Istanbul
homes and gardens and fields had been destroyed or looted. Cessation of
hostilities was in fact the beginning of a period of widespread looting, not
a calm transfer of ownership of property.^54 It is not surprising that many
Orthodox Christians did not want to leave; some were hidden by Turk-
ish families, others became citizens of other countries and after leaving
Turkey returned with foreign passports, or returned illegally, or with fake
passports.^55 In all cases, they demanded their former properties. More-
over, even if there had been properties available, many migrants had left
Greece without having any documents drawn up concerning the value
of their property left behind; this made it extremely difficult in Turkey
to determine how much they should receive.^56 Some of those who drew
up documents in Greece exaggerated their wealth and snapped up more
property in Turkey than they had owned in Greece. Some chose to emi-
grate outside government channels, without government or official help,
since they did not want to settle where the state intended to settle them.
Others, once in Istanbul, resisted being sent to the intended cities and
even clashed with police.^57 Sometimes they were forced to board waiting
ferries, but this did not stop some from jumping ship, or from returning
to Istanbul after ostensibly being settled on the Black Sea coast.
The Turkish press featured heart-wrenching stories of the hardship
migrants faced. Travel conditions were difficult, belongings were lost or
stolen, guesthouses assigned to them were often overcrowded, rundown
madrasas with broken windows, homes assigned to them were occupied
by others, such as internal migrants also in need of homes in these cities
or earlier migrants from southeastern Europe and the USSR.^58 Finally,
they were sent from locale to locale in pursuit of sufficient housing. In
fact, the main problem was where they would live. In short, the Turk-
ish government had not done enough to prepare the ground for their
proper reception.^59 Nor did it settle the migrants in a logical way: urban
dwellers were sometimes sent to the countryside and farmers to the city.
Many tobacco families were sent to the mountains, where they could not
cultivate crops, professionals were sent to villages, farmers were sent to
live in the centers of towns in the homes of departed Christian craftsmen
and not given land on which to raise crops or livestock, olive growers
were sent to regions without olives. Turkey’s land and economy were in
ruins. Not giving migrants the opportunity to work in their accustomed
way did nothing to contribute to the hoped-for renaissance of Turkey’s
infrastructure, agriculture, commerce, and trade.^60