Türkiye 2

Istanbul

This may surprise my fellow travellers but let's just say that one of the most arresting things....

I encountered in Istanbul (Byzantium, Constantinople) was a video, on display at the Istanbul Museum of Modern Art, by Şener Özmen entitled:

Bear with me, please:

In this video, Road to Tate Modern (Tate'e Giden Yol), Şener Özmen, riding a horse and carrying a long lance, plays Don Quixote, while his collaborator, Erkan Özgen, plays Sancho Panza astride a donkey. Both men wear suits and ties, and they are labouring up steep rocky slopes in the mountains near Diyarbakir (not only the largest city in southeastern Turkey but also the capital of Kurdish culture in Turkey and the epicentre of a significant amount of violence throughout the latter part of the twentieth century) in pursuit of their “impossible dream” -which is the story of the artists’ efforts to reach that art museum in London. 

Laden with ironic references to Cervantes’s novel Don Quixote, the work uses dramatic language to examine the tragicomic efforts of artists who work on the periphery and aspire to overcome the insurmountable obstacles that prevent them from reaching the art world’s “holy of holies”. Conveying the dilemma and sterility of the relationship between the current art scene at the center and the artist at the periphery, the video also touches upon the difficulties involved in establishing oneself in the world of contemporary art.  (Turkish and Other Delights/Şener Özmen by Elizabeth Wolfson, June 14, 2011.)

In a country with rich history and great art and architecture, this small contemporary work caught my attention and, in a way, provided a context that framed my experience.

Which is not to say that the great sights of Istanbul are not interesting - of course they are, and we were again expertly guided around the city by Mecit Bogday, who somehow got himself incarcerated inside the Topkapi Harem:

Which is one of the busier sights in this teeming city. Despite the 15 million certified inhabitants (and another 3.5 million who are said to be living in shanty towns on the periphery) we vied with three cruise ships (who may have disembarked some ten thousand culture vultures after breakfast each day, every one of which needed to have their picture taken):

But.... despite all that, and the impossible traffic, and the weather (rain at times, variable....) we got the sight-seeing done, and revelled in the opulence of history.

First stop, the Topkapi Palace, home of Sultans [Just a thought, what's the link between a Sultan and a Sultana?  Answers on a postcard please - if you can find a postbox! Ed.]

{Actually a Sultana is the wife of a Sultan, but as the name for certain dried grapes, the story is that one Ottoman Sultan, having picked some grapes, was surprised by a tiger and ran away, forgetting said grapes.  Then, when he eventually returned, they had dried and not rotted, and he found them to be delicious, so named them after himself....  Isn't that raisinable?}

I digress....

The Topkapi Palace is named after the 1964 film starring Melina Mercouri and Peter Ustinov, a film which kinda prefigures the recent heist at the Louvre, about which several films are currently in production.....

No, sorry, that's probably not true. I think the film may have been named after the palace, which was begun in 1462 by Mehmet the Conqueror, and which gradually enlarged to become a mini-city with some 4,000 inhabitants.

Quite apart from the various courtyards, libraries, kitchens, stables, treasuries, barracks, mosques, offices and halls, the decoration is wonderful, with tiles and gold leaf and marbles in abundance, covering ceilings, walls and floors.....

The views, too, are splendid. This is the Süleymaniye Mosque, said by some to be the finest Ottoman construction in Istanbul (built by Sultan Süleyman I (the Magnificent) with a little help from his architect, Sinan, between 1550 and 1557) as seen from near the Baghdad Pavilion (or Kiosk) in the fourth Court of the Topkapi Palace Museum.

It is Friday, midday, and, as the amplified muezzin call the faithful to prayer across the city, we are let loose in the the Eminönü quarter of the Fatih district near the New Mosque (inaugurated in 1665).  We are directed to the Spice Bazaar, also known as the Egyptian Market (Misir Çarşisi) under strict instruction to seek out Iranian saffron, as otherwise we will be cheated.

But how do you tell, and how should one bargain? It is bizarre [Groan, Ed.], how could any of this stuff be fresh, and how could anyone tell where it's from? The stalls are dazzling, and the variety on offer is bewildering, and, if I bought, for instance, some Hürrem Love Tea (Aşk Çayı - which is Turkish for Love Tea, and I do....) could I get my money back if it didn't improve my love life?  

So many questions.....  So little time.....

Meanwhile, the faithful are at prayer:

Though somehow the streets seem to be just as crowded as they were before:

And, though it must be the equivalent of Sunday, the shops aren't closed:

Selling everything from fresh fish, to Turkish Delight, to Haribo Jelly Babies.....

To tea pots and coffee cups....

It is pulsatingly colourful, and noisy, and lively, and, although we and many other foreign tourists are entwining in the crowds, the majority here seem to be locals.... And friendly.....

And there are moments, and places, where tranquillity in ancient settings, can be found.

Anyway, after a light lunch of Hummus and Dolmas, with Efes Pilsen, at a restaurant called Hamdi, followed by a few delicious roasted chestnuts, it is time to board a river boat for a trip up and down the Bosporus (Bosphorus in English), a 19 mile (30 kms) long channel with a maximum width of 2.3 miles (3.7 kms), though at its narrowest it is only 750 metres wide. Its depth varies from 120 to 408 feet (36.5 to 124 metres) in midstream.  The name, by the way, derives from Ox-Ford, (but it is a little more than the Isis..... Perhaps if the dark blues trained here they might win more races?). [By the way, I love that the Hop-on Hop-off buses here are called Busforus.  Ed.]

The traffic on the water is amazing, with huge tankers and container vessels making their way to and from the Black Sea, carrying who knows what? Russian liquid gas? Ukrainian wheat? But there is space (the lowest suspension bridge hangs 64 metres above the water and is over a kilometre long - may Allah preserve us from earthquakes.....) [Note the Palestinian flag, Ed.]

The ride is highly enjoyable, with Mecit's running commentary, and with traditional dancing [Not all of it traditional.... Ed.] and the fresh, slightly salty air....

Palaces and Castles line the shores, both on the Asian and the European banks (the Bosphorus divides Europe from Asia, and is an International Waterway). This, I think,  was one of the Sultan's hunting lodges:

And this is the Ottoman Anadoluhisari fortress (built in 1394) which lurks behind some ritzy modern buildings (prices for mansions on the Bosphorus range from around four and a half million pounds to 75 million....)

This is Dolmabahçe Palace (1843-1856), the main administrative centre of the Ottoman Empire from 1856 to 1887 and again from 1909 to 1922:

And this may have been a military college, though it is being restored now:

After the boat trip, we are taken back to our hotel near Taksim Square, 

not far from the imposing Genoese Galata Tower in the Beyoğlu district. A walk in the crowds after nightfall, is followed by dinner in the Çiçek Pasaji (Flower Passage) where for reasons probably best known to Recep Tayyip Erdoğan the volume of the entertainment is certainly eleven (pace Spinal Tap) and could probably be heard in Iran.....

The following morning dawns damp and an early start (to head off the cruisers) is required. But we make it, without queues, to Hagia Sophia (Ayasofya-i Kebir Cami-i Şerifi) the church of the Holy Wisdom......The construction started in 532 and was completed in a period of five years and it opened for worship on December 27, 537. Though earthquakes have since caused collapse and damage, it is an extraordinarily large domed building, and was the largest church in Christendom until 1453 when it was turned into a mosque. Then, in 1935 it became a museum, until 2020 when it was once again designated a mosque (and a museum).....

It is huge.  It is impressive.  And we bow in awe at the extraordinary daring that early architects took. The dome is 31 metres (100 ft) in diameter and rises to 55 metres (180 ft) above the floor.   

And we also note the detail - mosaics, marbles, additions, subtractions.....

And the early Byzantine mosaics are brilliant, catching natural light as they were designed to do:

But.... Look at this face, carefully.  Is it so very different from this one?  (I hope I won't be struck down for that suggestion....)

At this point I should admit that Turkey was never top of my list of places to go to..... I have travelled and visited many countries, and have visited all the continents with the exception of Antarctica..... I haven't been everywhere, of course, but have seen at least some of 'the world' and Türkiye wasn't high on my list, though it was somewhere I wanted to see.....  Bucket list, if you wish....  

But, having said that, I am/was here, and the Blue Mosque is next.... Queueing, taking shoes off, pressing close to thousands of other people, gazing up wondering why it is blue [The tiles... Ed.] wondering  how it still stands (Elephant legs of marble is the answer) and, somewhat naively, wondering what people pray for five times a day, every day.....

And outside, in the Hippodrome, the selfies and the groupies, and the snaps go on, and on, and on.....

And why not?

It's a great city, in a great setting, with great buildings......

And some surprises.  This is the Basilica Cistern (Yerebatan Sarnici):

This nearly 10,000 square metre underground cistern, with 336 columns, was constructed in 532 AD by the Emperor Justinian as part of the city's water supply, fed from springs in the Belgrade Forest.  Remarkably it was forgotten for centuries until 1545 when it was used to hydrate the Topkapi Palace.

A curiosity is this upturned head of Medusa which supports one of the columns:

Nowadays a light show increases the interest for the queuing tourists, and art works and objects are displayed, such as several sculpted jellyfish - coincidentally medusa in Italian - and this petrified tree trunk:

Among the other attractions in Istanbul we find the Archaeological Museum.  Here, although part of it is closed for restoration, so I cannot find the recommended Babylonian duck(?), exhibits include some extraordinarily crafted marble sarcophagi, including that of Alexander, from Sidon, in Lebanon, dated 312-307 BCE,

And a marvellous interactive display of the nine cities of Troy with their various disasters. 

Some of the smaller items, ornaments, chalices, jewellery, etc, which in some cases are three or more thousand years old, are exquisite.  I particularly liked these little birds - not quite Babylonian ducks, but nonetheless most appealing:

 

Anyway, after a good fish lunch on the Galata bridge, we make our way towards the Museum of Modern Art, last stop on this grand tour.  On the way I try to picture some of the people of this vibrant city, from fishermen:

To workmen at rest:

To people in traditional dress:

To people in modern dress:

To people who may not be well-off:

And people who use their talents to get by:

To people who may have just stepped ashore from a five star cruise ship:

For me travel is very much a sensory thing, rather than an intellectual exercise. I don't remember names or facts very well, so history is a bit of a blur, but the sights and sounds of life are very real to me, and I like to think of the continuity of life, the way that people of all kinds, faiths, backgrounds deal with their allotted existence.  

And I like to picture the world as it is, where nature and human craft co-exist:

And so I find myself in İstanbul Modern, a place where contemporary artists, from different cultures, display their take on life.  What seems here to be a peaceful woodland:

Is actually made up of skulls:

But what does that mean?  Your guess is as good as mine, though this one, by Bedri Bakyam (born in Ankara in 1957, currently resident in Istanbul) can be explained.....?

Ingres, Gerome, This is My Bath. Acrylic and broken mirrors on plywood, 1987

I make no apologies for lifting this straight from the İstanbul Modern's website:

The work “Ingres, Gérôme, This is my Bath” is part of the installation Bedri Baykam created in 1987 for the 1st Istanbul Biennial. It was located in architect Mimar Sinan’s Haseki Sultan Bath. The installation, which appeals to the five senses and invites audience interaction, had water running down the bath wall and also featured music and scent. The left side of the work was adapted from Ingres’s “Turkish Bath”, the right side from Gérôme’s “Grand Bath at Bursa”, and Baykam secretly included himself in the painting. “Ingres, Gérôme, This is my Bath” may be interpreted as an insider’s answer or appeal to the way foreign painters, who couldn't enter a bath or harem, were captivated by them and imagined them in erotic terms, from an Orientalist point of view.

Which, in one way, brings us back to something about the fascination we have for travel and experience. We want to know something about other people, other ways of life....

Road to Tate Modern is not just a contemporary artwork about art, about artists in search of some elusive truth, it is about the struggle of Türkiye to find itself, emerging from a great but troubled past into a troubled future.... But it is also even more than that. It is about mankind and mankind's efforts to better itself in a harsh and unforgiving world. It is about rebuilding from ruins, making use of the spent materials of former excess, and about the value of dreaming, the necessity of believing that there can be good in this world.

Our trip to Türkiye was a fascinating journey into the past, as well as an experience of the present, and I, for one, learned much about myself and about other people.  Thank you Riviera.....

And thanks to all who helped make this a great trip, especially Mecit, our dancing guide, and our driver Mustafa.....

*****

Dedicated to my Brisley Belle....

*****