To the City

Koran Exhibit

2011-01-18T01:43:00.000-08:00

We find ourselves continually returning to the small gallery inside the entrance of the Turkish and Islamic Arts Museum to see the gorgeous special exhibit of the Koran. Our numerous visits are prompted, in part, by the free admission and the proximity to the Blue Mosque, a favorite destination amongst our visitors. This intimate exhibition has been extended from its original closing date of December 1st, and we have been repeatedly delighted to find it still open, allowing us a closer look at these beautiful works of art.

Stepping out of the crowds in Sultanahmet, we enter the dark gallery where instrumental music sets the tone of hushed solemnity. The illuminated Korans glitter like jewelry in spotlighted glass cases. The exhibition is in honor of the 1400th anniversary of the revelation of the Koran, and it includes pages from some of the earliest known copies. Many of the books are quite large and the selection comes from all over the world. We are particularly taken with one from Northern Africa that uses turquoise and orange adornments throughout the text. Most of the books are written on parchment, several on antelope hide. The material itself is seductively beautiful. The translucent pages of a favorite example show the ghostly calligraphy from the opposite side behind the bold, dark ink strokes of the open page.

One of the oldest examples

A favorite of ours from Northern Africa

Detail of the above

The shadow of text from the opposite side of the page makes this example a real favorite of ours.

From India

The edge design makes decorative use of the original ruler marks.

Turkish and Islamic Arts Museum

2011-01-17T01:08:00.000-08:00

The collections of the Turkish and Islamic Arts Museum occupy the top floor of a U-shaped palace, the former residence of Grand Vizier Ibrahim Pasa. Walking from the Blue Mosque across the Hippodrome, we entered the museum and climbed the wide stone staircases. The long hallway at the top has numerous small rooms along its length, full of glass-cased objects. There are some beautiful pieces here, and some historically important objects, but, to our eyes, the stars of this museum are at the end of this hall: the large palace carpets and glittering illuminated books. These treasures are displayed in the high-ceilinged, pallicial South wing.

We were expecting to be interested in these carpets, but our reaction was more of awe than curiousity. The longer we looked, the more we were drawn in. One carpet, depicting a garden, uses the strangest visual language, one that seems related to minaturist paintings. All the trees and plants are flattened down so that the viewer sees both the birds eye view of the symmetrical garden plan, and the individual foliage from the ground perspective. We originally assumed that the straight sections dividing the garden were footpaths, but, on a later visit, a student pointed out that these were waterways with fish in them. The carpet looks so symmetrical, but there are little individual animals and details scattered all through the pattern.

The sense of movement within patterns that, at first glance, look symmetrical, is mesmerizing. It is repetition, but not machine repetition. More like a continuous knitting together of the whole, with subtle shifts of form and color. The scale of these pieces is fantastic. Even though they weren't meant to be seen on the wall, we love encountering them in this way, being overwhelmed and enveloped in color and pattern.

A Qiblanuma: an astronomical instrument that helps find the direction of the Ka'ba' in Mecca.

We often see this type of tile in mosques. It depicts the Ka'ba', the cube-shaped black building, the holiest site in Islam.

With it's missing boarder, this off-balance grand carpet is one of our favorites.

The "Garden Carpet"

Detail of the Garden Carpet with a smashed down tree and fish.

Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts students looking at illuminated Korans.

Illuminated Koran

Greek Patriarchate

2011-01-08T00:13:00.000-08:00

At the bottom of the hill where we live, a most important site resides quietly behind an unadorned stone wall: the Greek Patriarchate, the Vatican of the Greek Orthodox Church. The Patriarch himself resides and presides here, not exactly the ultimate leader like the Roman Catholic Pope, but “the first among equals.”

It is impossible to write about the Greek Orthodox Church in Istanbul without the feeling of a long-standing siege creeping into the description. Our neighborhood, Fener, used to be almost entirely Greek. Today the Greek population is nearly non-existent. The reasons for this are Middle-East-complicated. There have been official population exchanges between Greece and Turkey, as well as governmental policies aimed at driving the population out. Talk about Greek and Turkish relations to anyone of Greek descent and it isn’t long before six hundred plus years are being recounted. The bad feelings run deep, and the whole of the history seems incredibly complex and politically spun on both sides. In the midst of the land that witnessed all this conflict, the Patriarchate still calmly resides in this city, as has been the tradition since Istanbul was Constantinople.

Two days ago, we went to the Patriarchate for an Epiphany service with our friends Kate and George, and their daughter Ella. They are visiting us this week from Philadelphia. George was raised in the Greek Orthodox Church, and it was really special to go to the service together and see the Patriarchate through his eyes. While the Patriarchate is a major pilgrimage site for Greek tourists, there are long stretches of time each day when it is empty of people. The building itself isn’t considered terribly architecturally or visually important. However, the first time we stepped inside we felt awash in the warm sensation of the familiar. While we are here to study Islamic art and architecture, the pull of our own upbringing in Christianity is undeniable. Even though our backgrounds are far removed from Greek Orthodox traditions, there is a visual kinship that we understand without having to think about it. How strange, in an Orthodox church unlike any church either of us had ever seen in our youths, and on another continent altogether, that the continuity of visual imagery alone could produce this sensation of home.

The Patriarchate was very crowded for Epiphany, with masses of people spilling out into the street that leads from the walled complex across a park and down to the edge of the Halic. The smell of incense and beeswax enveloped us as we followed the circulating crowds into the golden light of the sanctuary. The crowds shuffled in loops up and down the side aisles, stopping to touch icons housed in lip-printed glass cases. Two groups of cantors volleyed the song of the service back and forth, the clear winners being the group of black-curled younger men with strong, deep voices that drowned out a huddled group of older clerics. The Patriarch himself was often out of view, behind the archway in the golden screen at the front of the church. He emerged for brief moments, like Punxsutawney Phil, producing a hail of flash bulbs. We got a much better view of the man called the Green Patriarch (for his focus on the environment) when he passed just beside us in the procession to the Golden Horn. We never understood all the details of the tradition that came next: a crucifix was thrown from a boat into the icy water and a dozen men dove to retrieve it. They emerged pink and happy to an adoring crowd, the cross-bearing winner encircled by tv cameras.

The Patriarch distributing communion

In the courtyard outside the church

From the balcony

Detail of hand painted interior

At the Halic with the divers

Making sure there are no international incidents

The outside of the Patriarchate on a normal day

Spice Bazaar

2011-01-06T05:43:00.000-08:00

The Egyptian Bazaar, or Spice Bazaar, is one of the oldest markets in the city. Located next to the New Mosque, it is at a major crossroads in Istanbul. Here the Bosphorus meets the Golden Horn, the Galata Bridge connects the two sides of the European part of the city, and numerous ferry terminals provide the connection between the European and Asian sides of Istanbul. Nearly impossible to transverse on a Saturday, the Spice Bazaar is truly a spectacle. But it is not a mere tourist trap. It still has a corner on the spice trade here, as well as other necessities that bring out the natives: cheese, pickled vegetables, nuts, tea and coffee.

Built in the 1600s from the same stone used to erect the New Mosque, the L-shaped Spice Bazaar is the covered center of a huge mercantile area that spreads through the winding streets that lead to it. Some of our favorite places are along the outside edges of the Bazaar. We bought a gigantic and fabulous pair of scissors from an all-scissor shop near one of the Bazaar entrances. We come here to buy our Turkish coffee from the most famous vendor in the city, Mehmet Efendi. The coffee is so freshly roasted and ground that it is still warm through the paper sack. To get it, we wait in the ridiculously long line, watching the caffeine-infused workers pack the stuff at a jittery speed, only to find ourselves at the front in no time at all, without even having had time to get our money in hand and ready for the cashiers.

Crossing the flow of foot traffic from the coffee vendor into the arched side entrance of the Bazaar, just a few dozen feet away, can take a full fifteen minutes on a really busy day. Inside, vendors volley pick-up lines in English, vying for attention. The mounds of jewel-colored spices are beautifully stacked. Display is of the first importance in Istanbul. There are also vendors of Turkish delight eager to pop a piece of the stuff into your gaping, awe-struck mouth. These same vendors are selling “Turkish Viagra,” an all-natural concoction that varies from vendor to vendor, but is basically a ball of nuts and dried fruit to big to swallow.

The bazaar used to be just spices and edibles, but now textiles and tourist souvenirs have made inroads, and there are some lovely linens and carpets. The L-Shaped Bazaar building and the side of the New Mosque create an outdoor courtyard where the pet and plant market reside, as well as many tea and lunch tables set up under the trees. Sometimes we stop for some overpriced apple tea, an ubiquitous product sold in the Bazaar, made by infusing dried apple bits in hot water.

Once, we climbed the narrow blue-tiled staircase to take our tea in Pandelli, the historic restaurant above the main entrance to the Bazaar. Sitting aloof from the noise of the masses, with views of the Galata Bridge, it is worth coming here just to see the gorgeous tiled rooms of the restaurant. Encircling the room is a row of signed black and white celebrity photos. We were delighted to realize that we were sitting beneath Audrey Hepburn, who had been photographed seated at our very table.

Entrance to the covered Spice Bazaar

The hanging items are dried eggplant shells, dried red peppers, and (on the right) dried gut of some kind. All are for reconstituting and stuffing.

Cheese vendors around the outside walls

One of the many charming vendors.

Side streets around the Bazaar

Tea in Pandelli

New Mosque

2011-01-05T06:32:00.000-08:00

In a city that had its first settlement in the Neolithic period, a mosque dating from the 1600s is considered rather "new." Situated at the end of the Galata Bridge, next to the Spice Market, and in the middle of a main transportation hub, we are constantly passing the Mosque of the Valide Sultan, or the New Mosque. For various political reasons that caused major delays, the Mosque took over sixty years to complete. The Spice Bazaar was built along with the Mosque, using its left-over construction materials. Tariffs from sales at the Bazaar were used to maintain the Mosque.

Many large mosques are in the heart of mercantile areas. While the Spice Bazaar was built to serve the New Mosque, it is often the other way around, with a mosque being built to serve the people who work and shop in the bazaars. Considering believers need to stop to pray five times a day, it does make sense that places of worship would be close to the most active areas of the city.

Even when very grand, there is a feeling here that mosques are part of everyday life. Certainly the short, frequent visits from the faithful throughout the day account for this, but another reason seems to be in the nature of the domed-architecture itself. Cascading from the large central dome at the peak, the smaller domes multiply and diminish until they finally reach the outer walls. While this architectural form was certainly borrowed from Byzantine architecture, it seems to be exaggerated and refined with later mosques that followed the Byzantine pattern. The result is a lower-at-the-edges design that is more welcoming-looking than the austere Byzantine basilicas on which they are based.

More approachable than most Christian cathedrals, large mosques tend to spill out into the community, with multiple entrances and stone staircases that spread out at the ground plane, rooting the building. The entrances to large-scale mosques are in stages, with stairs from the street leading to large, open courtyards. These usually house an ablution fountain for the ritual washing done before entering a mosque. Again, this architectural pattern adds an earthy, human quality to the main entrance.

The ablution fountains are usually only for show, with the real washing happening at taps on the sidewalls of mosques. At the New Mosque, however, we often see followers washing their hands and feet at the beautiful central fountain. The courtyard itself is grand, surrounded by an arcade and smaller domes, but it feels like a city square, more a meeting place than a sacred space.

The interior of the New Mosque is quieter than most of the historic mosques in the heart of the touristed Sultanahmet district. It isn’t high on the list of guidebook recommendations for Istanbul, mostly because the competition is so stiff. All the better. It is a welcome relief to step out of one of the busiest areas in the whole city and find a little peace under the soaring dome of the New Mosque.

The courtyard and the ablution fountain at the entrance of the New Mosque.

At the bottom of the central stairs, are half a dozen red booths sell plates of birdseed.

Looking across the water and the Galata Bridge to the New Mosque

Soundscape

2011-01-03T00:55:00.000-08:00

A short soundscape compilation from our recent trip to see classical sites: bells on one of the wrestling camels of Selcuk, Aegean coast waves near the Temple of Didyma, and the healing waters of Bergama's Asclepion.

Happy New Year

2011-01-01T00:15:00.000-08:00

Friends

2010-12-31T01:34:00.000-08:00

Today we are posting photos of all the sweet folks that have visited us in Istanbul so far, along with some of the new friends we have made here. Looking forward to many more visitors in 2011!

Colleen on the peak of Buyukada, Princes' Islands

Mark and Bruno in Topkapi Palace

Julia's brother Paul on a carriage ride in Princes' Islands

Paul on the ferry

Bob and Dick on Istiklal Caddesi. Bob is our friend from Philly, and Dick is living here for the year.

Ulku (left) and her sister Arzu in Ortakoy, a beautiful neighborhood on the Bosphorus. We met Ulku through the Istanbul Fulbright Office.

Fellow Fulbrighters Aimee and Jordan.

Kris and Sarah on Princes' Island

Students from the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts at Rustem Pasa Mosque:
Courtney, Kara, Ewa, Julia, Connie, Gibbs, Sinead, Lucia, Morgan, Galen and Shane

Dale at the Blue Mosque

Shane, Sarah and Dale in Taxsim Square

Christmas Decorations in Istanbul

2010-12-22T20:01:00.000-08:00

We had been looking forward to a year away from the holiday music, shopping, decorations and expectations that usually mark our Decembers as Americans. While we are missing our families and friends even more this week than ever, we didn't at all miss the eight weeks of merchandizing that normally lead up to December 25th. Perhaps we will feel a twinge of regret as the year closes without carols and eggnog. But Istanbul, it turns out, is not totally devoid of holiday spirit. It is just done on a smaller scale and for a much shorter duration.

In the past week, Santas, reindeers and Christmas trees have appeared. Some leave us nostalgic, and others make us laugh. But as we continued to point out decorations to each other, we realized that we weren’t such scrooges-at-heart after all.

Our Christmas will be spent visiting the classical sites of Ephesus and Pergamon, on Turkey’s Agean coast. We will be taking a break from the blog until we return to Istanbul next week. Until then, our warmest wishes for a very Merry Christmas.

Near the Egyptian Market

Christmas Blend at the Starbucks

Santa selling lottery tickets on Istiklal Caddesi

This fiberglass bear, now even weirder in his Kris Kringle attire, is a permanent fixture over the entrance of an expensive hotel here.

Billboards over Taxsim Square

Simit vendor in Taxsim Square. The extremely popular simit is kind of like a sesame bagel.

Children's Art Biennial

2010-12-22T02:52:00.000-08:00

Yesterday we taught an hour-and-a-half workshop at the Children’s Art Biennial, a volunteer opportunity that came through the American Consulate. This is the first year of this impressive, well-run event. Hundreds of kids from all over the city were bused to a large exhibition building in the same complex as the Istanbul Modern Art Museum. An extensive, professionally presented exhibition of children’s art filled the galleries, and students participated in hands on workshops. While we were there, we saw a traditional paper marbling class, and a drawing inspired by music workshop.

Our workshop was structured around Iznik tiles. The students saw images of Shane’s sculpture and the Islamic arabesque that inspired it. The presentation included images of the natural landscape around Iznik, and lots of images of the natural forms used in tile motifs: flowers, plants, birds, water and fruits. The students then made paper tiles that they composed into a large assemblage at the end of the class.

We began the class with fifteen students, but more students keep wandering in and joining the project, until the group had nearly doubled. These students were all around eleven years old, and extremely well behaved. They were an enthusiastic group and we had a great time with them.

Prepping for the lecture

The arabesque in Turkish ornament

Demonstrating the tecnique

Composing the field of tiles

Istiklal Caddesi: Istanbul's Famous Pedestrian Thoroughfare

2010-12-21T00:04:00.000-08:00

Istiklal Caddesi (ist-tick-clowl ja-des-ee) is a wide pedestrian shopping street stretching for about a mile and a half through the heart of Istanbul’s most European neighborhood, Beyolou. A top site of the city, it is always crowded with shoppers, diners, protestors and those just looking for a stroll away from the all-present automobile traffic of Istanbul. If you want to pay near-Western prices for clothes and shoes, this is the place to come. Electronics are one of the few items in Turkey that are more expensive here than at home, and Istiklal has lots to offer. There are many stores with familiar names, including an upcoming Virgin Megastore. Missing American coffee? There are several Starbucks and Gloria Jeans here.

But to judge Istikal by the number of Western shops lining the thoroughfare would be to miss the genuine personality of this historic avenue. While we are not huge shoppers, we often we find ourselves walking along its length, peering down all the little side streets that branch off of this main artery. One narrow, slopping lane has the best cup of Turkish coffee we have ever tasted. A decorative iron arch naming Balik Pazari marks the street where we eat midya dolma, the cinnamon-spiced-rice-stuffed mussels that we love. Wander past the midya dolma restaurants just a little further and come to the un-touristed and fabulous Cumhurriyet, the meyhane where we celebrated Shane’s fortieth birthday. Take another turn and come to our favorite dessert spot, where we are already old friends with the owner. Istiklal is home to the chocolate fountain, another sweet treat favorite, the strange “wet burger” (we have yet to try,) and many red pushcarts roasting chestnuts. Our favorite food guide, Istanbul Eats, concentrates a lot on the neighborhoods around Istiklal, and reading the mouth-watering descriptions in its pages has prompted several trips to the area.

Istiklal is more than food and fashion, though. It is lined with consulates, schools and galleries. The best bookstores in the city are here. We saw the Harry Potter movie in a strange little screening room off of Istiklal, and got haircuts in one of the many salons.

Over the weekend, we were delighted to see all the holiday lights of Istiklal. Christmas is (sort of) celebrated here after all. The idea that holiday decorations and carols can make an appearance for a mere week is fantastic - all the magic without becoming tiresome. Happy holidays from Istiklal Caddesi.

A normal day on Istiklal Caddesi. Flags in the middle of the crowd mark a group of protestors.

Taxsim Square, the upper end of Istiklal Caddesi

"Happy New Year" decorations over the street, and a garlanded trolley embedded in the mass of humanity.

The historic red trolley is (almost) the only vehicular traffic on Istiklal.

The little antennaed Turkcell guys that usually light the street have company this week.

Christmas arrived this week on Istiklal Caddesi

Here is something you wouldn't see in the Grand Bazaar: posted prices. (Pashminas they have.)

One of the chestnut roasting push-carts to be found all over the city, especially along Istiklal.

Lovely display of roasted chestnuts, ready to be weighed and sold in little paper bags.

Shane's 40th Birthday

2010-12-20T04:04:00.000-08:00

Making birthday calls to the USA

We met friends for dinner at Cumhuriyet, our favorite meyhane. A meyhane is a restaurant that serves meze (appetizers) with raki, an anise-flavored liquor that turns milky white when mixed half and half with water.

The meze arrive. We ordered broad beans, purslane in yogurt, beet salad, fish preserved in oil, white cheese, some type of pepper paste salad that was delicious, and a double order of lamb's liver.

We were sitting inside on the second floor, and still we had a little beggar-cat outside the window.

Shane opened the window to give him a prized piece of liver and got a scratch in the excitement. We poured raki over his finger to doctor the scratch. Kitty didn't get any more treats, but he did stay as our fifth guest, out on the ledge, through dinner.

Liver and onions, a favorite of the guest of honor.

Friends Aimee and Sarah

Celebrating 40

Late night cake and singing at a fancy dessert place around the corner.

Shane's Studio

2010-12-19T05:52:00.000-08:00

A posting by Julia in honor of Shane’s fortieth birthday today.

We talked about what Shane would most like to do on this momentous occasion. A cruise to the Black Sea? A night in near-by Bursa at a mineral hot springs hotel? A day revisiting all his favorite Istanbul sites, like the Hagia Sophia, Museum of Turkish and Islamic Art, and Rustem Pasa Mosque? But an ordinary day, working in his studio in the Balat neighborhood, trounced all other plans.

We will go out tonight to our favorite mehane/meze restaurant with friends. But today, at long last, we are posting some pictures of his studio. He has been working on a large-scale sculpture in plaster over steel since we got here. He plans to cut the finished work up and ship it home to cast in bronze. Here are photos of the work-in-progress.

When we were sorting through these photos, we could hear seagulls outside our windows. Shane told me that the gulls that ride the air currents up and down our hill are an influence for this piece, as are the arabesque motifs in the tiles of the Rustem Pasa Mosque. More on Shane’s favorite mosque, Rustem Pasa, in a future post.

Happy Birthday, Shane.

This is how the studio looked when Shane moved in

Shane and our friend Sarah in the cleaned-up studio. He painted, got the missing windows replaced, scrubbed the stone floor, installed a wood stove for heat, put up halogen lights, and gathered tools and materials before he began sculpting. The rolling platform in the middle of the room is the base for the sculpture below.

An early photo of the sculpture. He drilled holes in the platform and inserted metal rods to create the armature for the piece.

Looking in from the street. Many of our neighbors spent a lot of time doing just that for the first couple weeks. After watching him fix up the space, it probably seemed mysterious that this American, who had real construction skills, was now engaged in such a crazy-looking activity. We know very little Turkish, but Shane answered puzzled inquires with "Sonra - inşallah - güzel" which means "Later - hopefully (Allah willing) - beautiful"

A studio visit from the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts students.

Wood stove and tool area in the back

Shane set up a plank so he could get a higher view

View from the plank

Building up the form. He uses burlap, plaster, wire fencing, steel rods and aluminum wire.

Shane got himself some coveralls from the fishermen's supply area.

Translating the Islamic arabesque into three-dimensions

Applying more plaster-soaked burlap.

Latest photo of the work-in-progress.

Residency Permits

2010-12-18T00:47:00.000-08:00

Now that it has been a few weeks, we can laugh about this. Because we are staying in Istanbul for nine months, and because the primary reason we are here is research, we needed to get a longer term visa and an ikamet, or residency permit. We have met people here trying to go through this process on their own, which, in hindsight, seems a most daunting task. Lucky for us, we had the Fulbright office holding our hands, literally, and speaking on our behalf.

First, we needed to make the application at the large, central police station. Our friend, Ulku, who works at the Istanbul Fulbright office, made an appointment for us. The soonest appointment was more than a month away, well past the date by which we were required to have our permit. Which means, no leaving the country in the interim without big fines and problems. But, we were assured, because it was the government's fault for having such a backlog, it would not be a problem for us. As long as everything went well at the appointment.

Ulku met us outside of the imposing Fatih police station on the morning of our appointments. We went through security, registration, across an empty concrete courtyard and up several flights of stairs. We were clutching precious documents: appointment slips with our numbers. We each needed to go separately, we each needed Ulku to do the talking, and our numbers were very close together. Which meant that she spoke quickly with the first one, listening for the next number, than literally ran to the second window to do the talking there. By chance, the two windows we happened to get were at opposite ends of the building, so Ulku ran back and forth between us until all was settled. One interesting thing about signing official documents in Turkey is that you are always required to provide your parents first names, which we suppose is the ubiquitous “secret question” for identity, but we felt strangely displaced and uneasy the first time we were asked.

After we had stood smiling and nodding in our dress clothes, and Ulku had settled everything, we had to go downstairs to pay, a total well over a thousand liras for the both of us. We went back to our windows with the receipts, signed forms, and several passport-sized headshots. We were given appointments for the end of the week to pick up our residency permits.

The first appointment was over and successful. Other Fulbrighters we know weren’t so lucky, needing to go back multiple times, sometimes waiting many hours for a chance to make their case. Our second round of appointments turned out to be much more trying. We went on our own this time on a Friday afternoon to the side waiting room Ulku had pointed out to us. It was packed with people from all over the world, all crowding toward a little open doorway. There was no discernable line. Again we held appointment slips, but this time there were no numbers. Figuring this mass of people was forming some sort of queue, we stood at the back of it and began trying to shuffle forward with everyone else. You can imagine that this practice quickly makes for an extremely compact group of humans. A policewoman pushed her way into the middle and began handing back appointment slips to people who needed to come back another day. Their ikamets weren’t ready yet. But at least now we had a clue: we needed to hand our appointment slips in. We pushed our way to the little door at the end of the room and were fortunate to hand in our slips to the right person, which is not always the case. Observation over the course of the day never unlocked the secret to when appointment slips could be received. Sometimes people in our mass would all start to hand their slips forward to the person closest to the door, only to have the whole pile be rejected back out into our room. Redistributing the slips without a common language was a nightmare, and the slips are precious, the only link to the ikamet.

We did eventually understand the system though, such as it was. Through the little door sat one police officer with a pile of ikamets clipped to paperwork and appointment slips. When appointment slips were handed in, another police officer would go to the archives and try to find the matching ikamet. If the search was successful, the ikamet was clipped to the slip. If not, the slip went into the pile of disappointed hopes. The officer-behind-the-doorway would call out his best guess at each name. The Turkish pronunciation of all these foreign names was often a great source of confusion. There is no loud speaker, so that is why everyone is so tightly packed toward the doorway: they are trying to hear what they think might be their name. It is actually hard to keep your balance in the crush, and it goes on for hours. One of us was called after a mere hour-and-a-half (it felt as if it had to have been longer,) almost crying tears of joy when the officer relinquished the newly minted ikamet. The other waited over three-and-a-half hours, only receiving the ikamet when going through the doorway to check if that last strange sounding name may have been correct, and seeing the photo on the paperwork sticking out in the middle of the tall pile. “Lutfen?” (Please?) and a little helpless pointing resulted in success at last, just before the office was closed for the day. We emerged into the evening exhausted. It had been a real cultural experience, one that is probably similar for many people living and working in any foreign country.

Our friend and fellow Fulbrighter, Aimee Genell, had it much worse than us. She needed two initial appointments. Then, over the course of several weeks, she stood in that crazy, packed-out room for hours before being repeatedly sent away without a permit. We think she may have gone four times before she was successful. We decided to throw her an ikamet party. We went to the Wednesday Market to supply the feast, and built a tower of food to our ikamets - Aimee’s on top, with our friend Jordan’s and our own at the base. We cooked a big feast together and then, as often happens with this crowd, we found ourselves doing hours of karaoke off of youtube.

We weren’t permitted to bring cameras into the police station, so the few pictures below are from the ikamet celebration, and of the precious documents themselves.

Aimee receiving her ikamet from heaven

The the guest of honor with the tower of food and ikamets.

The dinner featured many pickled vegetable appetizers, Sarah's famous spinach risotto, our spicy pan-fried chicken thighs, and the best solution to bad Turkish wine: sangria.

Our Residency Permits

The Alexander Sarcophogus

2010-12-17T02:40:00.000-08:00

The Alexander Sarcophagus is the star of the Istanbul Archaeological Museum. Situated in a pool of light in a hushed room, this early Hellenistic artifact is absolutely remarkable in its preservation, which includes remnants of the original paint colors that covered the entire sarcophagus. It was carved in the early 300s BC from Pentelic marble (the same stone used in the Athenian Parthanon,) a very pure, warm-toned marble. Osman Hamdi Bey, an Ottoman artist, excavated the sarcophagus in Sidon, Lebanon and brought it to Istanbul in 1887.

The relief sculpture on one side depicts Alexander the Great fighting the Persians in the battle of Issus. It is a truly beautiful frieze, complex in design, gorgeously rendered and poignant. The other long side of the sarcophagus depicts Alexander and the King of Sidon in hunting scenes. Originally thought to have been made for Alexander the Great, it is now believed that the sarcophagus was created for the king of Sidon, Abdalonymus.

We love this piece, and have spent several hours with it already. Touring Istanbul with friends and family will repeatedly bring us to the Istanbul Archeological Museum, and we plan to spend much of our time there studying the marvel that is the Alexander Sarcophagus.

Looking at the Alexander Sarcophagus with PAFA student Lucia Thome

PAFA students Morgan and Galen studying the Sarcophagus

Details, here and below, of the battle frieze.
This detail includes a depiction of Alexander the Great on the left.

The hunting frieze

Details, here and below, of the hunting frieze.

Looking at the Sarcophagus with students from the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts

Istanbul Archeological Museum

2010-12-16T01:41:00.000-08:00

Most of the great sculptural treasures of classical art that were found in Anatolia have left the region. Present day Turkey was the site of the Pergamon Alter (now in the Pergamon Museum in Berlin,) the Ephesus site sculptures (now in the Ephesus Museum in Vienna,) the Temple of Artemis, one of the seven wonders of the ancient world (artifacts now in the British Museum in London, ) and the Mausoleum of Halikarnassos (now in the British Museum.) Of course, all of the pieces from these sites were created when the land was part of ancient Greece. The land changed hands several times, becoming part of the Roman Empire, then the Ottoman Empire, and now the Republic of Turkey. Regardless of the nations that have come and gone, it is still rather disappointing to see, in a land that was home to so many significant pieces of classical sculpture, that the current day archeological museum collections in Turkey’s biggest cities, Ankara and Istanbul, are largely empty of great works. But, there are still a few notable exceptions, some beautiful smaller scale pieces and fragments, and a huge and fascinating number of b-sides that would normally occupy the vaults of other archeological museums.

We walked through a courtyard that contains many large sculptural and architectural stone fragments. The museum café is fitted into this landscape of rejected objects. Entering the museum, we lingered over the first few rooms, containing a lovely collection of smaller classical sculpture, friezes and fragments. We were particularly taken with a high-relief fragment that escaped the Berlin collection of the Pergamon Alter. After the first two rooms, though, the collection took a turn, and we found ourselves in a sea of awkward oddities. We have never seen so many strange sculptures together, and that fact in itself was really visually interesting. There is a great line of weird portraits, and a room full of ill-proportioned draped figures.

The other wing of the building contains a substantial collection of Sarcophagi, and the museum’s real gem, a piece certainly worth a trip: the Alexander Sarcophagus. We will leave that beautiful piece for our next posting.

PAFA students outside of the Archeological Museum

One of our favorites - a fragment from the Pergamon Alter relief sculptures.

Looking through the first few rooms

Lovely and strange relief fragment

Roman portrait busts

Taking studio reference photos of drapery

Our friend Dale imitating her favorite heroic size head

One of the many mosaic fragments

In the halls of sarcophagi

A section of a sarcophagus relief

A crazily designed, huge sarcophagus

The museum cafe

This monumental head in the courtyard looks very like the Medusa heads in the Basilica Cistern

Wednesday Market

2010-12-15T02:17:00.000-08:00

We live between two really great farmers’ markets. The one on Wednesdays, the Çarşamba Pazar (Wednesday Bazaar,) we call the Fatih (fa –tee) market, because it is next to the Fatih Mosque. We climb up to the top of our hill, passing many laden-down market shoppers, and come into the heart of Fatih, the district in which we live, and the most conservative area of Istanbul.

Istanbul natives repeatedly tell us that this wave of conservativism is new; that this huge community of black-cloaked woman and bearded men are a surprise to them; that this population is not native to Istanbul. After reading so much about the secular nature of Turkey, we were a little surprised ourselves to see such a large number of completely veiled women. There are so many styles of headscarves and dress for religious women in this city, and we haven’t the first clue as to what each style represents. But it is hard to misunderstand the nature of the head to toe black cloak that often covers everything except the wearer’s eyes and nose: separation. Even still, we rarely encounter any real hostility, and we don’t usually feel uncomfortable walking up our hill into the sea of black dresses. Especially with an enticement like the Fatih market.

Part farmers' market, part sidewalk sale, the pazar completely fills the wide street running up to the Fatih mosque, spilling over into the little side streets and the many permanent shops around the mosque walls. All manners of seasonal produce abound. Last week the market was dominated by huge wedges of pumpkin, piles of chestnuts and root vegetables, including fist-sized radishes. The displays are beautiful: geometrically stacked spinach, a four-foot tower of lemons, samples of pomegranates cracked open to show off their glossy seeds, the longest and cleanest leeks we have ever seen.

In addition to fresh fruits and vegetables, there are also cheese vendors with pickled herb-spiked cheeses, soft squeaky cheeses and really good string cheeses. Fish vendors carefully light their silvery offerings. Sacks full of rich colored spices and teas are arranged to compliment each other. Bins with numerous varieties of olives give off a briny smell.

One of our favorite market discoveries is the pickle vendor. Pickled everything is a serious business here, and we love the mixed pickled veggies with cabbage, carrots, cucumbers and hot peppers we find in various forms at most markets. Pickled beets are fresh and succulent here, without any cloying sugar sauce. On our most recent visit to the Fatih market, we tried some beautiful pickled baby eggplants stuffed with shredded cabbage, carrots and herbs. But our hands down favorite are the crunchy, addictive pickled green plums. These little snacks have the ability to make you lose your train of thought in a daydream about them. It’s morning here, and just writing this makes us want to go to the refrigerator and see if there are any left.

Aside from all the edibles, there is a big selection of new clothing and household goods for sale at the market. There is a scarf stall, and a raincoat stall. Long, form-fitting raincoats are the dress of choice for some Muslim women. All types of glassware and cooking ware are available. Recently, our friend Jordan bought an extraordinary set of leopard print pots and pans.

As the evening falls, earlier and earlier these days, the strings of electric bulbs lighting the colorful wares illuminate the patchwork of canvas tarps and ropes tenting the market, making the whole street seem more like a festival than a weekly grocery run. Wandering along, we come right against the arched stone gateways of the mosque, its minarets already gold with lights for the night. It is an extremely visual place, and one we plan to visit with cameras and grocery lists in hand today and every Wednesday.

The sign by the tower of lemons advertises a bag for one lira (70 cents.)

Turkish Pumpkin

At the pickle vendor

Fatih Mosque in the background

Looking through the gates at the Fatih Mosque on market day

Jordan buying her leopard-print pots and pans set

Making friends with the pots and pans man

The Cats of Istanbul

2010-12-14T00:59:00.000-08:00

We have been joking about making a calendar with this title ever since we got here. Cats are the unofficial mascots of this city. They are everywhere. We have never seen so many well cared for strays. People put out cat food all over the city. But more than that, it is the kindness that Istanbul residents bestow on the feline population that truly impresses us. Some cats probably have regular homes, but there must be many times more living on the streets in this fairly temperate city. People seem to adopt street cats near where they work, feeding them, playing with them, even brushing them. We once saw a security guard, in the midst of the busy square where he was stationed, retrieve a cat brush from his booth in order to brush a cat, who was obviously familiar with the practice. Doormen at hotels sneak to planters to pet their cat neighbors. There is a cat wandering the Hagia Sophia that visitors know by name. People are so consistently tender that the strays here are nearly all tame.

Islamic tradition holds cats in high esteem. Muhammad was a cat lover, and there are stories passed down about Muhammad and the regard he had for his cat, Muezza. Muhammad purportedly said that cats should be treated as members of the family, and mistreating a cat was punishable by torture in hell.

One of the strangest things we have seen in Istanbul was the mass gathering of cats under a park gazebo. Someone had placed a large piece of carpet there, and a couple dozen cats were all napping together. We have also seen a heap of cats in the corner of the Fatih cemetery, an area with a large and well-loved population of felines.

It seems mysterious that the cats often look so clean, especially all the white-furred varieties. There is a special breed here called the Turkish Van cat that is mostly white and has a supposed love for water and swimming. We have seen some white cats for sale in cages in the pet market, and perhaps these are the special water-loving Vans. Even if they could swim the width of the Bosphorus, charging money for a cat in this city seems hilarious to us. Maybe it is the ultimate test of the Turkish salesman: if you can sell a cat in Istanbul, you can sell anything.

(Special thanks for the photography contributions of Kris Pelletier, Dale Castelucci and Colleen O'Donnell)

In a linen shop at the Grand bazaar

Colleen and friend in Suleymaniye Mosque Cemetery.

Jordan and Aimee with the pride at the Fatih cemetery.

On the shoreline of Prince's Island

Our friend Dale with more than thirty cats vying for a spot on the carpet in this park gazebo.

Pafa student Lucia with a kitty near Chora Church.

Pafa student Galen outside of the Suleymaniye Mosque.

Near our Balat studios.

Heap of cats near the Fatih mosque on a cool Fall day.

At the Fener bus stop

Military Service Send-Off Party & Our Thanksgiving Potluck

2010-12-13T01:00:00.000-08:00

After a long break from writing, we are back with a new catalog of pictures and stories from our time here in Istanbul. We will start in again with a night from a few weeks ago when we threw a potluck Thanksgiving party in honor of the visiting Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts students. We had invited a really large group to our home in Fener, and we were a little worried what the neighbors may think of such a loud and boisterous gathering of Americans. After a day of touring the students around the area, seeing the Fethiye Museum, Chora Church, and the old city walls, we went home to prepare for the party. Our arrival coincided with a car full of young men pulling up at our neighbor’s house across the street. While we set up a banquet of food, they tented the street with plastic sheeting, set up speakers, hooked up a laptop, and the music began. In the happiest coincidence, our neighbors were hosting a huge street party to send-off two young relatives to boot camp.

Military service is obligatory for men twenty years of age and older in Turkey. It is a right of passage here for all men. Those without a four-year university degree are conscripted as privates for fifteen months of training. Those with university degrees enter either as reserve officers for twelve months, or go through the basic training for privates in a much-shortened six months. Send-off parties are common, and this party honored two young men leaving for training camp the very next day.

Thirty-five people came to our party, a combination of PAFA students, other Istanbul Fulbrighters, and folks we have met since we arrived. Our spread of food was delicious. We made chicken, chestnut stuffing, eggplant casserole, a quince compote with Turkish white cheese, arugula and pomegranate salad, and a Georgian Salad composed of mandarin sections, lots of fresh dill, scallion, tomatoes, cucumbers and lemon vinaigrette. The students picked up desserts and breads from our local bakery. Our other guests brought some really wonderful food and drinks, including homemade borek (a savory pastry,) a thanksgiving phyllo pie with turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing and cranberry sauce, a large yellow plate of deviled eggs and a casserole of macaroni and cheese that made us homesick, Turkish wine and the ubiquitous Efes beer. The neighbors throwing the military party gave one of our students plates of stuffed grape leaves and pastries for our party, and, with a Turkish friend helping us choose food that the neighbors might like best, we sent plates back in return.

The party in the street had lots of music, dancing and singing. For the first few hours, only the men danced, occasionally breaking to light fireworks or pass smoking flares, the smell reminding us of Fourth-of-July smoke bombs from our youths. The men also periodically broke into a clapping and chanting song culminating in the new conscripts being tossed into the air.

We leaned out of our living room windows, or went down in turns to sit on our steps and watch. Eventually, a few of the male students from our party were invited to dance, the neighborhood kids instructing them how to move. Then a few of the women from our party were invited to join in too.

It was certainly the best party we have ever thrown. When everyone had left, and we had cleaned up and went to bed, Shane dreamed that he looked out of our window and saw our neighbors building a large wooden ship in our street. After recently seeing a movie filmed on our street, having a bull butchered outside the kitchen windows, and dancing in the Military send-off party outside our front door, it does actually seem plausible.

Included below are photos and a little movie of the neighbor’s celebration. The two men with red armbands are the honorees.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TeGvMufcV_I

Military Send-Off Party

2010-12-13T00:53:00.000-08:00

Happy Thanksgiving

2010-11-25T12:53:00.000-08:00

Thanksgiving dinner for twelve in Istanbul.

Turkey for Thanksgiving

2010-11-23T22:39:00.000-08:00

Yesterday, ten folks arrived in Istanbul for "Turkey for Thanksgiving," the art and architecture tour we are leading for the next six days. After everyone was settled in, we took a ferry across the Bosphorus to Kadiköy, a neighborhood on the Asian side, and had a great meal at Çiya. Today, the tour begins in earnest, with the Hagia Sophia, the Blue Mosque, Museum of Turkish and Islamic Art, and the Basilica Cistern.

Tea on the ferry

Crossing the Bosphorus

Our favorite waiter at Ciya, Ali. He loves to cook, and explains all the strange and fabulous dishes on offer in wonderful detail. Last night we had a huge variety of dishes, among them: lamb with chestnuts & apricots, cabbage & chicken with little black seeds, rice stuffed lamb intestines, and chick peas & lamb in a yogurt sauce. A true cultural experience.

Waiting for the tram to go back to the hostel.

Guest Post: Mannequins of Istanbul

2010-11-22T21:33:00.000-08:00

Today, ten students from the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts are arriving in Istanbul for a weeklong course we’re leading about the art and architecture of the city. We will be posting photos from this tour throughout the week. Since we are going to be occupied this morning with their arrival, we thought that it would be a great day to share a collection of comic relief photos from our friend Sarah. She is fascinated and delighted by the weird mannequins of the city, and their attire.

One of the white and gold circumcision outfits worn here by young boys on that special day.

More circumcision outfits above and below.

In the Grand Bazaar.

Dessert!

2010-11-22T00:25:00.000-08:00

Originally we planned to cut “Bayram, the Movie” for today, but when we took another look, we decided it was just too much, and that we’d rather post about dessert. To quote our friend Bruno, a Parisian native, “Turkish pastries are better than French.” We can think of no higher endorsement. The variety of sweet treats here is outrageous. Of course, there is Turkish delight, which we liked much more than we had expected, especially the rose variety and the almost truffle-like pistachio variety. Nuts figure heavily into many desserts, and bright green sprinklings of pistachios often decorate pastries. The cookies we bought for Bayram featured fillings, doughs and toppings of walnuts, hazelnuts and almonds, as well as pistachios. Cookies that look rather modest on the outside are often filled with moist and decadent nut pastes. There are seasonal delights, like the sticky-feeling ice cream from carts that were everywhere when we first arrived. The fall here brought out trays of red glistening candied quinces. We are also seeing wedges of candied pumpkin all over the city. This dessert is really fabulous. Our favorite restaurant, Çiya, sometimes tops chunks of their candied pumpkin with a drizzle of tahini. Yum. Our friend Aimee learned the trick of topping vanilla ice cream with tahini and crumbled brownies, which we highly recommend. Tahini also figures heavily into the halva here, a sesame-paste candy. Puddings of all varieties are widely available, especially individual rice puddings with broiled tops. And then there is kaymak, a real discovery for us. This clotted cream like deliciousness is, in its purest form, served as a breakfast dish with honey and white bread. But it is also used very liberally as a dessert topping, especially for the wedges of honey-soaked cake with which we have fallen in love. Like many of the shiny, wet looking dessert choices here, we had assumed it would be cloyingly sweet, but it very strangely is not so. Another of the marvelous mysteries of Istanbul. Certainly this city holds the strangest deserts we have ever tried. Kanafeh is made of vermicelli-like pasta soaked in honey syrup sandwiching cheese and served hot, kind of like a dessert lasagna. Istanbul is also famous for the very odd Tavuk göğsü, or sweet chicken pudding. We haven’t tried this. Yet. We have had several platefuls of dessert at Çiya, where they offer candied green walnuts in their soft shells, candied green olives, candied baby eggplants stuffed with walnuts, and candied tomatoes, all surprising wonderful.

The many kinds of locum, or Turkish delight.

Some Turkish delight flavored with rose water, our favorite.

Bayram cookies. Our favorite was the little tart shell filled with chocolate ganache and topped with toffee. The plain-looking sugar cookie was filled with pistachio paste.

A Bayram gift, homemade baklava from our neighbors. It was the best we have ever tasted.

Our friend Colleen with houses of halva.

The chocolate fountain man on Istiklal Caddesi

Our friend Sarah with her cup of melted chocolate and fresh fruit, topped with chopped nuts and coconut.

Colleen and Shane with Istanbul's sticky-feeling ice cream.

The red desserts are candied quinces, a seasonal favorite.

Our friend Bruno with honey cake topped with kaymak.

Our friends Jordan and Aimee were very excited about their kanafeh, a cheese, noodle and honey dessert that is served hot.

The strange and wonderful candied desserts at Çiya. From the left clockwise are: green walnuts, a semolina cookie, pumpkin, tomato, and, in the foreground, baby eggplant stuffed with walnuts. A dollup of kaymak sits in the bottom corner.

City Walls

2010-11-21T02:05:00.000-08:00

When we first arrived in Istanbul, our drive from the airport took us along the old city walls. In that strange, post-flight, time-zone-less state, we stared vacantly out of the car window and watched miles of this massive, crumbling pink-stone wall slide past. The surrounds of most international airports usually provide a dismal first look at a city, and certainly Istanbul has its share of convention centers and urban sprawl. But our long look from the highway at these ancient city walls was very affecting.

Built by Constantine, the original city walls completely encircled Constantinople, stretching in an arch from the Sea of Mamara to the Halic (Golden Horn,) and all along the coasts. Our house, in the Fener neighborhood, would have stood outside of this original boundry. By the 5th century, the city had expanded, and new walls were built further out. Emperor Theodosius II built them as a double line, the outer walls containing 185 towers and abutting a wide moat, the inner walls sectioning off more than fifty feet of no man’s land.

The ruins left today are the outer walls and towers. An easy walk from Chora Church brought us up against them. Perilously narrow, long stone stairs lead up to the top of the ruins in many places along the walls. We ascended and got a view of the city on all sides, Istanbul proper having expanded again beyond the boundaries of the walls. Back on the ground, we walked along the walls toward the Halic. Far from being a guarded museum site, there are markets, parks and sport fields along them. Judging by the occasional graffiti, they also serve as a night time hang out.

We came to the ruins of a Byzantine Palace that was built into the walls in the late thirteenth century. Supposedly undergoing a restoration, we wandered around the edges looking for a way in. Some teenagers lead us to a locked gate, produced a key, and we stepped inside the grassy interior. After the Ottoman conquest, the palace was reduced to a stable for the Sultan’s menagerie. It was later a brothel, then a pottery workshop, then a poorhouse. Only the barest bones of the architecture are left. We declined an offer from our over-eager guides to scramble up a plank spanning a deep gully for a loftier view, and were extorted a bit as we left. This area is extremely poor. As we walked through it, following a guide book tour to various things-that-used-to-be, we were a little surprised by just how poor.

One interesting bit from the guidebook was that many of the houses near the old wall used stones from the now-nonexistent inner wall for their construction. Houses were often built right against the outer wall, saving time and materials, and, in the long run, helping to maintain and preserve the wall.

It was just a short walk downhill to reach Balat, the neighborhood adjacent to Fener, and home to our studios. It is hard to fathom, especially coming from a city (and a country) whose early history dates back only a few hundred years, that we had stood atop a piece of history dating back nearly sixteen-hundred years.

On top of the old city walls.

Map depicting the location of the fifth-century walls.

Byzantine palace ruin

Looking from the neighborhood to the ruins of the wall

Chora Church

2010-11-20T00:01:00.000-08:00

The Kariye Camii, Kariye Kilisesi, or Kariye Müzesi, is Chora Church. It sits on the edge of the city within a few hundred yards of the old city walls. It is famous for housing one of the best-preserved collections of late-period Byzantine Mosaics in the world. Late-period Byzantine translates to the fourteenth century, as opposed to early-period Byzantine mosaics from the 5th century, as in Ravenna, Italy. Chora Church dates from the fourth century, but nothing much remains of the original. The current structure was built in the 11th century. It was vandalized severely during the crusades, then restored and decorated with mosaics. Like many other Constantinople churches, it was converted into a mosque during the Ottoman period, which means the mosaics were plastered over and painted with Islamic arabesque patterns. Chora was deconsecrated as a mosque, restored, and turned into a museum in the 1950’s. The museum’s frescos and mosaics are not in pristine condition, having suffered from several earthquakes. There are almost no frescos or mosaics left under the largest dome in the central nave. We are very attracted to some of the mosaics on the walls that are only fragments, with the under painting showing through.

The mosaics of Chora’s inner and outer narthexes, the entranceways to the church, are in very good condition. One of the long, narrow narthexes is devoted to Mary, the “Container on the Uncontainable” as it says in Chora. Mary’s childhood is narrated here, and the mini-Mary, a shrunken version of the virgin, complete here with blue cloak costume, is great. This narthex describes events through the birth of Christ and his early life. Very strangely, the slaughter of the innocents is situated over the current day gift shop. It is truly odd to hear tour guides, speaking all different languages, pointing out the dismembered children parts over the post cards and DVDs.

It is often terribly crowded here with busloads of tourists and their guides, but that doesn’t detract from the offerings of Chora, which are all above our heads. A wonderful dome in the second narthex is surrounded by very vivid depictions of the miracles and healings of Christ. The parakklesion, or side chapel, is covered in frescos with some truly beautiful imagery. We love the image of Christ pulling VIPs from the grave, kind of like “Come on guys, I’ve been waiting a long time for this!” He stands over a collection of locks and keys, precisely laid out as if they were in a Byzantine hardware catalogue. In another image, an angel is carrying all the stars and planets, swirled together in the form of a big nautilus shell. What a great shape for the universe.

A beautiful fragment on the walls of Chora Church.

Mini Mary's first steps

Frescoed dome in the side chapel

Angel holding the universe

Fethiye Museum

2010-11-18T22:54:00.000-08:00

We made a spontaneous visit to Fethiye Museum when we passed it on the way to Chora Church. Fifteen minutes from our house, and next to no other sites, or even easy public transit, it is a quiet place with few visitors. Built as a Greek Orthodox Church in 1261, late in the Byzantine period, it served as the seat of the Patriarchate (the Greek Orthodox Vatican) before it was transformed into a mosque during the Ottoman period. Most of the building is still an active mosque, but the narthex, the area that had been the entrance to the church, has been sealed off from the rest of the building, deconsecrated as a place of Muslim worship, and converted into this lovely little museum. Deconsecration allowed restorers to uncover the fourteenth century mosaics. These mosaics are from the same time period as those in the famous and very popular Chora Church. We left Fethiye and continued to walk another twenty minutes to Chora Church. It was wonderful to see both of these museums on the same morning. The busloads of tourists packing Chora made us all the more appreciative of the quiet little gem that is the Fethiye Museum.

The Fethiye Museum.

Night

2010-11-18T02:00:00.000-08:00

Coming into Karaköy on the ferry.

Along the Golden Horn at Eminönü, near the Galata Bridge.

At the end of the Galata Bridge.

Shane on the ferry leaving Prince's Islands.

One of the boats selling grilled fish sandwiches at Eminönü.

Fisherman on the Galata Bridge. There seem to be fisherman here 24 hours a day.

Along the Mamara Sea.

Soccer match in the fields on the top of our hill.

In our neighborhood, Fener.

Our street, house is second on left.

Bayram

2010-11-17T02:39:00.000-08:00

Yesterday's Kurban Bayram celebration was wonderful, strange, bloody, and tiring. We went first to the garage next to our studios, where our friend, Ali, had told us neighbors would be killing and butchering sheep for the holiday. If you missed yesterday's entry, Bayram celebrates Abraham's willingness to sacrifice his son, and every family who can afford to do so kills and butchers a ram or bull. When we first heard about this, and the estimations of the millions of animals killed across the Muslim world on this single day, we were feeling like we were in truly foreign, and rather grisly, territory. But then we asked ourselves, is this really so different from the mass slaughter of turkeys for Thanksgiving next week? The overall annual meat consumption here is less than half of that in the US, and it is very unusual to have a meal centered around a big piece of meat. That in itself seems to make the Bayram feast a real celebration.

As we watched the very skillful butchering of the sheep, we started thinking it was less strange, if you are a meat eater, to butcher your own meat, than to be as clueless as we were about the whole process. The biggest surprise (at least to Julia, who had never seen this before, while Shane had seen the butchering of deer as a kid) was that the body of the animal, inside and out, was so beautiful. The process also seemed very clean.

Part of the Bayram tradition is that some of the meat is given to neighbors, friends, and the poor. Early in the process of butchering the sheep, a woman came and ask for the gift of some of the organs. At the end, the man who owned the sheep gave us, the odd foreigners who had been sitting off to the side taking pictures, a prime cut. We are having friends over tonight to roast it.

We headed home with our hunk of roast only to be surprised to find that we had just missed another killing, this time a bull, and it happened right beside our house. Our friend Sarah saw the bull's last moments and reports that our kind neighbors sang to the bull and petted him before he was killed. The blood ran down a sheet of plastic into the sewer, helped along with water and brooms. Several men then began to butcher the bull. Without the use of a hoist to hang the carcass, we wondered how this was going to go. But the meat was cut apart right on top of the hide, never touching the ground, and the sections were laid on a plastic sheet for distribution. We watched the whole event from our kitchen windows. This was a real community effort, with cuts of meat going to dozens of families in the neighborhood. We received more gifts, this time the most amazing homemade baklava we've ever tasted, a savory onion and herb pastry, and wonderful stuffed grape leaves.

The atmosphere was so gentle and warm. Everyone is dressed up. The extremely sweet boy that lives across the street (the one from the language video) was dressed in the greatest little pin-striped suit. The old grandmas on our street had lots of visitors and were given many gifts of food. We gave our neighbors boxes of special holiday cookies from the local bakery, which included these luscious mini tart shells that are filled with chocolate ganache and topped with pieces of nut toffee.

After the butchering of the bull was over, we felt tired. Never having seen anything quite like it before, the experience was intense and somewhat demanding. The lingering smell of the animal made us want to get out for some fresh air. We went our separate ways for the rest of the afternoon, Shane to the studio, Julia and Sarah for a long hike through the city.

All in all, our experience of Bayram was that of community, generosity, and a connection to the animals that we omnivores consume. We continue to be delighted by the welcome that we have here, and the warmth in general of Turkish people. We know that many of the photos below will be too graphic for some. Apologies. But, if you, like us, find yourself oddly interested in the deconstruction of farm animals, we are working on Bayaum, the movie, for next Monday. İyi Bayramlar, or Happy Bayrum.

A neighborhood grandma receiving a gift.

At the garage next to our studios.

Many turks hire a skilled butcher, rather than tackle the job themselves.

Rack of lamb. Some cuts, at least, we could recognize.

Sheep's head is on the menu in lots of restaurants here. We ordered it once, by accident, and it was rather strong...

The wool rolled up.

Gifts from our neighbors: fabulous homemade baklava, lamb roast, stuffed grape leaves and borek (a type of savory pastry here, this one stuffed with onions and herbs)

Bull's last moments of life.

Washing away the blood.

The view from our kitchen windows on Bayram.

The green house on the right is our home.

One of the sweet grandmas that live next door.

The huge, multi-chambered stomach exposed.

The meat was distributed among many families living on our street.

Holidays

2010-11-15T22:17:00.000-08:00

Kurban Bayram, a major holiday throughout the Muslim world, begins today in Turkey. It celebrates the willingness of Abraham to sacrifice his son at god's command. The primary feature, in our minds, is the slaughter of thousands (and thousands) of sheep in remembrance of god's last minute substitution. So far, similar to Thanksgiving, except bigger animals feature in the feast. Every observant family that can afford to do so will sacrifice a sheep or cow. From what we understand, one third of the meat is kept for the family, one third is given to friends and neighbors, and one third is given to the poor. Apparently, we have front row seats. The parking garage next to our studios is going to serve as the neighborhood slaughterhouse. Most of Istanbul will be closed for the rest of the week. We were in the Grand Bazaar yesterday and were surprised to learn that it, too, would be closed for the week. Considering the deeply engrained mercantile history of this city (even the Emperors would trade on the side) this piece of news drove home the significance of Bayram. When, in the US, do malls close for more than a day or two for any holiday? More on Kurban Bayram soon.

The photos today are from another holiday, Republic Day, which was celebrated at the end of October. Very like the 4th of July, it is a one-day national holiday with fireworks and flags. We loved the thousands of banners/flags that popped up over the squares and long stretches of streets, creating tunnels of fluttering color and Atatürk faces.

Turkish Language Primer

2010-11-15T10:08:00.000-08:00

(This is a repeat of our earlier posting, with a functioning movie this time... hopefully!)

In honor the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts students traveling to Istanbul next week, we made a Turkish language survival movie. In order of appearance, our commandeered instructors are: three fellow Fulbrighters, the talking heads from our computer language program, our studio building manager, two of the sweetest kids in the world, three neighborhood friends, and our studio landlord. A big teşekkür ederim (tay-shake-ore-red-dare-um - that is, thank you) to hosts Jordan Matthews, Paul Hartley and Aimee Genell.

Turkish Language Primer on you tube

2010-11-15T03:51:00.000-08:00

If it isn't playing here, try:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=61zP_hcobq8

Topkapı Palace, a first installment

2010-11-14T02:46:00.000-08:00

Home to the Sultans for more than 400 years, Topkapı (top-cop-eh) Palace is sprawling grandeur. A collection of low, opulent buildings surrounding central garden courtyards, the Topkapı is more like a royal village than a European castle. We weren't as excited to see Topkapı as we were to see some of the other art and architectural sites of Istanbul, thinking it would be one long display of wealth without much of real visual interest to our tastes. As with many of our assumptions about this city, we were wrong again. There are the expected fruit-sized diamonds, hefty gold candlesticks, cursed daggers and ostentatious throne rooms, but the overall experience of the Palace is that of a very real place, full of small moments of beauty, gorgeous design and the mark of the many people who lived within its walls.

At its peak, four thousand people resided within the Palace. Like a small city, it housed bakers, craftsman, soldiers, school teachers, politicos and artisans, as well as the often huge royal family and their staff. We have visited twice now, and have seen just a little more than half. On both visits, we went through the Harem, a winding complex of buildings with more than four hundred rooms. The Harem was the private residence of the Sultan, his family, concubines, consorts and eunuchs. Many of the photos below are from the Harem. Because these rooms were essentially private, serving the daily needs of children, wives and the Sultan's mother, it has a surprisingly intimate, home-like feeling.

Other highlights of our visits were the airy Library, the Imperial Council's Chamber, and the Hall of Holy Relics. The Library is right in the middle of the central garden, and would have been our choice, if we had been the Sultans, as the best place to relax with of cup of çay. The Imperial Council Chamber was where the ministers of state, council members and the Grand Vizier held meeting to fight out the best way to run the Empire. The Sultan did not participate in these deliberations directly, but sat in a private room adjacent to the Chamber, behind a gold grating. Here he would listen to the arguments, closing the sessions with a rap on the grating, at which time he would single out members to summon one by one for an audience. He then had the final word.

The Hall of Holy Relics houses sacred artifacts, including many items from Muhammad, among them his cloak, sword, letter, his foot print... and a tooth... and collection of beard hairs. The thirty or so beard hairs of the prophet are each separately enshrined in tiny and elaborate glass reliquaries, like pieces of the true cross. Beard hairs not withstanding, the most interesting part about this area of the museum is the chanting that fills these (still) sacred rooms. At first we thought it was an atmospheric recording, but the chant got louder, and we finally stepped into a light-filled stone room where an Imam was chanting verses from the Koran. Scrolling supertitles translate the verse into Turkish and English. The amazing thing is that this chant has been going on twenty-four hours a day since the sixteenth century(!)

We have more to see at Topkapı Palace, and know we will be going back several more times. Maybe on our next installment, we will have finally made it to the royal kitchens, the armory, and the large garden overlooking the Golden Horn, Bosphorus and the Sea of Mamara.

The Sultans private apartment in the Harem

Entrance into the Harem

The Harem entrance has this lovely pebble path, reportedly to give the Sultans horse a good footing.

In the Sultan's Mother's apartment

Marble drawers in the deep reveals around the windows in the Sultan's apartment.

Looking our toward what was the large stone pool.

The exterior of the Sultan's apartment is elaborately tiled

Sultan's bath. Water used to trickle over the scalloped wall.

Honeycombed ceiling in the bath. This type of natural light ceiling is in many areas of the Harem.

Sultan's toilet, very like some we have encountered (minus the gold and marble.)

Council Chamber's with the Sultan's gold grate "listening hole."

In the Council Chambers

Peristyle courtyard of the second garden.

A view to Topkapı from the Bosphorus

Great Palace Mosaics Museum

2010-11-13T00:30:00.000-08:00

Scenes of extreme violence are staged amid fruiting trees and botanical motifs. Fantasy beasts, battles, blood and gore float in white fields comprised of millions of tiny tiles. The whole monumental grim garden is trimmed by a thick, elaborate acanthus boarder. A visit to the Great Palace Mosaics Museum made us wonder: who were the people who walked over this graphic carpet?

The answer to that question is a matter for some debate. The mosaic floor of the peristyle courtyard (defined as a columned walkway that surrounds a courtyard) was likely built under Emperor Justinian during the same time period as the construction of the Hagia Sophia and the Basilica Cistern. It was part of the Palace complex, originally built by Constantine in the fourth century. Only a fraction of the floor survived, less than a tenth. The original floor is estimated to have contained 80 million pieces of glass and stone tesserae. The site was first discovered in the 1930's under the Arasta Baazar, but the full excavation didn't take place until the 1950's. The current museum, built on the excavation site, seems squeezed by the still active Arasta Bazaar, probably due to the municipal compromises needed to keep the peace with the merchants. Why else would the sidewalk of the Bazaar take precedence over the museum design, forming a terribly low and dark roof that bisects the long, narrow museum hall beneath it?

We appreciate seeing mosaic floors as they were meant to be viewed, mounted on the ground rather than the wall. But we couldn't help wishing it were a more refined display, with better lighting and less gravel. The conservation-approved special medium surrounding everything looks like driveway gravel, and is a real visual distraction. When the elevated path we were following through the museum left the high-ceilinged, light-filled hall and forced us to duck into a dark passage that crosses beneath the bazaar, our disappointment in the design of this place was confirmed.

The mosaics themselves are magical. We found ourselves really struck by the power of even the most incomplete fragments. Mentally filling-in the lost sections of this visual narrative engaged us in this mythical world in a way that would have been unlikely if we had encountered the whole and perfect example. What was missing, or existed as a mere hint, like the fragment of a child's hand, or the tension of a flying hoof, lulled us into a half-dream state of imagination. If the beginning of our visit was a bit overshadowed with the mechanics of display, it is a testimony to the strength of the mosaics to say that we emerged from the museum in quiet wonder.

Basilica Cistern

2010-11-12T00:40:00.000-08:00

Our visit to the Basilica Cistern was a real surprise. We descended the long flight of stairs across the street from the Hagia Sophia expecting something touristy: a platform with a single photo opportunity where a huge crowd would take turns snapping away before exiting through the gift shop. Instead we entered a hushed, cathedral-like interior with a long, winding walkway that disappeared into the darkness of this vast space. The Basilica Cistern is a strange, grand piece of architecture. It seems unbelievable that it was designed for an unseen, utilitarian purpose. Built over fifteen hundred years ago under the heart of old Istanbul, the whole volume of the space was originally filled with water, a reservoir for citizens under Emperor Justinian. The columns and capitals vary in age, material and style, coming from many different old buildings and repurposed to support the cistern vault. We walked along the raised walkway, which loops through a space that originally held one hundred thousand tons of water, and has a footprint larger than that of the Hagia Sophia. Now there are just a few feet of water covering the floor and reflecting the arches. Schools of carp swim around the column bases, among them ghostly-gray old timers. Apparently, these fish eventually lose their pigmentation if they aren't exposed to sunlight. We walked far into the depths of the cistern where two colossal-size medusa heads, recycled by the builders, were used as base blocks to support columns. After the fall of Constantinople, knowledge of this cistern was lost. Ottomans living on the land above the cistern would unknowingly tap into its vaulted ceiling when digging wells for their gardens, accessing a miraculous supply of fresh water. Eventually the cistern was rediscovered and restored. It became a museum just twenty-five years ago.

Basilica Cistern

Carp in the shallow water covering the cistern floor

Ceiling Vault

One of the Medusa heads used as column base blocks

View back to the entrance

Shane in the Basilica Cistern

Princes' Island

2010-11-11T00:10:00.000-08:00

Princes' Islands are in the Sea of Marmara, about an hour-and-a-half ferry ride from Istanbul. A cheap and easy day escape from the city, we've been twice already to Büyükada, the Big Island of the group. Princes' Islands traffic is pedestrian, horse phaetons, and bicycles, which is a great break from the car-dodging of Istanbul. The islands got their name from their use as residences for exiled royalty. Not a bad way to go. All of them seem to have lovely wooden gingerbread houses and great gardens. We will have to explore more. On both excursions to Büyükada, our goals were simple: make the long uphill walk through the town to St George's Monastery on the peak, and have a good lunch.

On the first visit, we made the walk up, which takes several hours and culminates in an extremely steep climb up the cobble stoned monastery road. White ribbons are tied in tree branches all along this road, representing prayers said for children. At the top is a grand view and the BEST köfte we have had yet. Maybe it was the exercise, or the setting, or the Efes beer, but we wish this outdoor cafe with the wood fired grill was closer to home. The Greek church on the site is a golden chapel to which van-loads of old Greek ladies make pilgrimages (the pilgrimage van must be the exception to the no-cars rule.) On that first visit, we were tired enough to hire a horse drawn phaeton to take us back down to the ferry. On the second visit we decided to get smart and hire the carriage for the trip up, and then walk down. But, we have to admit, we missed the climb and the long, slow look it provides of the island's gorgeous summer houses. On that trip we had an incomparable fish lunch at Kiya, a seaside shack, just past the long row of glassed-in tourist restaurants. Hoping to be back there soon for more of their pickled sea bean meze, grilled whole fish and sweet hospitality.

View to Princes' Islands from the ferry.

Shane with the purple bougainvillea flowers and palm trees that overflow the gardens on Princes' Islands.

The community center of Büyükada(!)

Many of the grand old wooden buildings here are in need of restoration.

A fabulous mansion undergoing a very sensitive and deserved restoration.

One of the many large wooden summer homes on Büyükada.

Walking through the town and up to the peak gave us many lovely garden views down the slope of the island.

View from the peak. The red-roofed building on the hillside at left is the ruins of the enormous wooden Greek orphanage. The land in the background is the outskirts of Istanbul.

Köfte with Julia's brother Paul in the outdoor cafe at the peak.

Park near the peak.

A ride in the phaeton.

Lunch with our friend Colleen on the coast.

Having coffee and waiting for the ferry home.

Food: a first installment

2010-11-10T00:35:00.000-08:00

Before we came here, everyone we spoke with who had traveled to Istanbul talked about the food, and what a fantastic, diverse cuisine it is. Since we arrived, we have been eating our way through the city, using the new book Istanbul Eats as our guide. Written by two American expats, and based on their website, www.istanbuleats.com, this little book is our food bible. It heavily explores and critiques our kind of fare: street food and cheap eats.

One of the greatest things about the commonly available cuisine is that it is all real food. Even Turkish "fast food" like pide (Turkish pizza) is fresh, unprocessed food. It is possible to find a bag of chips, but more likely to see street vendors selling grilled corn on the cob, roasted chestnuts, salted cucumbers, small paper bags of hazelnuts, chickpea pilaf, and grilled fish sandwiches with onions and parsley. Carts all over the city make fresh squeezed juices to order using these large-levered, hand-operated juicers that can reduce four pomegranates into a cup right before your eyes. Vegetables are at every meal and, while it is hard to eat strictly vegetarian because of the use of meat to flavor many dishes, the portions of meat are usually smaller and tempered by fresh vegetables. Being by the sea, there is also lots of fresh, simply prepared and affordable seafood. We had a great seafood meal with shellfish meze (appetizers,) salads and grilled fresh fish for fifteen dollars per person. Boats docked by the Galata bridge sell grilled fish sandwiches for a mere three dollars.

Below is just a taster. Some of our favorite foods will have their own entries - like kaymak for Shane (an unsweetened clotted cream-like substance made from domesticated water buffalo milk,) and midya dolma for Julia (sauteed mussels stuffed back into their shells with cinnamon spiced rice.) This first entry does touch on some of the classics: kabab, köfte (grilled meatballs,) eggplant in all its manifestations, yogurt, fish and pide.

Cağ Kebabi is spit roasted in the ubiquitous huge döner mass, but the meat is stabbed onto a skewer and cut off in chunks, rather than shaved like döner kabab.

The wood fire roasting the horizontal döner spit of lamb.

Starting at the top clockwise: tomato, cucumber and parsley salad, homemade yogurt, red pepper meze, and lentil soup.

Fresh grilled fish is available in the many Balikçisi (fish restaurant)

Meze from top left: the last bits of a pickled seaweed salad, purslane and yogurt, green salad and hot cheese torpedoes.

Köfte, the grilled meatballs served everywhere here, along with eggplant and yogurt, and the most commonly available alcohol, Efes beer.

Pide, the Turkish pizza made in wood fired ovens and served with lettuce and tomato.
The crust is finished with a rub of butter. $3.

Iskender kebap: spit roasted lamb over bread cubes with tomato sauce which is then oven-fired and finished with browned butter and a side dollop of yogurt. Yum.

Shane with a fresh pomegranate juice.

Our food bible, available at www.istanbuleats.com

Blue Mosque

2010-11-09T07:27:00.000-08:00

The blue Isnik tiles covering the huge interior of the Sultanahmet Camii have prompted the commonly used name, Blue Mosque. It was built by the Ottomans more than a thousand years after the current Hagia Sophia, and only a few hundred yards of park separate them. It is massive, with a huge dome, supported by four of the largest columns we have ever seen. Jokingly referred to as the "elephant legs," these columns are hard to see past at first. But we've been many times already with our various visitors, in part because it is both central and free, and with each visit we are more taken by the Sultanahmet Camii. The number of lamp-chains transecting the space seem a denser web than in any other mosque, but the excess itself is visually fascinating. The only mosque in Istanbul to have six minarets, it is easy to spot on the skyline. Sultan Ahmed was criticized for building a mosque with the same number of minarets as was in the Ka'aba in Mecca, so he solved this by paying for a seventh minaret to be erected in Mecca. Sultanahmet Camii is an active mosque, so visitors remove their shoes to enter, cover or uncover their heads (depending on gender,) and are kicked out five times a day for prayer. Considered a lesser work of architecture by those in the know, and often very crowded with bus loads of tourists dashing in and out, it is still a surprisingly restful place to visit, and just gets more interesting the longer we look.

Looking across the Bosphorus at the Sultanahmet Camii

One of the six minarets

We love the crazy trails of chain filling the volume of the interior at the Blue Mosque.

The traditional oil in the glass lamps has been replaced with electric bulbs.

One of the four huge columns that dominate the interior and support the dome.

Shane standing beside the "elephant leg."

Movie Mondays: Neighborhood Sound Scape

2010-11-08T08:45:00.000-08:00

Istanbul has the most amazing sound scape. We have been taking some short movies on our little camera, trying to capture some of the sounds of the city. We hope to post these sound portraits on Mondays.

Of course, the call to prayer, which happens five times a day, is the dominant aural experience here. Istanbul is a very hilly city, and full of active mosques. Often we hear calls from many different mosques bouncing off the hills, floating over the water, and mingling with the other street sounds. Our small neighborhood has three mosques: one at the top of our hill, one at the bottom, and one that is just a hundred yards away. This video records the mingling of the three calls, along with our neighborhood rooster, a squeaking clothesline, men walking to the mosque, and the other sounds right outside our living room window.