If the particular spot where you live has no view of the sea, then you won’t find even a single horizontal line among the trees, hills and mountains on which to rest your gaze. The road that follows a rushing stream along the valley floor is shared by all the villages in that valley. Since such roads only meet at the shore, the people living in one valley have virtually no relations with the inhabitants of even the next valley. In other words, each valley is virtually a closed ‘cultural basin’.

The houses of the Eastern Black Sea are so scattered within the boundaries of their village that there is usually not even a tiny central square. Why then are houses built so far apart on the Black Sea? The reason naturally is not that people want to avoid each other. The sole explanation is the rough terrain. Consequently, any spots suitable for building are snapped up with no concern for proximity to a neighbor. This insular and solitary way of life is universally acknowledged to be responsible for the temperamental, contentious and ruggedly independent nature of the Black Sea people,