As I remember, we went to scrounge something from the Air Force. We got to stay 
overnight in the hotel where the Air Force troops were billeted, so that made for a
very nice change-of-pace from life on The Hill. I, of course, did not go to the Karahani
while we were in Samsun, but a friend with remarkable powers of observation and 
description, gave me this version of the place.

I have heard the Karahani referred to as a women’s prison. That may well be, but it
did not look or feel like a prison, not in the way we understand the word. The place 
was enormous. At the front (only?) gate, Turkish soldiers were stationed, but their 
function was kind of nebulous, since they didn’t seem to do much. There was no 
check of personnel going in or out and, since the place was relatively quiet that night, 
there wasn’t much one could see that they did.  Inside was like a self-contained city.
There were shops, restaurants and block after block of apartments where the women
stayed and worked. There were hundreds of men walking the streets, ogling the 
women and talking both to the women and with one another. The noise, smells, and 
the undercurrent of raw sex was truly unforgettable. I have to say that none of us 
felt the least bit threatened while we were there.

The next day, Sunday, we left Samsun for our return to Sinop. As luck would have it, 
we had a flat tire in the town square in Bafra. We couldn't have picked a better place
for this inconvenience to happen, and, as it turned out, we weren't inconvenienced at 
all. We climbed out of the jeep intending to fix the flat, when the head man in the
village came out, instructed some of the locals to take off the tire, repair it and replace
it. Meanwhile, we were taken into the local coffeehouse where we were given glasses 
of the sweet, hot tea that everyone drinks. (Why they call them coffeehouses is a 
mystery, since no one drinks coffee.) When the tire was ready, we offered to pay for 
the repair and the labor, but the headman refused our offer. 

There was a small restaurant adjacent to the coffeehouse and, it being around noon,
we went in for lunch. Because of our lack of Turkish, and the proprietor's lack of 
English, we chose our lunch by looking into pots until we saw something we liked. 
It turned out to be stuffed peppers, a staple throughout the middle east as well as 
Eastern Europe. They were really good and, washed down with ice water, made a 
very satisfying lunch. When it came time to pay, I tried to give the proprietor ten 
lira (about a dollar) but he pushed that away and took an ici bucuk (equivalent to a
quarter) and gave me change. Not bad for lunch for four. (At that time the official 
exchange rate was ten lira to the dollar. Now it’s 638,000 and change.) 

So, with all of the primitiveness of Sinop, what was there to recommend it? 
Operations, of course. Operations at Sinop were unique in many ways. The
original Ops building was built by the troops. The initial floor plan called for hut
trucks to back up to openings in the building, and intercept was conducted in
the huts. This changed soon after I got there, and the intercept bay was doubled
in size, with the original wall where the huts were, removed and all positions set 
up with receivers in racks inside the building. At that time, the mission  required
four Morse and two voice positions. But because of the rapid expansion of the target 
during that year, we installed another five Morse racks and manned them during 
special events. All that year we continued our coverage with up to nine positions
active at once, using off-duty operators who voluntarily came to Ops for these 
special missions, even though our POEI remained at four Morse positions. Never
once did any higher headquarters question why or how we were able to provide this 
extra coverage!