THE SPICE OF LIFE
Istanbul is still an exotic mix of tradition and the pursuit of modern delights
Western fascination with the exoticism of the Ottoman world is whetted by calligraphy and kilims, eunuchs and hammams, belly dancers and dervishes, concubines and harems, sultans and turkish delights and smoking hookahs.
Of course, recently there has been much-publicised tension within turkey, with the hardliner President erdogan’s increased authoritarianism, regression on human rights and pursuit of a neo-Ottoman agenda.
But actually, these perceptions aren’t justified in Istanbul where the only nationalism I sensed were the country’s multiple large red flags with their distinctive white star and crescent symbols.
First Byzantium, then Constantinople and now Istanbul. What’s it to be called next?
Part-religious, part-liberal, neither east nor West, it has its own destiny and path, its own influence politically, militarily and culturally. A student told me he felt that the european side wasn’t really europe and that the Asian side was more Middle eastern.
Getting to Istanbul from the UK takes about four hours. As to whether turkey is safe as a result of its spate of airport terrorism in 2016, my answer is yes, as safe as any Western capital.
the Foreign and Commonwealth Office only advise against all travel to within six miles of the border with syria, which is a good 600 miles away. And any minute now the mother of all carpets will be rolled out for the imaginatively named Istanbul new Airport. I did lots of the touristy things. My boat trip along the Bosphorus was mesmeric, with Istanbul’s bygone years reflected in the stunning Ortaköy Mosque and imposing Küçüksu summer Palace.
I shared my day with big oil tankers, seagulls and a bulbousnosed skipper in that lugubrious atmosphere of nostalgia the locals call hüzün.
next up was the classic fortress that is the topkapi Palace, home to the sultans for almost 400 years. It was also the setting for the 1964 film, topkapi, starring Melina Mercouri and Peter Ustinov about the theft of the sultan’s emerald-encrusted dagger that I was to stare at with the same intensity as the array of blue Iznik tiled walls.
It took me a good two hours to go round and the on-site, oldfashioned Konyali restaurant was a perfect break as the gentle breeze came off the water and the metal plate cloches were lifted before me with synchronised theatricality to offer up their surprise of excellent food.
Minutes away, the Hagia sophia loomed, as proud and visible throughout the city as the eiffel tower is in Paris. I felt a real excitement standing beneath the great dome shared dramatically by Christian and Islamic motifs.
MAddenInGly, the best bits of the nearby Blue Mosque were closed for repair, but another door was to open at the sokullu Mehmet Paşa Cami’i mosque. I found it along a cobbled street and behind an old wall with cats sleeping on top of cars.
Here I spotted the janitor’s pair of shoes outside and I begged him to let me in for the ten seconds I knew I could turn into minutes and for the coins he knew he was going to get — money well spent: for the silence amplifying this vast interior; for the sun shining through the coloured glass panels onto the turquoise vine and floral tiles. Beside the spice Market’s exotic pyramid displays was the ‘Avenue of the Mat-Makers’, revealing the turkish domesticity of buckets, buckles and baskets, cooking knives and cleaning brushes. I was shocked to see boys as young as 12 already plying their trade, carting bags of rags twice their size, as others brought trays of tea to shopkeepers.
All within walking distance of the Grand Bazaar where, apart from a few rug stalls, generally there’s too much touristic tat. yes, the hawkers approach you, but they are not over-persistent and, of their more imaginative spiels, I loved, ‘Here I am’ and ‘excuse me, you forgot your carpet’.
even better than being heckled is the fun of bartering, and the vendors enjoy it, too — to a point. It was through my persistent haggling that I grasped the locals’ gestures. A head tilted back meant no, a hand moving up and down meant yes and a head moving from left to right expressed doubt.
I was conscious of the turkish proverb ‘who wants yoghurt in winter must carry a cow in his pocket’. Knowing that it was better to have lira and not euros in my pocket, I got a fabulous strip of goatskin for a third of its price but only on the half-joking, half-serious promise never to return.
I certainly won’t go back to his stall but I shall have to return to Istanbul. And soon.