07/08/2026
1960s The Vafiadis Family / Photographs by the Fountain - The 1960s were the years when the Vafiadis family travelled extensively throughout Turkey in their own cars, all together and in large numbers, with children, parents and grandparents.
Looking through the photographs, we see that they travelled from Istanbul to Izmir, Ankara, Bursa and Edirne, stopping at many other places along the way. They spent considerable time in these places and took countless photographs.
What makes these photographs particularly interesting is that, rather than being photographed in front of the cities' iconic landmarks, the family is often captured together on the road or at much more unexpected locations. Among the most interesting of these are the fountains — places that may or may not have survived to this day and that, visually speaking, were not particularly remarkable to begin with.
Now, please take a look at the photograph.
Here we see Giuseppina Sanzoni posing by a fountain with her three sons and her mother-in-law, Ashen. The fountain has no name. We do not know who commissioned it. The only thing written on it, in large letters, is “İÇİLİR” — “DRINKABLE.” There is no indication whatsoever of where the photograph was taken.
We asked Stavros Vafiadis, one of the children in this photograph, about its story. This is how he remembers it:
“The photograph was taken on the Bursa–Kestel road. Back then, there would be a large thermos in the car, but even that was not enough for such a large family. There were no motorways. When travelling to a big city, you would drive through villages and towns along the way, going to Izmir, Ankara and so on. We would always stop at these fountains to fill up with water. They called them ‘shepherds’ fountains.’ The water came down from the mountains or from a spring, and it flowed so abundantly and was so cold that I can still remember it. Whenever we stopped like that, we would always take a photograph. There were even some fountains we would drive three hours from Istanbul just to get water from.”
⬇️The rest of the story, as well as the Turkish version, can be found in the comments below.
