, withdrawal or outbursts of anger,
• if your longing for the past is clearly preventing you from enjoying the present,
• if a feeling of being cut off from your roots has persisted for weeks together with loneliness, sleep problems and a lack of motivation,
• if your teenager's questioning of identity has reached a point where communication with the family is breaking down completely.

These signs do not on their own amount to a diagnosis. But they are a reminder that you do not have to carry the burden alone.

How Are Belonging and Identity Addressed in Therapy?

In therapy, difficulties related to belonging and place are usually explored through the person's values, family expectations and their own life goals. In the cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) approach, automatic thoughts such as "If I leave, I'll be letting my family down" or "If I stay here, I'll never amount to anything" are identified and evaluated alongside the evidence. The aim is for the person to be able to make decisions based on their own values rather than on fear or guilt.

A schema therapy perspective, meanwhile, helps us understand how early patterns such as "unconditional loyalty" or "self-sacrifice" can be reflected in some people's relationship with place and family. When working with young people, the search for identity, negotiation with the family and worries about the future are addressed together; family sessions can also be added to the process.

In the sessions I hold in Çorum, both face to face and online, I often see that a person's relationship with their city can be a source of both strength and tension. In individual therapy, talking about this duality without judgement can help a person find a balance in which they can embrace both their roots and their own path.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is living in a historic city good for mental health?

The research literature shows that place attachment is associated with belonging, a sense of security and community participation. However, this is not a cause-and-effect relationship; living in a historic city does not on its own bring about wellbeing. What matters is whether a person can build a meaningful and flexible relationship with that place.

Who visits the historic sites in Çorum the most?

According to the Provincial Council's Tourism Committee report, around 92.5 per cent of the 117,424 visitors to Çorum's three main museums and archaeological sites in 2023 were domestic visitors. This shows that the heritage functions more as a local and regional meeting place.

I feel guilty for leaving my hometown — is this normal?

Yes, guilt or longing after leaving is common among people with a strong bond to their roots. This feeling may ease over time; however, if it turns into intense distress lasting for weeks, talking to a professional can help you understand where the feeling comes from.

What can I do to help my child enjoy history?

It helps to present history not as a pile of facts but as human stories. Regular family outings, listening to elders' memories and giving your child room to ask their own questions make it easier for them to form an unforced bond with the past.

• #place attachment
• #place identity
• #belonging
• #Hattusa
• #Çorum

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Eda Erkan Alapala

Klinik Psikolog. İstanbul Kent Üniversitesi Klinik Psikoloji Tezli Yüksek Lisans mezunu; bilişsel davranışçı terapi, çocuk merkezli oyun terapisi ve çocuk-ergen psikoterapisi alanlarında eğitimlerini tamamlamıştır.

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