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Carpets & Kilims: No matter how lame your bargaining skills, it’s still cheaper than Bloomingdale’s — and boy, do they look good unrolled under (or on) your coffee table. Turkey’s tribal carpets and kilims represent a cultural tradition that goes back for centuries. The symmetrical designs we’re most accustomed to are found in rugs from Kayseri and Hereke — the latter traditionally boasts the most exquisite silk-on-silk showpieces.

Ottoman Books & Rare Prints: The Ottomans were masters of calligraphy, embellishing the page with dust from sapphires, lapis lazuli, gold, and other gems. Miniatures generally represent scenes from the life of a sultan and his family, with colorful shades to give the page life. One of the most valuable of originals or reproductions is the tugra, the sultan’s elaborately ornate and personal seal. The Sahaflar Çarsisi in Istanbul is the best place to find these treasures, as are the streets near Tünel in Beyoglu.

Turkish Delight: This gummy, marshmallowy treat made of dried nuts, fruits, syrup, and cornstarch is a national favorite. I personally hate the stuff, but to each his own. It’s known as lokum in Turkish — a word also used to refer to a voluptuous woman. The best lokum is available at Haci Bekir in Istanbul, but you can find it at the Egyptian Bazaar or in practically every pastane, or souvenir shop.

Pottery & Ceramics: These arts thrived under the Ottomans, whose skilled craftsmen perfected the coral red and cobalt blue of the Iznik tile. No one has ever been able to reproduce the intensity of these colors, until now. The only authentic reproductions come out of the Iznik Foundation‘s workshop and showroom in Iznik, which has a branch in Istanbul. Ordinary but equally stunning porcelain designs on white clay come from Kuthaya and are sold throughout Turkey.

Turkish Textiles: Check the manufacturer’s label on your fine linens, terry-cloth supplies, and cotton T-shirts. I bet you didn’t realize it, but Turkey exports a huge amount of textiles, supplying the raw materials for well-known retailers such as OP, Calvin Klein, Walt Disney, and XOXO. Bursa and Pamukkale are both famous for the quality of their goods; many Istanbul residents head to one of these towns to stock up on plush towels and terry-cloth robes. (Good-quality pieces can be had for under 7YTL/$6.10/£2.80.) Bursa is also famous for its silks.

Copper: Turks use copper for everything, probably because it looks so good (particularly the white copper). Tea servers with triangular handles pass you by countless times a day; the wide copper platters that double as tables represent typical Turkish style. Those shiny white bowls you see in a hamam are copper, too. For the best prices and selection, head to Çadircilar Caddesi, near the Grand Bazaar, or Bakircilar Çarsisi, near the citadel in Ankara.

Gold & Silver: The price by weight is the same, but with labor so cheap you’re bound to get a deal. Shopping thoroughfares glitter with the stuff — some of it attractive, some of it hideous. The Istanbul Handicrafts Center has an atelier where an artisan crafts his own work. In Ürgüp, many of the pieces have local precious stones. Museum gift shops are also great sources of unique jewelry.

Foodstuffs: The exoticism of the East is in full bloom at Istanbul’s Egyptian Spice Bazaar, where you can find over five different types of saffron at prices that will ensure you take home a sample of each. Although this isn’t Tuscany, you won’t know it by the quality of the olive oil; head to the local supermarket and stock up on a few bottles. The smoothest and most delicious is bottled by Komili.

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Istanbul as Unity and Trinity – Umberto Eco

December 22nd, 2009

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Istanbul as Unity and Trinity – Umberto Eco

The “Story of the Slave and the Warrior” in Jorge Louis Borges’ Aleph has a character called Droctulft, a barbarian from Lombardy who arrives with his tribe to besiege and capture Ravenna one day. Droctulft comes from the forests of his country, he is “brave, innocent and ruthless,” the only kind of settlement he knows of are the huts in the forest and he now sees a city for the first time.

We may imagine him watching the city walls, towers and other things that he had never seen before as Ravenna slowly emerges on the horizon. As Borges recounts, he encounters the cypresses and marbles of the city, the integrity of a large number of elements that have come together without causing disorder, an organization consisting of regular and open spaces with its statutes, temples, gardens, columns and capitals. Not having known refinement before yet endowed in the recesses of his soul with the immortal gift of discernment, Droctulft notices a kind of complex process. He kneels instantly and indicates his defeat in front of the “thing” he come to conquer and destroy. Droctulft is hit by the unexpected surprise of the “the city,” abandons his tribe and fights (and dies) for Ravenna.

I believe that coming to Istanbul after reading innumerable books about the city would reproduce the astonishment of this mythical Lombardian. (For a long time, the voyage to Istanbul has constituted a literary genre with its own rules and the arrival is always predicated on speed.) Perhaps the reason for this is that some cities resist being described from afar and then suddenly draw one in (London, Rome and Paris) while others reveal themselves gradually without reservation (New York may be considered as such). Istanbul undoubtedly belongs to the second category. At least for those who come from the sea -as it once used to be customary… Whether the boat comes from the Strait of Istanbul or Çanakkale, it passes by the Golden Horn and reveals the city from different perspectives through a kind of cinematographic displacement.

Perhaps the most cinematographic among all descriptions of Istanbul is the one by Nerval, who is little known worldwide. His is followed by those of Gautier, Flaubert, Loti and Edmondo de Amicis. All adolescents in Italy (at least from 1886 up to my generation) were raised on De Amicis’ A Child’s Heart, a thought-provoking book charged with positive emotions. Besides being a good author, De Amicis was a good journalist as attested by his book Constantinopoli (1874). De Amicis’ little-known, lovely interview accompanied me on my first trip to Istanbul.

Like De Amicis, I had postponed this trip for years out of different and totally unexpected reasons. I continued to imagine this city through photographs, engravings, paintings, stories and even old maps. There are cities that are understood through a coincidence. Others require a long period of preparation and can be grasped through a mixture of in-depth knowledge and the imagination. Perhaps many visited Istanbul to discover it. This is why I had to excavate like an archaeologist to unearth the real city again, I had to process and use what I found below this personal Istanbul.

Another requirement is to excavate what others have found… This is why I had De Amicis’ text ready when I came to Istanbul. For he had seen what I cannot see today. First of all, De Amicis comes from the sea. On the last night of the nine-day boat journey, he makes a thorough mystical preparation when he hears the captain announce, “Gentlemen! Tomorrow at dawn, we will see the first minarets of Istanbul.” Passenger De Amicis sleeps little, goes to the deck as soon as he sees the faint light heralding dawn and curses in disillusionment, for there is fog.

But the captain comforts him. The fog will enhance the beauty of entering Istanbul. The Prince’s Islands are distinguished in the direction of the boat’s bow, and given the speed of those times, there are two more tiresome hours before they can see Istanbul. They approach the city enjoying every moment. After a sea journey of one hour the captain points to a white dot, the tip of a very high minaret. Then, the shapes and colors of houses are gradually perceived below the minaret, the pointed tips of other minarets tinged with a rosy color, the city walls below the houses and their dark towers are slowly discerned, but the houses stretch in an interminable row and the city appears to spread over a plain. And then, amidst the fog; “a huge shadow still covered with a layer of fog, a very large, graceful and imposing building rose toward the sky from the top of a hill, it rounded out magnificently in the middle of four very long and thin minarets whose tips glistened like silver under the first rays of the sun.” This was the Hagia Sophia and to suddenly see it rise in the void must have been beautiful…

At this point the unexpected surprise facing them continues, new towers and new domes, again colorful houses above bright houses are revealed in the morning mist, jagged and capricious, white, green, pink and glittering shores emerge. But fog still blocks entry to the Bosphorus and the boat has to stop. This gives the passenger the opportunity to observe the city acting single-handedly to shake off the fog still covering it. At the end, the ship starts again and from below the Palace hill, listening to the symphony of cypresses, firs and plane trees, it passes by the roofs of mansions and annexes, domes, grated windows, arabesque doors barely perceptible through binoculars, labyrinthine gardens, passages and secret corners that the passenger tries to understand.

It is unnecessary for me to repeat page after page of what De Amicis wrote about this arrival; the sudden appearance of Üsküdar in the sunlight, the bright image of Galata and Pera, the symphony of little houses with thousand colors, clusters of trees and “small harbors, seaside mansions, summer palaces, groves, other barely perceptible villages only whose roofs glistening in the sun can be seen amidst the distant fog, a medley of colors that makes one want to shout with joy, a botanical wealth, something not thought of before, a grandeur, a pleasure, a grace…”

I was unable to see this Konstantinopolis because I came to the city from inside. For as I crossed the Marmara Sea by ship from the Asian shore, at the moment that the city flashed in front of my eyes, it was the middle of the day and there was no fog. (During my stay there was only one sunny day, I saw Istanbul immersed in light, the green of the gardens and the hills tinged with the color of gold only for one day.) For if there had been fog, as it slowly dispersed, it would have revealed not streets and villages but the coexistence of domes, minarets and other modern buildings… Nonetheless, a couple of hours after my arrival I was at the top of the Galata Tower and saw the city bathed in the light of the setting sun. And another day I toured the shore of the Bosphorus by car. Even as I crossed the harbor of the Golden Horn, I felt a part of the excitement of De Amicis.

No matter how much may have been written on it, it is not always possible to comprehend a city described by others. At the harbor of Galata, I cannot insist on seeing the flow of human beings that De Amicis observed from dawn till dusk; that Armenian lady gently stretching her head from a mother-of-pearl and ivory inlaid palanquin, the old Turk with his silk turban and blue caftan and behind him a Greek on horseback followed by his dragoman, a dervish with his conical hat, Iranian soldiers with their astrakhan calpacs, the disheveled Gypsy woman, the Catholic priest, the old Jew, an eunuch walking in front of the women of the harem, an African slave carrying a monkey, a charlatan in the guise of a soothsayer (But may De Amicis really have seen these? Or at least, may he have seen them all at once? Or has he made a patchwork by putting together what he saw on different days?). In any case, I should discover my own Istanbul and leave aside that of the others.

My travel experience tells me that touring in a city by going from place to place by car escorted by an experienced guide who describes every avenue and square is almost a scientific method to not understand it. On the contrary, the only way to get to know a city well is to stroll alone without asking for help, walk, get lost and if possible not use a plan, to go where you smell something interesting, to follow the path shown by the city sun, the smell and the echo.

It goes without saying that before getting lost in a city one needs to designate a place of return (there is no problem here, this may at least be the hotel) and a point of arrival. Otherwise, if you just hit the streets, you will have difficulty making choices and will never get lost. Getting lost in a city is only possible through erring.

For instance in his travels De Amicis sets out on a clearly defined route which is rather long, traverses three civilizations and which he will cover on foot. The itinerary is physical because its history is known. From the antique city walls along the Byzantine Palace to the shores of the Marmara Sea and to the Golden Horn… This itinerary is at the same time symbolic. For the cross and the crescent fought along this route, the city was besieged by Mehmet II in 1453 and captured here.

An eminently sensible, inevitable route from the perspective of a Westerner. Considering that the places visited belonged to Second Rome until that moment, that the entire East was under the sway of Christian civilization and turned into the symbol of the greatness of the Ottomans in the very same place… Big churches turned into mosques and the radical change of the skyline on the evening of the same day… These thoughts render De Amicis’ visit pathetic. For until Konstantinopolis, he is in the capital of a Christian empire. A target that Western Christianity regards as exterior, where it identifies the beginnings of decline and avoids because of the difference in sect. When the city becomes the capital of the Muslims opposing Christianity the first shock is gradually overcome (between the 16th and 17th centuries), thus Constantinople turns into an object of desire and triggers the exotic imagination of the West. The city turns into an object on which literary essays are written. While Western Christianity does “almost” not like it until that moment, it turns into the temple of difference once it is subjected to a radical transformation.

To fully understand and be able to talk about conflicting feelings, I chose to look for another face of the city by following another line of siege, and I looked for the traces of Konstantinopolis in 1204. I laid De Amicis’ book to rest and toured the city from the perspective of historian Niketas Khoniates (from the Byzantine side) and Robert de Clary and Cillehardouin, two historians on the side of the Crusaders.

This siege and this fall was even more terrifying, -at least spiritually- it was like a preparation for the Ottoman siege in the 15th century. For this was the first siege and devastation of Konstantinopolis. The capital of Western Christianity had gathered Christian militiamen and had set out to recover the “Holy Land” in the name of Christ.

The Crusaders (the French and the Flemish) depart for the Holy Land in 1203; in the meantime they have to use Venetian boats as Jerusalem has been recaptured by Selahattin Eyyubi but do not have enough money. The Venetians ask for their help in subduing the city of Zara on the way. So they conquer Zara. The son of Emperor Isakios II, Aleksios, who was deposed from the Byzantine throne by his brother Aleksios Angelos III resurfaces here. The young prince asks for the help of the Crusaders in capturing the Empire, and promises in return a real treasure and strong military support for future Crusades. But Aleksios will later delay keeping his promises. So on the morning of July 26, 1203, Venetian fleets parade in front of the city walls on the shore of the Marmara Sea. Banners and standards wave in the wind, and shields of every color extend from the sides of the galleys. While the Byzantines witness this scene with concern from the city walls, the Crusaders notice the city gradually emerge in the morning light (like De Amicis) and start to cheer…

The Crusaders’ fleet arrives in Üsküdar to drop anchor. But on August 6, it attacks Galata. Here it sees Konstantinopolis in all its splendor, and on an instinct, believes that it has to subdue it. Like knights sent to rescue the lovely and faithful bride from her master, the Crusaders do not only want to take back this dazzling beauty but also start to desire it. Thinking that another cause of their presence is to restore the city to its rightful owner, the Crusaders sack it as soon as they capture it, unconscious, as though tasting a good game.

My visit starts at the place where the siege started, toward the north from the front of the city walls, from in front of Blakhernai (Ayvansaray). A groundless siege was laid here; a fancy parade, a few brave skirmishes, colorful outfits and weapons glittering from Venetian boats and attacking from the sea. Following a more or less straight line along the city wall, they reach Blakhernai, which close to the current day Atatürk Bridge. The first Venetians to reach the city walls put the nearby houses on fire, the first fire spreads and turns to ash a large part of the city from Blakhernai to the Cristo Benefattore Monastery, and almost the entire section until the city walls.

Faced with these events, emperor Aleksios III takes his gemstones and gold coins and runs away. The residents of the city are at a loss, they rush to prison to release the deposed Isakios and enthrone him. They also recognize under equal terms the empire of Aleksios (Aleksios IV), son of Isakios who is supported by the Crusaders. In this way the Crusaders enter the city, and as they wait for their payments to arrive, they set camp in Pera and settle there. Isakios and Aleksios have promised more than they can give and do not have enough gold. They impose new taxes and confiscate the assets of their subjects. Meanwhile, the Crusaders hold the city gates and start to clash with the locals. A group from Flanders, Pizza and Venice starts a squabble in the street of the North African Muslims. Worse to come, the Crusaders put the nearby houses on fire. The fire spreads instantly, it burns down the city along the Golden Horn, reaches the Hippodrome and almost the Hagia Sophia.

In January 1204 Aleksios Murtzuphlos V has the young Aleksios Angelos strangled and takes over the empire. Afterwards the Crusaders and Byzantines come into open conflict and an attack is launched. During these events the assailants put to fire a large number of houses again (and the third fire spreads). Ravaged by fire for nine months, Konstantinopolis is exhausted, Aleksios V has fled as well and this time the Crusaders have no one left to enthrone in his place (later on Baudouin of Flanders will be chosen emperor and the Eastern Empire will be administered from the West for more than half a century).

Konstantinopolis was sacked in the war, the enemies who were annihilated were the residents of the city. Churches were ransacked, palaces were occupied and plundered. The residents were subjected to torture because they could not indicate the location of their treasures; the chastity of children was threatened… Western historians usually disregard the consequences of these events. Byzantine historians, on the other hand, perhaps exaggerate a little in describing the destruction of the city. Of course an ugly period was being chronicled; so that when the raging Niketas Khoniates lamented the fate of the city, he would remember Selahattin, who fought against the Crusaders and recaptured Jerusalem, as a magnanimous person. Still it is also difficult to say that Selahattin, who beheaded the cavalry officers protecting the pilgrims, was innocent… But no comparison is needed: The fighting witnessed in Jerusalem was between ruthless enemies. This one, on the other hand, was an act of banditry among brothers…

Thus I ended my days in Istanbul, looking for the traces of these moments of siege and capture, and later trying to rediscover the route followed by Niketas Khoniates and his family along the burning avenues of the city and the rubble during their flight to Silivri. Following faded ruins and lost traces, reaching antique Byzantium in the Yerebatan Cistern with subterranean paths whose surfaces had lost their luster, I walked to rediscover the Christian ruin of San Salvatore in the Hagia Irini by chance and almost coincidentally…

But the goal was still to get lost. And by losing myself, I also found the city that I did not explicitly seek. Thus on the traces of the siege of 1203-1204, lost in dreams around the Galata Tower and then climbing towards the northeast, I was able to see the ritual of the whirling dervishes. Asking myself where the Crusaders may have set camp, I discovered the night life in the cafés and restaurants along İstiklal Avenue, in visiting the shore where they landed upon arrival, I suddenly found myself in Kadıköy (or I thought I did but it may be the same), this mosaic of nations and their attires which De Amicis saw on the Galata Tower and infuriated him, a kind of ethnic jazz constituted of Anatolian peasants with tanned faces, youths with their heads covered and bare legs, sailors…

In looking for the monastery mentioned by my historians, I left behind alleys and -suddenly- found myself in front of Mimar Sinan’s imposing building. From the shore of the Golden Horn where the Venetians and Genoese had settled, I seeped into a long crevice teeming with people and at once found myself in the Spice Bazaar. And even though the guidebooks state that it is not as told by 19th century travelers, even though warehouses and stores were built in the place where once stood bags brimming with colorful wares and plastic goods reigned victorious, a genius loci which was not visible but could be sensed lingered in the Spice Bazaar. The fragrant voyage to the past and the East ended in a slightly dizzying fashion here. I had to go to the pier to not get dazed, I sat on the tiles opposite the door in Pandeli, which can almost be considered mysterious, and ordered one of the sweets made with honey. The flow of the blood through the veins recalled the excitement of a sin that had been committed.

At this point I could no longer tell if I was in Byzantium, Konstantinopolis or Istanbul. I realized that I made a trip where I traversed three civilizations and three periods at the same time. But this city with three names and three histories was in fact still the same. I thought that it was perhaps not coincidental that amidst the city walls, bearded church fathers had discussed to the point of exhaustion the secret of the trinity, that is how “one thing” could be at once “one” and “three.”

This is where my impressions of my first trip to Istanbul end. Next time I will discover another face of the city.

Translated by: Seyra Faralyalı

ATLAS, 1999 special issue

Lists Golden Horn, hagia sophia, hippodrome

Istanbul’s Top 5 Street Foods

December 8th, 2009

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Istanbul’s Top 5 Street Foods: #5 – The Galata Cucumber Man
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Istanbul’s Top 5 Street Foods: #4 – Maya Kumpir
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Istanbul’s Top 5 Street Foods: #3 – Kizilkayalar’s Wet Burger
(Editor’s Note: this is the third installment in our look at Istanbul’s top 5 street foods.) The sign may read “Wet Burger” (“Islak Burger” in Turkish), but there’s a lot more to say about Kizilkayalar’s moist mini patties than that. How about “Heavenly Slider,” “Binge Drinker’s Delight,” or “The Best 2 …continue

Istanbul’s Top 5 Street Foods: #2 – Çitir Simit Bakery
Let’s hear it for the (deceptively simple) simit. With only a few ingredients to its name, this sesame-encrusted bread ring has gone on to become the most ubiquitous snack in Istanbul, the undisputed heavyweight champ of the city’s street food scene. In fact, in recent years, the plucky simit has …continue

Istanbul’s Top 5 Street Foods: #1 – Sabirtasi’s Icli Kofte
(Editors’s Note: This is the final installment in our (highly subjective) look at Istanbul’s top 5 street foods.) For years on Istiklal Caddesi, just beyond Galatasaray High School, in one calm spot stood the beatific Ali Bey, an angel in a white doctor’s coat offering salvation in the form of golden …continue

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