I have been a bad best friend. David Gelles has been reporting his heart out from Turkey since March 22 and I haven’t mentioned a thing. Well, first, go read his missives, compiled into Reporting: Turkey 2007.
The Armenian Issue
by David Gelles
March 30, 2007. Izmir, Turkey
A Planned House Vote on the Armenian Massacre is Angering Turks, the Times is reporting.
In chats with Turks young and old, secular and religious over the last week, I’ve heard two main arguments as to why Turkey should not acknowledge any “genocide” against the Armenians in the years around 1915.
1) Turkey didn’t exist in 1915. Those were the last days of the Ottoman Empire, and with the founding of modern Turkey, the people
2) The killings that did happen occurred in a region engulfed in World War I. War is hell, people die, and while Turks may have won the battles, they were not spared on the battlefields.
The Times sums most of this up rather succinctly: “Turkey vehemently denies the genocide, in which 1.5 million Armenians died during a period of several years, beginning in 1915. It contends that the deaths occurred in the chaos of war, as the Ottoman Empire was falling apart, and that many Turks were also killed when Armenians sided with Russian forces in the hope of claiming territory in eastern Turkey.”
European politicians say that Turkey’s acknowledgement of a genocide would ease their entry into the European Union, but Turks balk a what they see as a double standard. Other E.U. members, such as Bulgaria, have been allowed entry to the Union without repenting past sins. To Turks, this is yet another example of a subtle but systematized campaign of prejudice against Turkey and efforts at “Europeanization.”
Lax Taxes
by David Gelles
March 30. 2007. Izmir, Turkey
Finish a meal in Turkey and they bring you the bill. Pay the bill, and they bring you change, but no receipt.
This little detail is telling of an endemic problem affecting all of Turkey’s economy: Most Turkish businesses, and individuals, don’t pay their taxes.
Tax evasion “reduces the overall growth potential of the Turkish economy” because unregistered companies cannot apply for loans, the Paris-based Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development said in an October report. Fewer than 50% of small businesses pay regular taxes. Only 4% of Turkey’s 71.8 million people were registered taxpayers in 2004, according to an OECD survey.
The easiest way to cut corners for a business is with receipts. They can have a bustling night of business, but if the till only shows a few customers, who are the auditors to know any better. And if there is a fuss, a little baksheesh usually gets the job done here. “Corruption is this country’s biggest problem,” said a prominent businessman friend of mine.
I’ve asked for receipts time and time again, for dinners, taxis, and snacks along the way. Time and again, I get a dismayed look, the nod of a head, and in broken English, “Not available.”
My expense reporting is going to be a mess.
Puff Puff
by David Gelles
March 29, 2007. Izmir, Turkey
Cigarette smoke has been mentioned in almost every one of my narrative entries since I’ve arrived in Turkey.
With good reason. A World Bank Report found that nearly 50 percent of the Turkish population are smokers.
It shows. And smells.
Everywhere in this country, from government offices to white-tablecloth restaurants, to clothing stores and museums, the population is puff, puff, puffing away. I haven’t had a toke, and my entire wardrobe reeks from second-hand smoke.
Here on the non-smoking floor of the Izmir Hilton, as I write, the scent of smokers from the floor below me is seeping up through the carpeted floor.
Now, I’m not a smoker, and I have a pretty high tolerance for cigarettes. I don’t really mind them around me, and have learned, in the last week, to tolerate eating a meal while my companions take drags. But I have to admit, it’s getting old. I’m locked alone inside my room, on a non-smoking floor of a fantastic hotel, and my whole world smells like an ashtray.
Hotel Bombing in Turkey Not Actually a Bombing
by David Gelles
Turns out the “bombing” earlier today was not a bombing, but an accidental explosion.
Gas Tank Blast at Turkish Hotel Kills 1
Published: March 29, 2007
ANKARA, Turkey (AP) — A liquefied petroleum gas tank exploded at a five-star Mediterranean hotel on Thursday, killing one person and injuring 10 others, including five tourists, private Dogan news agency reported.
by David Gelles
March 28. 2007. Izmir, Turkey
A five hour bus ride this afternoon took me to the edge of Eurasia, from inland Bursa to seaside Izmir. The ride was smooth and speedy, and our coach was modern, fitted with TVs, personal headsets, and a waiter serving complimentary Coke and cookies. Looking out the window, I saw the occasional peasant, whipping a mongrel donkey that pulled a rickety wooden cart.
Cresting a hill and descending into Izmir shortly before dusk, the sun hung low in the sky, bobbing in a smoggy haze so think you could almost look directly into the light. Giant concrete factories spewed noxious smoke from their towers, and Turkey’s third-largest city is bordered by endless miles of shantytowns. From the greyish jumble of unplanned sprawl, the domes and minarets of mosques sprouted like mushrooms.
Every day I’m here I ask myself if Turkey is Europea, Middle Eastern, or what? There’s no easy answer, of course, but as Turkey pushes for membership in the European Union, country and world are desperate for some sort of clarification.
When I see the diesel-choked streets, the anarchic traffic, the crumbling slums and the proliferate trash, I am reminded more of Bombay than Brussels. But amid all this, the modern Turks I’ve met dress in Armani suits, eat grilled chicken salad for lunch, and drive Porche Cayannes.
Perhaps a people can modernize faster than the country they live in. But if it’s merely a matter of modernization, what makes a Turk a Turk?
The impossibility of succinctly answering this question and all those that come after it is the reason I am here, the reason Turkey is one of the most fascinating countries on the planet.
by David Gelles
March 27. 2007. Bursa, Turkey
A fundamental anxiiety simmers just below the surface of every Turk I’ve met in the last six days, and it seems tied to one very complex issue – namely, the upcoming national elections (presidential in May, parliamentary in November), and the uncertainty as to whether Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, leader of the Justice and Development Party, will run for the presidency.
Erdogan’s party(known as the AKP)is the moderate Islamist party making waves in this decidedly secular state that just happens to be 99 percent Muslim. Erdogan himself is a moderate, and as mayor of Istanbul did not infringe on thecity’s debaucherous ways. He supports E.U. membership, and has been careful not to give his critics much to work with. Indeed, he hasn’t even announced that he is running for president. (Though he is expected to run, and probably win.) Still, his wife wears a headscarf, and there is concern that his election could usher in a divisive and potentially regressive era for national politics.
The headscarf issue here cuts to the root of Turky’s identity crisis. In keeping with Ataturk’s vision, headscarves are currently prohibited in government buildings such as universities, and, importantly, the presidential residence.
Critics are looking ahead to a steep slippery slope. They figure that conservative Islamists will argue that if the first lady can wear a headscarf in the presidential residence, women should be allowed to wear them anywhere.
I’m not going to capture all the nuance and profundity of the headscarf issue in this post, but suffice it to say that it is paramount in the national discussion. (See Orhan Pamuk’s Snow for a beautiful literary look it.)
But headscarves are merely the silky embodiment of this country’s split personality. They have been politicized to represent the tacit religious opposition to the secular principles on which modern Turkey is founded.
And it is this tacit, murky opposition that many modern Turks fear the AKP and Erdogan represent.
Though the issues are different, my friend Cenol provided a useful analysis as I tried to understand the national anxiety. ???It’s like in America, where people wonder if the country is ready to elect Barakc Obama, a black president,??? he said.
Again, it’s an entirely different set of circumstances, but Cenol’s observation was a helpful one – It’s about a democracy’s strength and a people’s self-confidence.
Has America confronted it’s demons? Are we ready to be led by a man who vaguely resembles the Africans we recently enslaved? And has Turkey outgrown its revolutionary adolescence? Is it ready to be led by a man who vaguelyresembles the Islamists the country has divorced itself from?
Each one, Obama and Erdogan, may prove to be the most qualified candidate, and it will be interesting to watch each political drama play its course.
As for Cenol, who is 25, secular, and as modern as Turks come, he said he would support Erdogan. ???If they do their job, I don’t care about their political party,??? he said. ???We need to locate the institutional wisdom and let it do its work.???
by David Gelles
27 March 2007. Bursa, Turkey
Bursans are a proud lot. They are proud of their city’s hiistorical imporatance as the first capital of the Ottoman Empire, proud of their textile and automotive industry, and proud of their kebab.
Iskender Kebab, Bursa’s specialty, is a savory mess consumed sometimes twice daily by the city’s hungry populace. The dish calls for pieces of pita sliced and marinated in tomato sauce, covered in thin slices of specially spiced kebab meat, drenched in yogurt and sered with slices of tomato and mouth-scalding peppers.
It is typical mountain food: meat and starch, good for developing a quilty layer of fat to keep the body warm.
But Bursans take it one step further. No sooner had my heaping plate of Iskender Kebab been placed under my nose this afternoon, than my waiter, with his other hand, produced a scalding copper pot of perfectly browned butter, which he tipped over my plate, drenching the dish in a fresh coat of fat. As it splashed over the meat and yogurt, it seemed to chemically react, releasing a fresh burst of delicious scents that were sucked directly into my nasal passage.
???Turkish food is very suitable for putting on weight,??? said Cenol, a portly blue-eyed Turkish friend who was with me. ???I think everyone who visits our country goes home with extra weight.???
He’s probably right. I ate it all and washed it down with a sugary cup of Turkish coffee.
In Praise of Second Impressions
by David Gelles
March 26.2007. Bursa, Turkey
A bit groggy from after a night of celebrating the country’s spectacular rout of the Greek team in Athens, I made my way slowly on Sunday morning, first to breakfast, where I drank a gallon of coffee while watching the Bosphorus come to life, full of barges and tankers and fishing vessels, and then to the ferry dock, where I boarded an enormous boat bound for Yalova.
(A short nod to Turkey’s impressive network of public ferries: Around Istanbul, they are indispensable. They transport hundreds of thousands of the city’s 15 million residents from this shore to that, and they connect the metropolis to smaller ports along the Marmara Sea. And they are cheap. A thirty minute ride from the European to the Asian side of Istanbul costs about a dollar, and my +1 hour ride across the sea was under ten dollars. They are clean, fast and fun.)
Onboard, TVs replayed the highlights from last night’s game. I watched for a moment, but took the opportunity to doze as the ferry zoomed across the sea. A few babies screamed as the engine roared, and a few cosmopolitan twentysomethings wearing US Navy uniforms from the 1940s served cokes and sandwiches to the commuters.
Disembarking at Yalova, I hopped on a public bus that snaked gradually into the Asian piedmont. The hills were yellowish, and the occassional town on the side of the road seemed centered around the odd lime quarry.
Arriving in Bursa, I was agitated. The weather here has been muggy, I was leaving the comfort of my friends in Istanbul, and great quantities of booze were seeping out my pores.
I had an interview in the evening, in Badelim, ???The Beverly Hills of Bursa.??? My host was Neslihan Dostoglu, a professor of architecture at nearby Uludag University. She lives in a modern suburban home, quite unlike most Turkish dwellings. An open living room – dining room area was decorated with modern prints. Outside, a manicured grassy lawn was home to a white Siberian Husky.
???This kind of a house, with a big garden, is a recent development in Turkey,??? Neslihan said. So is the middle class wealth and education that makes this kind of a house possible.
Neslihan did her doctorate of architecture at U. Penn in the 1980s, where she worked with the papers of Louis Kahn. ???It was so exciting,??? she said of her work with the Kahn archives. ???I was the first person to open all these boxes that came from the Kahn office. I found some unknown charcoal drawings of his, one of the downtown Philadelphia master plan. I was already in love with Kahn before I went to Philadelphia, and it changed my life.???
We chatted for two hours on her back porch. As dusk settled and a chill pierced the air, the evening call to prayer echoed across the perfectly manicured lawn, which was somehow surreal to me. I thought I was going to have dinner with Neslihan, but that didn,t pan out, and while it was a productive interview, it didn’t leave me in a great mood. I was hoping for some company in this new city, and was also hungry when I got back to the hotel. At almost 10pm I shuffled to a restaurant across the street for some Iskender Kebab, Bursa’s famous dish, a greasy milleu of meat, yogurt and bread. Outside, the city was dark and dirty. The mountain loomed in the distance, funneling cold air into the streets and through the windows.
Though I passed out early, I had trouble sleeping. At about 2:30am I woke and worked for a couple hours before nodding off again. Around 4am, the morning call to prayer jarred me awake. The piercing drone was booming from a nearby minaret, one of hundreds that rise above this hillside city of almost 2 million. Now, I have Muslim friends, appreciate much of the Koran, and can enjoy the sound of Arabic, but something about this sound chilled me to my core. It sounded ominous and ghastly, made my skin crawl. Call me an infidel, but something about a religious man of any creed waking me up from a wet dream when I’m desperate for sleep just doesn’t sit well with me.
This morning I began interviews, and the day quickly turned around. My first contact, Lamia Avsar, was joyous and sharp-witted, and after chatting about Bursa’s infrastructure and touring the new light rail system, we strolled through the Bursa’s historic market district. The sun was out, the air had warmed, and at lunch we ate Turkish meatballs while overlooking a bustling square and discussing Bursa’s rich history as the first capital of the Ottoman Empire.
In the afternoon I met with silk merchants, who continue the city’s other great claim to historic fame (Bursa was the westernmost link on the Silk road), and toured a nearby Renault dealership run by a young brother and sister team educated in Boston (Bursa is the center of Turkey’s auto industry).
After a short involuntary nap I rejoined Lamia for a lengthy dinner of mezze, fish and raki. In a cloud of cigar smoke eminating from a nearby table of businessmen, I bonded with this 54-year-old single Turkish mother. We discussed scientific history, American politics, astronomy and Joseph Campbell. Lamia possesses a voracious curiosity and is a keen judge of character. Over tea, she offered up a frighteningly accurate analysis of my character, my parents’ characters, and my relationships with them, based on the theory of birth order, which I was only vaguely familiar with. Lamia was an expert, and I teased her that she was a gypsy fortune teller. ???Everyone says that,??? she said.
Walking home in the dark, I saw Bursa in a different light. I knew more about the city, and more about its children. It is not Istanbul, and in many ways, not a great place for tourists. There is grime and sprawl, and the gems are burried, not so easy to spot. But I’m coming to believe that in many important ways, the neighborhoods and industry of Bursa are in fact more representative of Turkey than the glitz and glamour of Istanbul. This is a country in its modern adolescence, growing quickly and trying to understand itself. Here, in Bursa, this drama is played out on a human scale — the family-run car dealership, the silk merchant who in recent years has lost business share to China, the newly yuppified architecture professor, the young single man fresh from military service who struggles to keep a job. Each face represents a different aspect of Turkey’s complex identity, and this evening, in the shadow of Mt. Uludag and the birthplace of the Ottoman Empire, I’m feeling grateful to know the many personalities that make Bursa whole.
Gol! Gol! Gol! Gol!
by David Gelles
24 March 2007, 21:30
Istanbul — In Europe, some wars are fought not with tanks and guns, but with one round ball and 11 players to a side. Greece and Turkey have fought plenty of wars, real and imagined, literal and metaphorical. The latest battle is tonight, when Greece hosts Turkey in Athens, on the eve of Greece’s national Independence day — the celebration of their 1829 freedom from the Ottoman Empire, a.k.a., the Turks.
Some additional context: “Greece is the European champion, and they became arrogant,” says Melis, my Turkish friend. “Turkey hasn’t been doing so well. So this can be our revenge.”
The game begins at 21:30, as Melis and I are finishing a fish dinner at a restuarant beneath the Galata bridge, which connects the Golden Horn and the new city. Fifty Turkish men have crowded around a big screen TV in the corner of the restaurant, and plumes of cigarette smoke are filling the room.
Through the screen, we sense the electric atmosphere in Athens. The Greeks in the audience are painted blue and white, the capacity crowd is on their feet. Greece is in white, Turkey in red, and they begin darting across the green field. The ball looks golden under the stadium lights. The symbolism is lost on no one.
Minute 5: Greece takes an early lead. “A corner by Kostas Katsouranis was cleared by the Turks, but the Greek midfield were quick to pick up the ball and play it into the path of defender Sotirios Kyrgiakos, who banged his shot home from close range.” Greece 1. Turkey 0.
There are no theatrics in the room. Just some sighs and discontented murmurs. More cigarettes get lit. Soon, a fistfight erupts outside the restaurant. It is broken up quickly, but not before punches are landed. The atmosphere is unpleasant.
Melis and I continue drinking, and, Jodi, a British television journalist friend joinsus, fresh from the south of the country, where she was in a small riot. A colleauge of hers was hit with a thrown stone during the melee, and has swelling on the back of his head. Looking at the screen, Jodi says, “If we score, the whole city with shake.”
“An earthquake was reported in Istanbul,” I quip.
Minute 27: Meanwhile, the game continues. Turkey is pressing, but to no avail. Then, “A free-kick from his own half by Tumer made its way to Sabri on the right. His neat cross was too good for the Greek defence and Tuncay did well to hit a powerful right-foot shot beyond Antonis Nikopolidis from 12 yards.”
Gol!!!! The room erupts. Cheering. Drinks are spilled. Men embrace. People are jumping. The room is shaking. It does feel like an earthquake.
Tied 1-1 at the half, and we catch a taxi to Istiklal Avenue, which is relatively empty for a Saturday night. “The whole country is watching the game,” Melis says.
During halftime, we take a taxi to Balan Brau, Turkey’s second microbrewery. The game is being projected on a screen large enough for a movie theatre. Hundreds are watching here. Hundreds outside. Millions around the country.
Minute 55: “Tuncay headed narrowly over, before Gokhan fired them ahead with a powerful 20-yard strike.”
Gol! Another earthquake. The crowd sings together. We raise our mugs and beer spills onto my wrist. Turkey leads 2-1.
Up by one, but the crowd is still nervous. “The Turkish team is famous for getting lousy in the last 10 minutes,” Melis says. There are some close calls. Greece is pressing hard. One shot bounces off the left bar of the Turkish goal. Another header just clears the top of the net.
Minute 70: “Tumer’s low strike from the edge of the penalty area nestling into the right-hand corner, giving Nikopolidis no chance.”
It is pure grace. The Turkish players are manouvering the ball perfectly. Cunning footwork and anticipatory teamwork. More celebrating. More beers. More cheers. Turkey leads 3-1.
Minute 82: “Substitute Karadeniz grabbed a fourth immediately after coming on, pushing the ball home from close range.” Turkey is rout?ng the Greeks. F?nal score 4-1, Turkey.
The crowd now accepts the victory. Men and women dance together. The untainted joy is palpable. “Now the party begins,” Melis says. We walk outside, down Istiklal. We pass the Greek consulate, where a dozen Turkish police are guarding the door in riot gear.
“It’s different when you beat Greece instead of Germany or Belgium,” Melis says. “It’s been awhile since the country had such success.”
Coverage quotes from Sporting Life.
A Walk with a Turkish Judge
by David Gelles
24 March 2007
In the afternoon, in the shade of a sprawling maple tree in Sultanahmet, I meet my friend Mustafa Okyay for a glass of tea. He arrives with a surprise — his father, Turgut — who has unexpectedly dropped in from Ankara for a visit. Mustafa is compact with a round face, and wears short dark hair. His father, by contrast, is taller than me, long faced with wispy grey hair. He is wearing a tie, even though it is Saturday, and a Turkish flag pin pierces the lapel of his tweed jacket, as if her were a politician.
Turns out, he sort of is. Turgut Okyay for years was chief judge of Turkey’s criminal courts. He has rubbed elbows with Turkey’s presidents and PMs, and in his later years of service became the face of Turkish justice to the world. In 1999, Judge Okyay presided over the case of PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan, sentencing him to death.
For those unfamiliar, the PKK is the Kurdish separatists’ movement in Turkey. Fighting between the party and Turkey has claimed upwards of 30,000 lives over the years, and Ocalan was long notorious for leading the fight. Despite his death sentence, he is alive today — Turkey abolished the death penalty in 2002, and Ocalan’s sentence was converted to life in prison. There are reports he has been tortured behind bars.
And though the trial was eight years ago now, it is evidently still fresh in the minds of many Turks. As I walk around Sultanahmet and the Grand Bazaar with Judge Okyay and Mustafa, strangers approach, asking to shake the Judge’s hand, thanking him for his service to the country, and getting his autograph.
Retired now, Judge Okyay politely obliges. By his mannerisms, I can tell this is an everyday occurance for him, perhaps even more so in the capital of Ankara. The Judge does not say much though. He has not been to the Grand Bazaar in 40 years, since he did his military service in Istanbul when he was a young man, about my age. So, after he shakes a strangers hand, he moves on to the next stall in the bazaar, eyes wide, almost boyish, marvelling at the incalculable volume of colorful merchandise.
A Turkish Newsroom, An American Editor
by David Gelles
10am. Friday, March 23, 2007
Before I left, several seasoned international reporters, including Sany Tolan of NPR and Andreas Kluth of the Economist, all suggested that upon landing, I find the English-speaking media and get the low down. Reporters, I’ve found, are generally more collegial than competitive, especially when not jockeying for the same column space. With this in mind, I traced down Melis Senerdem, a J-School alum now working at Referans, a Turkish language business weekly. By happy coincidence, Referans shares a floor of the Hurriyet Media Tower with The Turkish Daily News, the country’s main English-language daily.
The tower is deep into anonymous Istanbul. I caught the company bus there, and during the nearly 40 minute ride, I for the first time grasped that this is indeed a city of 13 million people. There is no open space. There are no single family homes. It is just mile after mile after mile of apartment building, industry, and commerce. The rain continued, and I can not say it was a terribly pleasant sight.
But a newsroom is a newsroom, no matter the country. The 13th floor of the Tower was busy as a beehive, reporters pecking at keyboards and chirping on the phones. It was a young staff, reflecting Turkey’s extraordinary demographics, and they were extraordinarily helpful with my stories. The leads they provided will percolate in the coming week or so, but now, I share my conversation with David Judson, the American ex-pat editor of the Turkish Daily News.
I spoke with Judson in his corner office at the Hurriyet Media Tower.
“The mission of the paper is to complete the Turkish story,” he said. “Our competition isn’t Today’s Zaman, it’s the foreign media. Turkey actually has a fairly large media presence abroad, but there’s only five stories that get written: the Kurdish seperatists, the Armenian genocide, the honor killings, the “east is east” and “west is west” with a colorful lede at the Spice Bazaar, and the EU issue.”
I might have added Turkey’s recent decision to block YouTube, and the slaying of Hrant Dink, a newspaper editor, but what ever.
Judson continued: “Turkey is much more complex than this, but foreign journalists have a difficult time understanding this. Even in this newsroom, there are so many stories. We have Armenian reporters, Greek, Italian, Australian and American reporters. We have a Muslim Armenian reporter–that’s almost an oxymoron. Izmir and Istanbul have bureau chiefs who are Kurds. This newspaper represents a paradigm that’s at odds with the Western perception of Turkey.”
At this point, the sports editor burst into the door. There was a crisis: Tomorrow Turkey and Greece would play a football, or soccer match, and it wad decided, before my eyes, that after 49 years of refering to the game of “soccer,” the TDN would begin calling it “football.”
“It’s part of a broader debate about whether we want to use American or British style,” Judson said. The move towards British style reflects the demographics of the ex-pat community in Istanbul — more English than American.
Judson then shared with me his own story. He’s a Californian to the roots, born in Tiburon and schooled in SLO-town. He first visited Turkey when he was a teenager, learned the language, and kept coming back. Stateside, he worked his way up the ladder at Gannet, landing at their Washington News Service during the late ’90s. “That burnt me out,” he said. “I had just had it with journalism. When the Monica Lewinsky thing happened, that’s all we covered for 8 months. Meanwhile, Rwanda had a genocide and the Asian economy collapsed, but all we cared about was did he fuck her and if so how hard.”
Judson quit Gannet, bounced around for six years, but through a string of circumstances, eventually wound up in the newsroom he now oversees.
“I thought I was done with journalism,” he said. “But it’s like smoking.” Judson took out a pack of Marlboro Lights, lit his third one since we began talking, and took a deep pull that left a long nub of ash. “I just can’t give it up.”
Thursday Night in Istanbul: Communists and Fish
by David Gelles
7:30pm March 22, 2007
Like New York, Istanbul is a city that becomes more alive as the night gets darker. When I leave the Hilton in the evening, the city is teeming. Youth are pouring onto the streets, merchants are just setting up shops, street performers beginning their shows. I meet Mustafa Okyay, my Turkish friend, in front of the French Consulate at Taksim Square. We embrace, and I meet his wife, who leaves almost immediately. As Mustafa and I walk down Istiklal (Independence) Avenue, I give him a Cal Berkeley baseball hat. He loves it, and will wear it during the walking tours he leads throughout the city.
Istiklal Avenue is one of the great social wonders of the world. A mile long and thirty meters wide, it is closed to traffic, and thronging with masses at any hour of the day. People come to shop at the hundreds of boutique shops. The come to smoke and play backgammon. Now, they come for Starbucks. The American coffee chain has “sprouted like mushrooms,” according to a Turkish friend of mine. People come to Istiklal to walk, to look, to laugh and court. Some come to pickpocket tourists. I estimate there were 100,000 people there on a Thursday night.
Mustafa and I duck into the Demir Cafe, a nondescript tea house off the main drag. Blue smoke hangs thick under fluorescent lights, and the crowd was mostly older men. The Demir Cafe, Mustafa explains, was one of the last hang-outs of the revolutionary Turkish hippies and communists who enjoyed a moment of hope in 1968. They are easy to pick out through the smoke, each, it seems, sport a long grey ponytail and a leather vest. “They still complain about the system,” Mustafa says, “but during the day many of them are lawyers. Their moment has passed, but they come here to reminisce.”
We walk back to the hotel briskly, weaving through the growing crowds. I have a date soon, and as I walk into the Hilton compound, Z, my friend and pen pal, pulls in to pick me up. In her Mercedes, she takes me to a fish house on the Bosphorus. At white table cloths, we eat delicious mezze–octopus, sea bass and calamari–and drink a bottle of raki. Z is delightful and complex, cynical and radiant, very smart. She orders part of an enormous frisbee shaped fish from the Black Sea. It comes grilled and accompanied by a green salad. The food is extraordinarily fresh here. Simple, not over-flavored, not over-salted. Just simple. Fresh.
In the restaurant with us, Z points out a group of what she calls Russian Mafia. In the corner, two Germans and two Turks are discussing a banking deal. People smoke while they eat. I am getting tired, and ocassionally stare out the window, looking at a mosque on the river basked in golden light.
On the drive back to Taksim, we pass the HSBC building that was bombed in 2003. It remains abandoned, its windows shattered. “There is a stigma about that place now,” Z tells me. She points to a mall 100 yards away from the building and tells me that when the bomb went off, all the windows in the shops shattered.
Also in the car, Z weighs in on time and space in Turkey. “There are no accurate numbers in Turkey,” she says. “As soon as you count it, it changes. Nothing is fixed.”
First Interview in Istanbul
by David Gelles
March 22, 4pm. Istanbul
My first appointment is at the Turkish American Business Association, a nonprofit that works to promote trade between the two countries. Even after the cab dropped me off on the right block, I have trouble finding the correct building, a shabby concrete behemoth along a busy commercial corridor. Outside, rush hour is especially loud because of the rain.
After entering three lobbies unsuccessfully, a doorman in the fourth nods me on when I said “TABA.” I take the elevator to the seventh floor, where I am met at the door by Ahu Unluata, a sprightly young woman in a black tank top. “Welcome, Mr. Gelles,” she says in typically perky Turkish English. Her hair has streaks of blond dyed into it and the skin of her shoulders are olive in color. I kick myself for not wearing my suit. Ahu introduces me to Nilgun Guresin, coordinator for TABA, who I had come to interview.
Ms. Guresin is short and intense, clad tight black leather pants and heavy make-up, a good look for a businesswoman in her fifties, if you ask me. We sit at her desk under bright fluorescent lights. On the wall, an enormous mural made of slik flowers depicts the Turkish and American flags waving together. Later, I will take her picture in front of this. An assistant brings some tea, and Ms. Guresin gives me the official schpeal about TABA–it was founded 20 years ago, it has 650 members, etc., etc.
Ms. Guresin speaks in quick, snappy sentences. When she finishes each, she sits back in her chair and folds her arms, looking at me expectantly, as if to say, “Did that satisfy you? What else do you want to know?” This comes naturally to her. For most of her career she did PR for multinationals like Goodyear, working in Canada, Holland and Germany. She says she returned to Istanbul because she was homesick.
I finally get her speaking, not reciting her pitch, when I ask about Turkey’s potential membership in the European Union, “a very hot issue,” she calls it. “We are hoping to get into the EU, so we are trying to adapt our laws to the EU standard. It’s an attitude thing. It’s an economic thing, too.It’s a young country, you can find lots of qualified workers.”
“You have to remember that Turkey has a certain image. This is a Muslim country and that can be a negative thing in an investor’s eye. There’s a log of stereotypes and prejudice. Investing is like tourism–until they come here, there are negative impressions. But when they get here, they see that Turkey is stable. It’s opening up. “We’re trying to change the image. We have symphonies and ballets here. It’s not only belly dancing, not only turkish delight.” Read the rest of this entry »
Into Istanbul
by David Gelles
March 21 — 22, 2007
I overslept by an hour. Scrambled to bathe and wake. Missed the bus I had planned to catch, but got the second one on time. The TransBay bus took me from Berkeley to downtown San Francisco, through a crisp and glorious California morning. Amid the morning bustle of the financial district, I boarded another bus to SFO. I was in a suit, and I had my suitcase. I was on my way to Istanbul. Looking out the window, I saw locals going to work, and in a meaningful way it struck me–I was also going to work. I’m a reporter now, and this week my work is in Istanbul.
In Chicago, all flights were delayed. Bad weather across the midwest. Thunderstorms boomed outside the terminal where I wolfed down Chinese food. Lightning flashed off the fuselages of idling jumbo jets. Some routes were canceled, but my flight was on time. The monitor, however, showed no gate. 5:45pm, and my 6 o’clock departure is still showing on time, and still no gate. Then, suddenly, “Now Boarding” flashes. Still no gate. I panic. I ask a guard where the gate is, and am informed that it is in a different terminal. I must exit security, take a tram, go through security again. I run. I run hard and fast, fantasizing about spending the night at a hotel in Chicago. Kicking myself. How had this happened. I knock people over, running like a linebacker who recovered a fumble, and arrive at the gate, literally as they are closing the door. I am the last one to board the plane. I am sweating, panting, embarrassed.
We sit on the runway, in the rain, for an hour, and finally take off. I speak with a gentle Turkish man, Yaser, sitting next to me. He lives in Denver, and is a tailor. He is returning to Mersin, in southern Turkey at the Syrian border, to visit his daughter. He recently had a hernia, and asked if I could change seats so that he might lay down. I move.
Before I fall asleep, I watch some in flight entertainment. Along with the women in headscarves all around me, I watch a Style channel segment about the many gowns Charlize Theron has worn on the red carpet. All are enraptured.
I wake up somewhere over the Atlantic. It is light and the ocean is below me. We are only an hour away from Istanbul. Read the rest of this entry »
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