When a foreigner is invited to a wedding in Turkey, it often happens that he wonders what to give as the invitation does not provide a wedding list for guidance or an account number. And when they know the answer, they’re often even more surprised: gold. The precious metal is given away in Turkey at weddings, at births, at circumcisions. Depending on how close the guests are to the celebration, a ceyrek or quarter coin (1.75 grams of 22k gold for about 95 euros), a yarım (double the value), a tam (four times more) or bracelets, necklaces and other jewelry, but always gold. A newly married couple can receive between 200 and 500 grams of gold with which they can look forward to their new life together.
Usually it is the woman who takes care of the gold. In a country where the integration rate of women into the labor market is low, this tradition allows them to maintain a certain financial independence, especially in the event of separation: in the event of a divorce, they own all the jewels and half the gold given at the wedding acquired during marriage. In fact, there is another tradition surrounding the golden metal: “The Days of Gold”, where a group of friends or neighbors take turns meeting at the house of one of them, who invites them to dinner and in return each of the guests receives a gold coin . These are monthly meetings beginning with the home of whoever needs money most, the practice requiring some form of loan to cover urgent expenses.
And the fact is that these gold coins are easy to get: they are sold in any jewelry store or in many exchange offices. And they are also bought. Therein lies its usefulness: gold is a savings method to protect against the constant devaluation of the Turkish lira and an easily liquidated asset. For this reason, at times when the lira is depreciating and inflation is rampant, large crowds of Turks gather in Istanbul’s Grand Bazaar, willing to protect themselves from devaluation by acquiring these currencies. “Nobody is short on gold at home and when people have economic problems, this is the way they solve it by selling the coins and getting cash,” says Adem Kurtulmus, a jeweler at the historic market.
big importer
This practice obviously requires importing large quantities of raw gold. Last year, Türkiye imported $20 billion of this precious metal. In the first seven months of this year alone, it already exceeded the 19,000 million mark, which is why the government has started to impose import quotas. And it so happens that gold is one of the main contributors to Turkey’s ongoing trade deficit.
The other big problem is that this gold ends up in safes, drawers or under the mattress, outside the financial circuit and cannot be calculated statistically. For this reason, for years, Turkish banks, at the request of the government, have been promoting their own “gold days”, where they accept gold jewelry and coins at a designated branch in the neighborhood and settle them in an account from which they can later withdraw their savings Withdraw in cash or mint-certified gold coins. Overall, experts estimate that 90% of the gold held by the Turks has not yet surfaced, and some estimate its value could exceed $200,000 million (almost a quarter of GDP). Perhaps this is one of the explanations for how society survives such serious crises: under everything lies a small mattress made of gold.
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