Hemşin Village Cuma Mosque

The Cuma Mosque of Hemşin village, in the Akçakoca district of Düzce province, was built in 1877 by Hemşinli settlers who had migrated from the Artvin region following the 1877-1878 Russo-Turkish War. The building reflects construction methods its founders carried with them from the Eastern Black Sea region: a stone ground floor supports an upper story and a minaret built using the çantı technique, a timber-frame method that interlocks wooden beams without the metal nails used in most mosque construction. Inside, the mosque is noted for its carved wooden ceiling, mihrab, and minbar. Still standing in the village roughly fifteen kilometers from the town of Akçakoca, it is one of a small group of nail-free timber mosques in the district that draw visitors, particularly during Ramadan, as rare surviving examples of this regional carpentry tradition applied to religious architecture.