Efeler Village
Efeler is a village in the Borçka district of Artvin province. The oldest known name of the village, which today bears the name Efeler, is Eprati. This name, written in Georgian as Eprati (ეფრატი), entered Turkish as Efrat or Eprat. As a matter of fact, Muvahhid Zeki wrote the old name of the village as Efrat (افراط) in the Ottoman book titled Artvin Vilayeti Hakkında Malumatı Umumiye published in 1927. In the census of 1886, the Russian administration, which had captured the Machaheli region in the 93rd War, recorded the name of the village as Efrat / Eprat (Ефрат / Эпрат).A few years later, the Georgian historian Zakaria Chiçinadze, who traveled around the Machaheli region, wrote the name of the village as Evprati (ევფრატი), in accordance with its older form.
There is no reliable information on the meaning of Eprati. Nevertheless, there are various rumors about the name of the village. One of these rumors is based on the words "im prati" (იმ ფრათი; that way) in the sentence "as in so-and-so place, so it should be done here" when the church was being built in the village.
