Istanbul, Blue Mosque by Azwegers
From Malcolm Burgess, publisher of Oxygen Books’ city-pick series, featuring some of the best writing on favourite cities, comes a new series for Spotted by Locals on the best city books written by local writers. This one is all about Istanbul!
On winter in Istanbul:
“I have always preferred the winter to the summer in Istanbul. I love the early evenings when autumn is slipping into winter, when the leafless trees are trembling in the north wind and people in black coats and jackets are rushing home through the darkening streets. I love the overwhelming melancholy when I look at the walls of old apartment buildings and the dark surfaces of neglected, unpainted, fallen-down wooden mansions: only in Istanbul have I seen this texture, this shading. When I watch the black-and-white crowds rushing through the darkening streets on a winter’s evening, I feel a deep sense of fellowship, almost as if the night has cloaked our lives, our streets, our every belonging in a blanket of darkness, as if once we’re safe in our houses, our bedrooms, our beds, we can return to dreams of our long-gone riches, our legendary past.”
Orhan Pamuk, Istanbul: Memories of a City (translated by Maureen Freely)
On late spring in Istanbul:
“It was May when Petra called for the second time. The magical Istanbul spring was about to turn abruptly into summer. I would have liked Petra to see Istanbul in spring: to drink tea under the shade of ancient pine trees in the gardens of magnificent Ottoman palaces, to walk along mimosa-scented streets, to shiver in the dampness of the Byzantine underground reservoirs, to light a candle in one of the churches as the muezzin chants the call to prayer, to stretch out in the warm spring sunshine on grass damp with early morning dew looking at the Hippodrome and the Sultan Ahmet fountain, to eat artichokes prepared in olive oil at Hacı Halil Restaurant…”
Esmahan Aykol, Hotel Bosphorus (translated by Ruth Whitehouse)
On foggy Istanbul:
“There was a dense fog outside. And the street lamps were out. The apartment blocks across the way that I was used to seeing from this angle were rendered invisible by the fog and the darkness. I waited in vain for a car to pass through the avenue, finally giving up hope. I knew that Monday nights were the most boring, deadest time of the week in this city. When I opened the window to get some fresh air, my throat was attacked by a cold, smoky darkness that seared my nasal passages. I closed the window. I leaned my legs against the radiator, trying to get warm. But the radiator was quickly growing cold. I couldn’t decide what to do next.”
Murat Gülsoy, ‘Marked in Writing’ (translated by Amy Spangler) in The Book of Istanbul
On the Galata Bridge:
“A poet writing fourteen centuries ago described this city as being surrounded by a garland of waters. Much has changed since then, but modern Istanbul still owes much of its spirit and beauty to the waters which bind and divide it. There is perhaps nowhere else in town where one can appreciate this more than from the Galata Bridge, where all tours of the city should begin. There are other places in Istanbul with more panoramic views, but none where one can better sense the intimacy which this city has with the sea, nor better understand how its maritime situation has influenced its character and its history. So the visitor is advised to stroll to the Galata Bridge for his first view of the city. But you should do your sight-seeing there as do the Stamboullus, seated at a teahouse or café on the lower level of the Bridge, enjoying your keyif over a cup of tea or glass of raki, looking out along the Golden Horn to where it meets the Bosphorous and the Sea of Marmara.”
Hilary Sumner-Boyd and John Freely, Strolling Through Istanbul
On dawn in Istanbul:
“It is almost dawn […]
Apart from the scattered twinkles, it is still densely dark in Istanbul. Whether along the grimy, narrow streets snaking the oldest quarters, in the modern apartment buildings cramming the newly built districts, or throughout the fancy suburbs, people are fast asleep. All but some.
Some Istanbulites have, as usual, awakened earlier than others. The imams all around the city, for instance; the young and the old, the mellow-voiced and the not-so-mellow-voiced, the imams of the copious mosques are the first ones to wake up, ready to call the believers to morning prayer. Then there are the simit vendors. They too are awake, headed to their respective bakeries to pick up the crispy sesame bagels they will be selling all day long. Accordingly, the bakers are awake too. Most of them get only a few hours of sleep before they start work, while others never sleep at night. Every day without exception, the bakers heat their ovens in the middle of the night, so that before dawn, the bakeries in the city are thick with the delicious smell of bread.”
Elif Shafak, The Bastard of Istanbul
On Cardircilar Street:
“Çardırcılar Street was bewildering as always. On the ground before a shop whose grate usually remained shuttered, waiting for who knows what, were a Russian-made samovar spigot, a doorknob, the remnants of a lady’s mother-of-pearl fan so much the fashion thirty years ago, a few random parts belonging perhaps to a largish clock or gramophone, together with some oddities that had ended up here without breaking or crumbling to pieces somehow. A traditional coffee grinder of yellow brass and a cane handle made of deer antler were prominently displayed. Leaning against the shop’s rolling shutter rested two sizable photographs in thick, gilt wooden frames: pictures of Ottoman-era Greek Orthodox patriarchs from the reign of Sultan Abdülhamit II or a little afterward. Their medals, garments, and emblems were identical to those that appeared in the newspapers. From behind well-polished glass, through the vantage of time past, they gazed at the objects spread out before them and at the street crowds temporarily obscuring them at each surge. Perchance they were most pleased by the roar of life sounding so many years later — by the therapy of sun and sound.”
Ahmed Hamdi Tanpınar, A Mind at Peace (translated by Erdağ Göknar)
On evenings in Istanbul:
“I was bewitched, I’m sure, by the slow unfurling splendour of the evening, as the harsh heat of the afternoon dissolved into a golden light, and the sea turned from turquoise to azure to pink and silver. The ferries hissed as they slipped past the pier, the glass windows vibrated with every passing tanker, and the speedboat rocked back and forth, back and forth in the waves every ship and boat, large and small, left in its wake. A breeze started up, bringing with it the smell of fish and roasting corn and chestnuts. The windows of the houses on the Asian shore turned gold with the setting sun.”
Maureen Freely, Enlightenment (2007)
On Altunizade:
“It was still the middle of the night; in a few hours, the streets would be packed with vehicles bound for the Bosphorus Bridge. One of Istanbul’s more fashionable neighbourhoods, Altunizade was home to modern office buildings with glass façades and shiny apartment complexes reserved for the upper crust, all surrounding the grandiose shopping centre, Capitol. The truck passed first by the apartment complexes, then by Capitol, then by the office buildings, before driving through an underpass and emerging at the top of a hill that led down to Üsküdar and the Bosphorus shore.[…]
The avenue was every bit as fascinating now as it had been back then. It was like the crossroads of two civilisations, with police buildings situated like a border control between two different cultures, splitting the avenue almost right down the middle. Below the riot police building was the Gypsy quarter, which was always rowdy with weddings or brawls, while above it stood rows of two-storey houses, each with its own garden, all left behind by the Greeks, all still standing calm and silent amongst the centuries-old plane trees.”
Barış Müstecaplıoğlu, ‘An Extra Body’ in Istanbul Noir (edited and translated by Amy Spangler and Mustafa Ziyalan)
On Muhallebici pudding shops:
“Twenty years ago in Istanbul they were everywhere, and there are still a few around — special little shops with a couple of marble-topped tables and Thonet chairs, not there in the name of fashion, but simply because that was when the place was last refurbished. A white-aproned waiter hastily wipes a table to make room for another customer. In a way these shops are as much a part of Istanbul life as cafes are in Vienna, though the food and the concept are entirely different, and there is not the same panache, of course. These simple shops offer only one specialty: milk puddings. Called muhallebici, they are pudding shops — milk parlours, if you like — and they operate quite separately from restaurants and patisseries. […]
The first mention of the dish as a dessert dates from 1473, when the imperial kitchen accounts of the Ottoman sultan Mehmet the Conqueror record that he and his retinue were served muhallebi. This is the very same dish that we know today. But muhallebi was not always such a simple affair. Medieval Arab cookery books give recipes for a dish of the same name that was a complicated confection of milk, rice, almonds, saffron, and chicken breast or other meat. This bears a striking resemblance to the medieval English blancmanger.”
Berrin Torolsan, ‘The Milky Way’ in Istanbul: The Collected Traveler
On the Bosphorus shore:
“It took place on a suffocating summer day. A Sunday … The smell of grilled meat was wafting in the air as families gathered under the laurels in the park and laughter rose from men drinking beer in the cars parked by the sea. Istanbul people love the streets. When the weather is nice, a flood of people descend to the shores of the Bosphorus as if they had some old account to settle with the city. They turn the area into a fairground, with their fishing lines, picnic baskets
and baby buggies. Seeming to play out old memories of distant homelands by flowing waters, they stretch out wherever they find the smallest patches of grass, or flowers, or in the verdant areas around the ancient city walls. This is why the Istanbul landscape is just an allusion to somewhere else. The joyful mourning of what has been lost is being performed with this site as a backdrop. Those who experience the real city are those who dare to see the city without any allusions. A couple of people who can control their sorrow, who unlike others don’t rely on the eclectic architectural beauty of the Dolmabahçe Palace to cover the sewage smell spreading in fine waves from Dolmabahçe. A noisy, crowded city … “
Sema Kaygusuz, ‘A Couple of People’ (translated by Carol Yürür) in The Book of Istanbul
Titles in Oxygen Books’ city-pick series, featuring some of the best writing on favourite world cities, include Berlin, Paris, London, Amsterdam, Venice, Dublin and New York. www.oxygenbooks.co.uk
Synopsis: Venice has to be the world's most heartstoppingly beautiful and haunting city. For visitors and inhabitants over the centuries it has always been a place rich in history, romance, mystery and intrigue. For writers, artists, filmmakers and others it has been a powerful source of inspiration for their work city-pick Venice brings together over sixty of the very best writers on Venice, whose novels, memoirs, journalism, blogs, diaries and letters wonderfully evoke the past and present of La Serenissima as never before.
Shakespeare and Company bookshop in Paris, 2008. Photograph: Alamy
