Plate 1: Black Sea hamsi (Photo: Source)
Sam Topalidis (2025)
Pontic Historian and Ethnologist
Introduction
The small hamsi (Turkish for anchovy) fish is part of Pontic folklore (Plate 1). It has been caught off the coast of Pontos (north-east Anatolia) and in the greater Black Sea for thousands of years (Fig. 1). There are poems, folk songs and stories about it as it has been a major staple of Turkish Black Sea cuisine. Any visit to the Turkish Black Sea region isn’t complete without trying fried hamsi (Plate 2) (hungrytwotravel.com/traditional-foods-of-trabzon-gooey-kuymak-and-black-sea-hamsi/).
Today, Türkiye imposes an ocean fishing ban from 15 April to 1 September to protect fish spawning and protect the marine ecosystem. When the ban lifts, fishermen take to the seas contributing to an industry that is a pillar of the Turkish economy (www.hurriyetdailynews.com/turkish-seas-witness-most-bountiful-fishing-season-in-years-204062).
History of Fishing Hamsi
There is little specific historical information on hamsi. However, Black Sea fish are described in artefacts from ancient Greece and then in ancient Rome. Hamsi were most probably used in fish sauces by the Greeks at least as far back as 5th century BC. The famous Roman garum, a fermented fish sauce was made from a small but unknown species of fish [probably included hamsi from the Black Sea] (penelope.uchicago.edu/encyclopaedia_romana/wine/garum.html).
Fig. 1: Map of the Black Sea (King 2004:xvii)
Plate 2: Fried hamsi (Photo: Source)
Hamsi has constituted [one of] the main fish catches of the Black Sea for centuries and must have been widely caught in there since the Archaic and Classical periods. It cannot have been difficult to catch large quantities in antiquity since they are attracted to light (Demir 2007:58). In the 2nd century BC, in the Pontic Mithradatickingdom (302–63 BC), Pontic salted fish [which must have included hamsi] were a major export (Roller 2020:22–23).
In 1290, the salt pans around Crimea and the Azov Sea, exported quantities of salt fish to Trabzon (Bryer and Winfield 1985). Evliya Çelebi visited Trabzon in 1640 and noted that the people were very fond of hamsi which they cooked in about 40 different meals including soups, roasts, stew, pies and even hamsi baklava (Turkish Ministry of Tourism and Information n.d.:40–41). Çelebi wrote that hamsi are finger length, thin, slippery and shine like silver and remarked that if a jar of pickled hamsi were salted well, it may remain edible for two years or more. At times the hamsi were so abundant that they allegedly threw themselves on the shores (Demir 2007:58–59). Before early 1918, the author’s maternal grandparents lived in the village of Zilmera (now Subaşi) just south of Trabzon and they used excess hamsi as fertilizer on their family farm.
Hamsi Species
There are two species of hamsi in the Black Sea, Engraulis encrasicolus ponticus (Black Sea anchovy) and Engraulis encrasicolus maeoticus (Azov anchovy) (Demir 2007:57).
The cooling of the surface waters drives the adult Black Sea anchovy from the north-west to the south-eastern corner of the Black Sea into Turkish waters between November and December. Most of the annual catch of hamsi in Türkiye is harvested within 30 days following their arrival. After December, the remaining anchovies migrate east to Georgian waters. Anchovy is a fast-growing fish which produces abundant offspring. Changes in the food chain, the dynamism of the currents and changes in in the biomass of predators such as Atlantic bonito cause sudden fluctuations in the anchovy stock. The Azov anchovy spawns in the Sea of Azov in the north-east and in winter they migrate south into the Black Sea. The two forms of anchovy produce hybrids (Gücü et al. 2022).
The Black Sea anchovy follows two paths at the onset of the over-wintering migration. One group follows the west coast, passes by Romania and Bulgaria, reaching the western Turkish coast and then heads east (Fig. 1). The other group is usually smaller, moves eastward to arrive on the southern tip of Crimea. The sharp drop in the surface sea temperature force anchovies to move immediately south through the centre of the Black Sea at the beginning of December. The anchovy arrives at the fishing grounds asynchronously in age-specific cohorts; the adults dominate the first wave of arrivals and the younger anchovy stock gradually increases as the season progresses (Gücü et al. 2017:10, 12).
Hamsi Availability in Trabzon
Türkiye’s ocean fishing season draws to a close on 15 April along the Aegean and Black Sea. Fish volumes up to April 2025, exceeded the previous year’s catch. In Trabzon, one of the Black Sea’s key fishing ports, it has been one of the most abundant fishing seasons in 30 years. In the Black Sea, fishermen may have had the best bonito season in the past decade, although anchovy stocks weren’t as plentiful (www.hurriyetdailynews.com/fishermen-in-aegean-black-sea-hail-big-catch-as-fishing-season-nears-end-207830). In early 2025, the stalls in Trabzon sold sea bream, bluefish and sea bass for 300 Turkish lira per kg and hamsi up to 150 Turkish lira [or Australian $6] per kg (www.aa.com.tr/tr/ekonomi/trabzonda-hamsinin-kilogrami-125-ila-150-liradan-satisa-sunuluyor/3449007). Hamsi remains an affordable food source to locals in Trabzon.
Acknowledgements
I wish to thank Michael Bennett and Russell McCaskie for their comments to an earlier draft.
References
Bryer A and Winfield D (1985) The Byzantine monuments and topography of the Pontos, I, Dumbarton Oaks Research Library & Collection, Harvard University, Washington DC.
Demir M (2007) ‘The trade in salt-pickled hamsi and other fish from the Black Sea to Athens during the archaic and classical periods', in Erkut G and Mitchell S (eds) (2007):57–64, The Black Sea: past, present and future, British Institute at Ankara, London.
Gücü AC, Genç Y, Dağtekin M, Sakınan S, Ak O, Ok M and Aydın I (2017) ‘On Black Sea anchovy and its fishery’, Reviews in Fisheries Science & Aquaculture, 25(3):1–15.
Gücü AC, Bilir B, Aydın CM, Erbay M and Kılıç S (2022) ‘An acoustic study on the overwintering Black Sea anchovy in 2020’, Turkish Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences, 22(1):13pp.
King C (2004) The Black Sea: a history, Oxford, Oxford University Press.
Roller DW (2020) Empire of the Black Sea: the rise and fall of the Mithridatic world, Oxford University Press, New York.
Turkish Ministry of Tourism and Information (n.d.) Evliya Çelebi, Ajans – Türk Press, Turkey.