CİBALİ TOBACCO AND CIGARETTE FACTORY: SPACE OF THE LABOR

The factory was founded in 1884 in the name of ‘Regie’. One of the architects is Alexandre Vallaury. It was transferred to the Republic in 1925. Designed much like a city with workshops, a healthcare unit, a daycare, the factory was active until 1994. The building was rented to the Kadir Has Foundation in 2001. The machinery, objects, documents, and photographs used at the Cibali Tobacco and Cigarette Factory were temporarily transferred to Rezan Has Museum in 2008.

In 1884, the sole right to collect tobacco production taxes within the Ottoman lands and to establish tobacco factories was granted to the company known as Régie, co-founded by The Ottoman Bank, Credit Anstald and the Banker Bleichroeder after the economic bankruptcy of the Ottoman State. The same year, Cibali Tobacco Factory was founded and soon become one of the largest and most important factories within the Ottoman Empire with a production capacity of 12,000 kilograms of cigarettes per day.

Cibali Tobacco Factory Cigarette Machine Operator” Identity Card, 1926-1941

Leaves of different kind were mixed together to obtain a “blend” and these leaves would be shredded by hand (and later with machines). After the blends were ready, they would either be packed into packs of tobacco or were sent to be rolled as cigarettes.

Before cigarette-rolling machines were invented, these devices would roll flat cigarette papers in spools to allow shredded tobacco to be filled inside. In the next process, the tobacco would be stuffed inside the rolled wrappers.

Shredding Machine, 1940s. A shot from the production process.

Various seals from the Factory from Regie and Republic era.

There are several photo albums left from the factory helping us to understand better the daily life of the workers and the production process as well.

Cibali Tobacco Factory grew over time with more than two thousand employees, becoming the largest factory of both Istanbul and the district in which it was located. The factory also employed the largest number of female workers in a single workspace in the Ottoman production sector.

From highest to lowest quality, the Factory processed a wide range of tobacco types from different regions of Anatolia. Every day, bales of tobacco to be processed would be delivered from the warehouse to the factory and sorted in leaves.

Leaves of different kind were mixed together to obtain a “blend” and these leaves would be shredded by hand (and later with machines). After the blends were ready, they would either be packed into packs of tobacco or were sent to be rolled as cigarettes. While men carried out the blending process, female employees handled packaging.

Workers on blending band.

The demands on working hours and conditions, paid religious holidays, and equal rights were earned with the help of protests held to obtain these rights and the defiant stance of laborers. One worker rolled an average of 5 cigarettes per day, 300 an hour, and 3000 per day; in addition to the gruesome pace of work, many of the employees were already unhealthy due to malnutrition, poor living conditions, and poverty. Tobacco, upon which their livelihood depended, consumed their health as well.

Women workers packaging manually.

Courtesy of the Istanbul Research Center. K112-6.

In short, the post 20th-century history of the region was written by the people who lived and worked at the factory, spread to other quarters of Istanbul after work, suffered poverty, demanded rights, laughed, and cried together. Therefore, both the Golden Horn and Cibali, which holds a unique place in it, are not merely industrial sites, but sites of labor and will thus keep this legacy alive forever.