TEKNOFEST Southeast from the Inside: Technology, Culture and Living Emotions in Şanlıurfa
On the morning of September 30, participants in the international press tour set off from Gaziantep for Şanlıurfa. After about two hours on the road, we reached the main destination of an eventful day: the grounds of GAP Airport, where TEKNOFEST Güneydoğu is being held.
After yesterday’s introduction to Gaziantep, the journey took on a completely different rhythm. While the first day was primarily about the road, meetings and the atmosphere of southeastern Türkiye, technology now took center stage.
The scale of the event is already apparent at the entrance. Separate registration areas for guests and members of the press, volunteers, groups of schoolchildren and students, families with children — from early morning, the festival grounds begin filling with people.
Here, TEKNOFEST is perceived as much more than an exhibition of aviation and technological equipment. Unmanned aerial vehicles, engineering developments, educational projects, interactive spaces, cultural programs and concerts all exist side by side at the same venue.
One of the most noticeable exhibits in the open-air area was the Bayraktar TB3, presented in the BAYKAR company zone. Visitors can examine the unmanned aircraft from close range, look at its design and see the equipment displayed alongside it.
Nearby stands a helicopter belonging to the Turkish gendarmerie, which is also attracting considerable interest from festival visitors. But at TEKNOFEST, you have to look not only around you, but also upward.
Air demonstrations are taking place over the airport grounds. At one point, paramotor pilots appeared above the pavilions, forming a formation in the sky and leaving white trails of smoke behind them. One carried the Turkish flag, while the others carried festival banners. Visitors stopped between the pavilions and almost simultaneously raised their phones to capture what was happening.
Such moments constantly change the rhythm of the festival: just a moment ago, attention was focused on exhibits on the ground — and a minute later, the entire venue is looking up at the sky.
A separate space at TEKNOFEST has been organized by Türkiye’s Ministry of Culture and Tourism. The main focus here is on how modern technologies can be used to introduce visitors to the country’s culture, art and tourism potential.
The stand features digital and interactive projects including Film Mirasım, Sanat Cepte, Google Arts & Culture, the Experience Türkiye zone and other areas.
One of them is Sketch Your GoTürkiye, where visitors are invited to create their own stylized image. Special equipment processes the photograph, after which the finished drawing can be taken home as a souvenir.
Nearby is a bright red Formula 1 simulator. The opportunity to try their hand at driving a racing car inevitably attracts visitors, especially young people.
There are also VR spaces that allow visitors to explore Türkiye’s tourism and cultural sites in a virtual format.
But the program at the stand is not limited to digital technologies.
Live music is performed on a small stage throughout the day. Vocalists and musicians perform in front of the audience, while images of the country’s historical and cultural landmarks are displayed on a large screen behind them.
And the concert participants are not only professional performers. From time to time, organizers invite ordinary visitors onto the stage. And, as it turns out, quite a few among these random guests have very good vocal abilities. Such spontaneous performances quickly attract a crowd and create a particularly relaxed atmosphere.
For the author of these lines, one of the musical moments was especially memorable.
The day before, while telling the story of the journey to TEKNOFEST, ORIENT had recalled the folk song “Suzan Suzi,” associated with one of the well-known legends of the region.
At the festival, I asked the musicians to perform that very song.
The female vocalist responded to the request and sang the song with particular feeling. Thus, a story that had been heard on the road to Şanlıurfa unexpectedly found its continuation among the pavilions of a technology festival.
For a few minutes, the same screens, simulators, virtual reality installations and modern developments remained all around us, yet everyone’s attention was focused on a simple folk melody.
This small episode perfectly captures the character of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism’s space: modern technologies are not presented here as opposed to traditional culture, but rather as another way of telling its story.
The stand also features areas related to the history of Gallipoli and the Dardanelles campaign, the Yunus Emre Institute, and the Presidency for Turks Abroad and Related Communities. There is also an information area for MüzeKart.
It is precisely this combination of completely different formats that is one of the most noticeable features of TEKNOFEST Güneydoğu.
Within a few minutes, a visitor can move from an unmanned aerial vehicle to a virtual museum, from a Formula 1 simulator to live folk music, and then return to the open-air area to watch an aerial show.
There are especially many young people at the festival. Groups of schoolchildren and students move between the pavilions, explore the developments, take part in interactive programs and take photographs beside aviation equipment.
That is why TEKNOFEST looks less like a specialized exhibition for professionals and more like a large open platform where complex technologies are made accessible and interesting to the widest possible audience.
The Turkish Airlines stand also deserves special attention. Türkiye’s national flag carrier presented its own space at TEKNOFEST, which we also had time to visit. However, this area, its concept and interactive elements, as well as the way Turkish Airlines presents itself at a technology festival, deserve a separate story.
But our exploration of Şanlıurfa did not end there. Our guide Ramazan seemed determined to show us as much as possible in a single day. After TEKNOFEST, the program continued at a completely different pace — among some of the region’s most ancient monuments and legendary sites.
We visited Göbeklitepe and Balıklıgöl — two places, each of which deserves a major feature of its own.
Göbeklitepe is a subject that cannot be treated as an ordinary stop on a tourist itinerary. Here we are talking about a monument that forced a new look at the early history of human communities, their rituals and their ability to create complex monumental spaces.
Balıklıgöl reveals another layer — the world of legends and religious memory in Şanlıurfa. Local tradition associates this place with the story of the prophet Ibrahim, the biblical Abraham, whom King Nimrod ordered to be thrown into the fire.
Both subjects are too significant to be confined to a few paragraphs, so ORIENT will return to them separately.
For now, one thing can be said: it was a truly long day. Ramazan took us through the technologies of the future, aviation, ancient history and urban legends — and we did not return until around ten in the evening.
Tired, but with the feeling that we had lived through several eras in a single day.
From the drones and artificial intelligence of TEKNOFEST to the stones of Göbeklitepe and the legends of Balıklıgöl.
To be continued.
