The standard of living for approximately 550 inhabitants of the mountain village of Durak, in Turkey's Central Anatolian province of Konya, has dramatically increased following the opening of a nearby textile plant, Anatolia news agency reported Monday.

“Our countryman Ali Akkanat, who used to work in Istanbul, opened a textile plant near Beyşehir and employed workers mostly from Durak,” village headman Ramazan Ballı told Anatolia. “The fate of our villagers changed then.”

Workers at the Beyşehir plant, 50 kilometers away from Durak, have raised the standard of living in the village to the extent that there are now no households in Durak earning a monthly income of less than 2,000 Turkish Liras, he said.

Unlike neighboring villages and towns, there is no unemployment problem in Durak. “Besides, Akkanat has trained many people [from the village] and helped them become textile businessmen. There are nearly 30 businessmen from our village producing textiles in big cities today.”

The villagers’ newfound wealth is reflected in the global brand clothing produced at the Beyşehir plant that many of them now wear, Ballı said.

Managers at the factory distribute irregular goods to employees because they cannot be sold to contract customers.

“As many of the villagers work at the factory, you can see everybody – old or young – wearing famous textile products. Everybody who visits here notices that villagers are wearing brand-name clothes,” he said.

“Everyone has tens or hundreds of these products in their homes. Many use T-shirts as undershirts. Some villages even wear them once and throw them away instead of doing the washing,” he said.

“The economic crisis only affected the village tangentially,” former headman and frequent visitor to the village coffee house Hami Okur said, echoing remarks made by Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in 2008.

Every month, 80,000 to 100,000 liras of hot money flows into the village, he said, and with luxurious cars on clean cobblestone streets and villas similar to those in big cities, the village looks quite different to others in the region.

The village has a meeting hall, a wedding hall, a health center, a street-watering truck and a dust cart. Businessmen from the village will soon start building a sports complex, Ballı said, adding that Akkanat, who has also invested in schools and academies in Beyşehir and Konya, still supports the village.

The people of Durak do not generally migrate to cities, Ballı said, adding that a number of those who left during the last 10 years have returned to help improve the social and economic conditions.

“Even as the headman, I used to live in Manavgat, in Antalya, but returned to my village because of the changing conditions,” Ballı said. “Our people in Istanbul – or even those who live abroad, particularly the retired – often move back here.”