Adapazari

Adapazarı is the capital of the Turkish province of Sakarya. The province itself was originally named Adapazarı as well. The city has a population of 283,752 (as of 2000).

Adapazarı is the location of a large automobile factory owned by Toyota Motor Corporation. Silk and linen industries, and an export of tobacco, walnut-wood, cocoons and vegetables catering to İstanbul market is also considerable.

Historically, it was situated on the old military road from İstanbul to the east, and connected by a branch line with the Anatolian railway since the end of the 19th century.

Population of the city of Adapazarı as of 1912 was 12,000 Turks and 5000 Orthodox Christians (Greeks) according to Anagnostopoulou (1997). These figures, however, should viewed by taking into account the specific situation of the "Hayhurum" community, claimed by both Greeks and Armenians. In fact, an important Armenian community had also taken settlement in the city as of 1608. Some (not all) of these Armenians, purportedly living in the vicinity of the town of Eğin till the 16th century, were of Orthodox faith (instead of Gregorian as is the case for most Armenians), and their exact ethnicity was source of debate. Greek Orthodox in faith and Armenian in language, they were called Hayhurums (Hay meaning Armenian, and Rum meaning Greek), with Greek sources claiming that they were former Greek colonists who had settled in Eğin, and Armenicized in time, while Armenian sources objected this claim. In any case, they have been included in the 1923 agreement for Exchange of Greek and Turkish Populations between Turkey and Greece, and settled in various parts of Greece. Precious objects of cult and else belonging to this small community is being displayed today in Athens Benaki Museum. There was also a very small community of Protestant Armenians in Adapazarı.

Hrant Sarian, a Gregorian Armenian whose diaries shed much light on conditions in which Armenians have been deported in the Ottoman Empire in [1915] was a native of Adapazarı.