1. Oil Production and Soap making Soap came third among the exported items of Ayvalık behind local oil and processed leather, thus yielding increased profits for both the producers and those involved in soap trading. The development of the specific industrial production was directly connected with the development of oil production in the area to the extent oil was the raw material used for the product.1 More specifically, soap making used any poor quality oil dumped by oil presses as well as seed oil produced in special factories of the city after processing olive stones. The latter were the remains of olives left in the manually-operated or steam-operated hydraulic oil presses. These remains, after they were crushed for the last time, were mixed with chemicals or steam in factories before the final product, the seed oil, was extracted in small amounts. The production of this type of oil was limited because the olives were at first crushed as hard as possible in oil presses, as oil was the main product. However, the wider area produced so many olives that even the smallest amounts of olive stones served the increased needs of soap making. In addition, even these small amounts of olive stones left were enough for some of them to go through special furnaces and be used as cheap fuel. 2. Soap Production and Trading In the late 19th c. and the early 20th c. soap making in Ayvalık flourished, particularly after the construction of big and modern soap making factories. Fifteen big soap making factories were operating in 1920, with advanced technical facilities for the production of soap, followed by smaller (about 30) ones with less sophisticated equipment.2 One of the most known factories of the East was owned by Nikolaidis, which produced oil from olive stones and turned it into soap. The specific factory employed 1,000-2,000 workers depending on the demand for the product. Furthermore, the above enterprise had also two ships carrying the product mainly to Russia and returning loaded with grain. The increased demand for the product in both the internal and the external market prompted several wealthy inhabitants of Ayvalık to establish industrial units activating in the specific field. Therefore, they often sent members of their families or collaborators to Marseilles in order to train and become experienced in modern production methods followed there. Most of them were trained at the Greek industries of Zafeiropoulos located in the French city. Apart from seed oil, virgin oil was also used for making deluxe white soaps, which were particularly famous abroad. They were exported from several harbours, mainly from Constantinople, the centre for distributing and forwarding the products to all international markets, the most important for these soaps being the Russian market. Furthermore, aromatic white or coloured soaps were also made, which were in great demand in local markets. Finally, the soaps from seed oil were widespread as they were cheap and met internal needs, at the same time being much in request in Bulgaria. |