Yunar Pipe (Yunar Meerschaum)

Yunar Pipe is the workshop of carver Abdülvahap Yunar, working in Eskişehir, and the brand under which the meerschaum pipes made there are sold. In foreign correspondence and on its website, the name appears as "Yunar Meerschaum." Yunar learned the craft from his father and is counted a second-generation carver within the family; since production is still tied today to a single maker's bench, the brand falls under the definition of an artisan workshop rather than an industrial operation.

The Maker and the Workshop

According to records, Yunar began carving in 1990 in workshops in his own village. In 2006 he set up his own bench in Eskişehir's historic Odunpazarı district, and in 2010 received the traditional handicrafts artist certificate issued by the Ministry of Culture and Tourism. A news agency report published in January 2025 states that over a career approaching thirty-five years he has worked more than six thousand pipes and meerschaum objects; this figure rests on the maker's own statement.

The workshop is located in the Atlıhan Handicrafts Bazaar in the Paşa neighborhood. The bazaar emerged from the Odunpazarı Municipality's reconstruction of a caravanserai dating to the mid-19th century; the two-story building is divided into meerschaum, silver, pottery, and glass workshops. This arrangement, in which production and sale are gathered under the same roof, is the continued form of the centuries-old bazaar tradition of Eskişehir meerschaum carving.