So I went to Turkey last winter break with 6.5 days in Istanbul and 2.5 days in Cappodocia, and I should have wrote this blog earlier. But I’m an insanely lazy guy, and haven’t really started my writing until mid summer. Anyway, memory won’t easliy fade away as the so called ‘history’ in Istanbul, I would say even now I can still vibe with the city despite I’m miles away.
The vibe is not always good though. Istanbul is like your dick-head boyfriend: He is a 100% asshole, but has a really nice dick work, and you do miss it time to time. It’s a 6/10 or less. No I’m no saying it’s no worth going. Just the opposite, you should definitely visit it one time (for the sake of the dick work). Imagine you are visiting a national park with really great view but with a really really awful management, and that will be roughly the experience in Istanbul.
My favorite place is Galata bridge. As you wander from Galata to the old city, houses and mosques materialize and vanish like fleeting history on the hill, with Hagia Sophia and the Topkapi Palace sitting above, just like Justinian and Suleiman sitting on their floating thrones. The cries of seagulls echoes with the salty bitterness and nostalgia of the sea, soar above the aimless folks fishing over the Golden Horn. The slightly polluted air is perfumed with the smoke of cigarettes, blurs the skyscrapers across the Bosporus Strait as well as the the history imagination and reality. But as you dive into the city, the noise, smell, crowd, traffic and of course the over-priced tourist sites that you have to go and get butchered make everything so overwhelming that you just want to escape. The city doesn’t feel dynamic and young, but rather overburdened by its creamly history and sad politics.
The truth is, Turks doesn’t show their history really well. They are really pround of the 1453 conquest (yet the death of Byzantine imo is the 4th crusade and Turks are just the ones who finish it), but if you want to know islamic culture and the glory of Ottoman Empire, well you might struggle a little bit. The ‘royal palace’ is the pretty decent even though they get some sketchy stuff such as Mossy’s stuff and David’s sword, but definitely not foreigner friendly. I only know two Sultans after this visit, Mehmmad the Conqueror and Suleiman the Magnificent. I even struggle to find the history of the Ottoman Empire (there must be a place but I was so dumb that I cannot find it). Where are the Turks come from? What happens after the 1500s? And why it collapsed in 1900s? In the end, I have to rely on Youtube videos in this Magnificent city.
Another sad thing is Turkey is becoming more and more conservative. The president mini Putin Erdogan has been dominating the politics for 20 years and did some shit moves like making Hagia Sophia a mosque again (it has been a public museum by the order of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk to show his will on secularism). But everything is moving to nationalism and islamism these years. Flags of Turkey and Ataturk flying everywhere, which must be too cringe to me. I just have a bad feeling on that (idk feels like I see Xi Jinping’s face everywhere in China).
With so many debating pros and cons, you finally realize one thing: The great Istanbul lives in your imagination, shaped by the stories and legends long passed and twisted. The familiar you get to the history, the more lovely the city becomes. But you always know history is merely an illusion and you are standing on the solid Republic of Turkey. Maybe the city is never great at all, the heroes in the acient times doesn’t show up frequently, it is the folk life that materialized the city. But just as you think like that, you hear the distant sound of prays from countless mosques and decided to climb to the roof.
Then you suddenly see people pushing carts brimming with light bulbs and tangled wires up the hill of Galata, the crowded ferries gliding under the bridge breaking into the spiderwebs weaved by the numerous fishing rods, the gigantic crimson Turkish flag waves against the dim blue air filled with snarls and Salah, the rusted chains laying atop the Golden Horn beneath a sky ignited by countless torches flaming at midnight, the masked angels perching indifferently on the ceiling of Hagia Sophia witnessing the most devout prayers and the most violent bloodshed, and every tearful and cheering moment, every wicked and heroic word, every honorable and humble individual—everything caught in the invisible yet unstoppable current of time, all at once.
Then you forgive everything in this city, in the city, wondering ‘maybe there is magic in the air’. And this is the Istanbul.
One last thing, about the title, perhaps you have heard of this song, Istanbul (Not Constantinople).
Istanbul was Constantinople Now it’s Istanbul, not Constantinople Been a long time gone, Constantinople Now it’s Turkish delight on a moonlit night
This is wrong, since the city actually changed its name from Constantinople to Istanbul in 1930 by Artaturk as a remark of reformation. Before that, even during the time of Ottoman empire, it was call Constantinople (Istanbul is always a common name among folks meaning ‘the city’). The ‘Is’ in Istanbul doesn’t mean ‘Islamic’. I don’t know that until I was there.
Oh I went to cappadocia as well, and it’s amazing! I didn’t take the airbloon ride though since it’s looks too stupid and overpriced (you would get some champine and a certificate after the ride wtf is that). The real attraction is the acient cave church (or cloister) and underground cites. And of course its unique geographic feature. You may encounter some unexpected undeveloped acient ruins in the wild. My favorite is this rock mountain (tho it’s really well developed) I found during hiking. It IS excatly the Casterly Rock in the A Song of Ice and Fire!
