Çatalzeytin Baths

The Çatalzeytin Baths are a historic Ottoman hammam in Çatalzeytin District of Kastamonu Province on Turkey's central Black Sea coast, a small coastal settlement in the spectacular forested landscape of the Küre Mountains National Park, one of Turkey's most biologically diverse and scenically dramatic protected areas. The name Çatalzeytin (forked olive) evokes the olive trees that once characterised this coastal landscape before hazelnut cultivation transformed the agricultural economy of the Black Sea foothills. The baths served a maritime and agricultural community whose livelihoods depended on fishing, timber, and the harvests of the forested mountain landscape, providing the essential weekly bathing ritual in a remote coastal district where the hammam was the cornerstone of communal hygiene and social life.