Radios take on journey in history

MUĞLA

Nearly 1,000 radios, cassettes and record players donated to the Menteşe Municipality in the western province of Muğla by Mustafa Bektaş, who has been working as a radio repairer for 52 years in his six-square-meter shop in the city, are taking visitors on a trip down memory lane.

Bektaş, 66, who is working in the historical Arasta Bazaar in the Menteşe district, has collected electronic items that customers forgot and could not be repaired for years in his shop and in his home warehouse.

Known as the last radio repairer of the city, Bektaş decided to donate these radio, cassette and record players to the Menteşe Municipality for display.

Menteşe Mayor Bahattin Gümüş and Deputy Mayors Leyla Ersöz and Levent Ünver have recently received the items from Bektaş and they were taken to the municipality. Now some 1,000 radio, cassette and record players, started to be exhibited in the culture houses of the municipality after their maintenance.

Speaking to the state-run Anadolu Agency, he said he began the profession when he was 14 years old.

Stating that radio was an important communication tool in the past, Bektaş said, “In the past, not everyone could receive radio. There used to be a radio in coffeehouses in the villages. The villagers gathered in the coffeehouses to listen to the news.”

Stating that radio repair is a very good profession, Bektaş explained that he sometimes repaired a radio by working in 10 minutes and sometimes for days. Bektaş said that he felt like the happiest person in the world when he fixed the broken radio.

“I will continue my profession as much as I can. My biggest regret is not being able to train an apprentice. This profession is about to disappear completely. When I close the shop, nobody can fix radios in Muğla because there are no professionals. All of them died,” he said.

“Something needs to be done so that these professions are not forgotten. For years I did not throw away the irreparable or forgotten radios, gramophones and auto tapes brought to the shop. We should know their value. Thanks to Menteşe Municipality, they are now on display,” he added.

Gümüş stated that Bektaş is one of the last masters who can continue his profession in the historical Arasta Bazaar.

Stating that Bektaş applied to them to evaluate the radio, tape and record players he had kept for half a century, Gümüş said, “All of Usta’s savings is our past, our history. We sent some of them for recycling and have contributed them to the economy. We exhibit the rest in the museum-shaped Muğla Houses restored by our municipality.”