Where are Tinus and Barrie?

In my Part 1 post on Bulgaria I shamelessly talked about “the Bulgarians”, of course with the giant disclaimer that I really did not know much about the country at all. Istanbul posed yet a greater challenge, since not only did we just visit this one city in Turkey, a giant country in itself, but the “New York of Europe” as Barrie so aptly put it is so extremely complex that I don’t really know where to start. Let’s just say that this post is going to be less filled with (a)cute and funny observations and more with somewhat more serious but still quite rambling thoughts. See, you can still count on me for the rambling! O and pictures of course, just scroll down past all them wordy bits.

When we arrived in Istanbul on 18 July, we went straight from our awesomely situated apartment in the  modern Beyoğlu district (close to the Galata tower) to the more old-skool part of Istanbul across the Golden Horn, home of the Hagia Sophia, Blue Mosque, Topkapı Palace, Grand Bazaar and Spice Bazaar to name but a few highlights. In contrast to Beyoğlu I really, really felt like woman here, and not in the most positive sense of the word. On the one hand, the reason was that there were hardly any other women in the places we were walking and I stood out with my length and Dutch-ness. But on the other, as soon as I left Barrie’s side for a bit and men didn’t know I was with my boyfriend, I was ogled and stared at. Extremely uncomfortable. And unfortunately, on more than one occasion, again when I was standing somewhere without my boyfriend directly next to me, men “accidentally” brushed up against me. Not with a light touch, but really pushing against me and walking along like nothing had happened, even though I blurted and shouted out obscenities in my best Turkish (read: Dutch and English). To be clear, for the most part people (men and women) were very friendly and lovely, and I don’t pretend to understand much about Turkish culture and customs and to role of women in Turkish society. Also, I lost a bit of my uncomfortableness (not a word, I’m sure) and did get more of a ‘fuck off’ attitude as we spent more time in Istanbul. I just know I’ve never felt this uncomfortable being a girl, even though I’ve been to machismo Latin America and I was wearing very conservative clothes in comparison with some lady tourists who were quite literally letting it all hang out.

Well, enough of the ‘poor me’ blah blah, let’s get to the ‘holy shit Turkish politics’ bit. Our friend in Sofia introduced Barrie and I to people behind VideOccupy. They are making video diaries and collecting amateur footage about the protests in Istanbul and Turkey in general that started at the end of May of this year with about 50 environmentalists protesting the destruction of Gezi Park in Taksim Square in Istanbul to make room for a shopping mall. After the police used brutal force to remove them (surely you’ve seen the Woman in Red picture), Taksim has been filling up with all kinds of protesters that are unhappy with the way the Turkish government is just doing what it wants without consulting the public in any way. What started with a few handful of environmentalists has now resulted in a movement of “the young and the old, the secular and the religious, the soccer hooligans and the blind, anarchists, communists, nationalists, Kurds, gays, feminists, and students.” (Kotsev 2013) In short, people want to be heard, and are protesting in creative and for the very large part non-violent ways: just standing still in Taksim for hours, organising large iftar picknicks (evening meal when Muslims break their fast during Ramadan) and two protesters who met at Gezi park getting married in that same spot. The latter was enough for the police to whip out the water cannons and tear gas again, as we physically felt while we were there. Istiklal high street, situated right behind our apartment and which leads straight to Taksim, was filled with people coughing and rubbing their eyes (including ourselves) as the wind blew some of the tear gas in our direction, although we were still hundreds of meters away and we only caught just a bit of it. Even so, people kept shopping and we went to the movies.

The diverse and sometimes even opposing groups joining together in the Taksim protests are emblematic for the equally many faces that Istanbul has. We’d turn a corner and suddenly it could feel like we’d entered an entirely different city. Not just the new and old parts on either side of the Golden Horn, and the European or Asian sides separated by the Bosporus are different, but one street can feel totally different from another. That really made Istanbul endlessly interesting to me, together with the beautiful views, the architecture and the incandescent layers of culture popping up everywhere and the great people we met. I’ll leave you with – of  course – my traditional random observations and pictures:

• Smoking is the national sport. People are just lighting up EVERYWHERE, and many a meal was enjoyed (or in fact less so) due to cigarette smoke nestling itself in my bite of tasty food.
• Stray cats rule the streets. There are kitties all over Istanbul, and people want them to be. There are little water bowls made out of old plastic bottles and heaps of cat food on every corner, and then some. At one point I saw an empty bowl and poured some mineral water in it. In about 0.4 seconds, two happily meowing felines jumped from out of nowhere, purred, and started drinking. We saw one man that was followed by about four cats, and when he sat down they crawled all over him as he got some cat food out of his bag.
• Backgammon is to Istanbul what chess is to Bulgaria. The clatter and clicking of backgammon pieces and dice can be heard all over the city and the game is played on squares and sidewalks. On the Asian side we saw an entire square filled to the brim with people engaged in a fierce Backgammon battle
• My Turkish pop/rock hero Barış Manço is also very much loved in Istanbul. There’s even a Barış Manço Cultural Center, which we of course pilgrimaged (I just made that up, that’s right) our asses to, and where we enjoyed a Barış Manço salad in the Barış Cafe, surrounded by paintings of Barış Manço. It’s like smurfing a smurf in a smurf center surrounded by painted smurfs.
• People clean your table while you’re eating and drinking like the apocalypse will come if they don’t. If you empty a glass, can of beer, your place, ANYTHING, someone will come out of nowhere and whisk it away while you’re still swallowing a bite or a last swig of a beverage.
• You can charge almost any device everywhere. There are machines with an impressive array of cables and adaptors sticking out of them on every corner. Just insert a coin and charge that thang!

Everything is catered for the kitties

Soon…

The view from Pierre Loti cafe. On the left the Galata tower, on the right all the goodness on the ‘old’ side of the Golden Horn

Galata Tower closer up, from the Bosporus

Chaaaarge!

Backgammon, backgammon, backgammon

Blue Mosque – all covered up

Beauty of the Blue Mosque dome

Posing with the police…

..just before they charge Taksim to break up a wedding party, tear gas and water cannons at the ready

Baris everywhere!

One last observation: I saw different men carrying plants around Istaklal trying to sell them