Last modified: 2019-11-11 by ivan sache
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![[Flag]](../images/t/tr-05-me.gif)
Flag of Merzifon - Image by Tomislav Šipek, 15 September 2017
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The municipality of Merzifon (70,167 inhabitants in 2012, 54,709 in the town proper; 97,224 ha) is located 40 km west of Amasya.
Ivan Sache, 6 March 2016
The flag of Merzifon (photo, photo) is white with the municipality's emblem. "Belediyesi" means "Municipality".
The emblem of the municipality, adopted in March 2016 (Yerel Haberler, 2 March 2016), features the town's clock tower (photo) and an equestrian statue.
The clock tower in Merzifon is located on the gate of the Madrasa of Sultan Mehmet Çelebi. Mehmet Memişoğlu Ebu Bekir built this clock tower on the order of Sultan Mehmet Çelebi. Later on, in 1866, it was repaired by Ziya Pasha, Governor of Amasya.
The tower consists of two parts. The bottom part is cylinder-shaped and is made of brick. The upper part is made of wood, it is square-shaped, and has
a clock accessory. Clocks facing four directions were placed on this wooden part. In addition, arched windows were opened in all directions to ensure that the clock bell can be heard better. Operating on the basis of a weight system, the tower is still in use, and shows the time.
[B.S. Seker. Behavioural assessment of clock towers subsequently added to historic structures. Građevinar, 67, 879-886 (2015)]
The equestrian statue depicts Grand Vizier Kara Mustafa Paşa (1634-1683) who was born in the nearby village of Marınca and led his troops to defeat at the gates of Vienna in 1683. For that "crime" he was executed by being strangled with a silk cord. Quoting Caroline Finkel (Osman's Dream: The Story of the Ottoman Empire 1300-1923):
If the blame for the defeat — Sobieski’s intervention apart — lay at Kara Mustafa’s door, it was due less to his decision to march straight for Vienna than to a number of technical miscalculations on his part, such as failing to bring heavy artillery to the siege but relying instead on light guns … inadequate to breach Vienna’s strongly fortified walls.
Merzifonlu Kara Mustafa Pasha had long been a close adviser of the Sultan, but any doubts Mehmed IV might have harboured about him were given substance during his absence on campaign as plotters fabricated reports of disorder in the empire. On hearing of the defeat at Vienna, one of the plotters announced, in the words of Silahdar Findiklih Mehmed Agha, that ‘our enemy is finished with; the time is ripe for revenge’.
Mehmed succumbed to the pressure from Kara Mustafa’s detractors, and the Grand Vizier was executed in Belgrade on Christmas Day 1683 while engaged in planning a new advance for the following spring.
Tomislav Šipek & Ivan Sache, 15 September 2017
![[Flag]](../images/t/tr-05-m1.gif)
Former flag of Merzifon - Image by Tomislav Šipek, 30 April 2015
The former flag of Merzifon (photo) was white with the municipality's former emblem. "Belediyesi" means "Municipality".
Tomislav Šipek, 6 March 2016
![[Flag]](../images/t/tr-05$me.gif)
Flag of the Merzifon Chamber of Commerce and Industry - Image by Ivan Sache, 3 August 2019
The flag of the Merzifon Chamber of Commerce and Industry (photo) is white with the organization's emblem.
Ivan Sache, 3 August 2019