Of, Turkey

There are several stories about the origins of Of's name. Of was called Ofis in 1910 by Pontic Greek speaking inhabitants. According to another view it means "village" or "settlement" in the Laz language (Laz: ოფუტე/oput'e), as the old name of the town is mentioned as "Opiunte" on the Tabula Peutingeriana. By another version of events, the city got its name from a nearby river described by Arrian as Ophis, a Greek word for "snake". The Ophius stream which snakes (zigzags) its way from around 3300 meters altitude in the Pontic Mountains towards the coastal town of Of was renamed as "Solaklı" during the 1950s Turkification process which is a common policy in all of Turkey.

Ophius was a known harbor during ancient times. The area was inhabited by the native Colchian people. Mixed farming settlements of Pontic Greeks were established along most bends of the river at least from the Middle Ages onwards, making it one of the most densely settled valley systems on the southern coast of the Black Sea. During most of its history the district and its hinterland were subjugated to nearby Trabzon. The southern districts Dernekpazarı, Çaykara and Hayrat of Trabzon province and the western half of İkizdere district today part of Rize province were historically part of the region of Of. While the last quarter of the 16th century saw an acceleration in the growth of the number of Muslims, it was during the years of the 17th century that the region began its transformation into a bastion of Sunni Islam. After the population exchange, refugees from the Of area were resettled in Northern Greece, mainly in the areas of Drama, Kilkis and Kozani. In 1926 a group of these refugees purchased land near Katerini and 2 years later in 1928 founded Nea Trapezounta one of only a handful of purely Ophitic refugee villages.