Mohamed Salah's Impact: From Boulder to Pilgrimage Site in Trabzon
High on the “Kürtdere” plateau in Turkey’s north-eastern Trabzon province, a once-forgotten rock now draws crowds like a tiny, windswept shrine. No plaque. No statue. Just a boulder that Mohamed Salah happened to sit on.
That was all it took.
The story began with a few photos on Salah’s social media accounts. The Egypt captain, fresh from lighting up Turkish football, shared images from his visit to the plateau, perched casually atop one of its rocks, the landscape rolling away behind him.
The pictures raced across Turkish timelines. Fans zoomed in, squinted at the background, compared angles and ridgelines. Then they started to arrive in person.
They wanted that rock.
They came to sit as he sat, to copy the pose, to frame their own photos in the same rugged setting. An unremarkable stone in the middle of a quiet plateau suddenly had an identity, a story, and a queue.
Locals moved quickly to give it a name: “Salahtaşı” – “Salah’s rock” in Turkish. With that, the transformation was complete. What had been just another piece of the landscape became a landmark, tied directly to the Egyptian star’s growing legend in Turkey.
The reaction on the ground has been as colourful as the online frenzy. Turkish media, picking up on the craze, relayed some of the lighter moments. One journalist, visiting the area, jokingly asked the owner of a nearby facility whether the whole plateau might soon be rebranded “Salah’s plateau”. She laughed off the idea, reminding him that these were still her own “Subaşı” facilities – Salah or no Salah.
Not far away, a shop owner near the rock chose a different approach: a heartfelt, spontaneous invitation. He sent a message out into the media ether, calling on Salah to come back, meet him in person, and share a simple cup of tea. No VIP box, no red carpet. Just tea at the foot of a rock that football turned famous.
As the trickle of visitors became a steady flow, Turkish platforms started to play tour guide. Short clips began circulating, mapping out the route up to the heights Salah had visited, explaining how to reach the exact spot. Reports say a directional sign has now been installed, pointing the way for anyone determined to find “Salah’s rock” and capture their own version of the now-iconic image.
This sudden burst of tourism isn’t happening in a vacuum. It comes on the heels of Salah’s blistering performance in a Trabzonspor shirt, a display that electrified the local fanbase and dominated national coverage. In a statement game against Galatasaray, Salah led Trabzonspor to a resounding 4-0 victory, scoring three times and laying on another. One match, four direct goal contributions, and a new hero status sealed in Turkish football’s emotional capital.
Since that night, he has been the central character in Turkish media and fan conversations. Goals create headlines; personalities create stories. In Salah’s case, both have collided.
Now, up on the Kürtdere plateau, the impact of that collision is etched into the landscape. A rock that once meant nothing now tells a tale of modern football power: how a player’s presence can bend attention, shift tourism, and turn a quiet corner of Trabzon into a place people feel they simply have to see.
All because Mohamed Salah sat down, looked out over the hills, and someone pressed “upload.”
