The cats of Istanbul

On my final day in Istanbul I headed directly to the Topkapı Palace, and stayed there for four gloriously lost hours examining the beautiful mosaics and coloured tiles patterned on every surface. Inside the Privy Chamber I found various dubious relics, including David’s sword, Moses’ staff, and another of Prophet Muhammed’s footprints, which, I noted, looked considerably larger than its counterpart in the Museum of Turkish and Islamic Art yesterday. But the real treasures were to be found in the Calligraphy room: finely illuminated panels by the great Kadıasker Mustafa İzzet Efendi, the composer, flautist, poet, and statesman who had painted the eight enormous calligraphic panels in the Aya Sofya, measuring 7.5 metres in diameter and with pen strokes in gold paint of 35cm in width. Kadıasker Mustafa İzzet painted over 200 Hilya, word-portraits, of the Prophet Muhammed, and the ones displayed were utterly exquisite. One was translated, and whilst the penmanship was superb, the description of the Prophet was unremarkable: “He was neither tall nor short, with hair neither straight nor curly, and rather large hands and feet..."

The calligraphic panels of Aya Sofya. Photo by The Marathon Snail.

Next I tackled the Grand Bazaar, something I had been looking forward to - well, forever - but it seemed surprisingly calm. A vendor told me that Istanbul was quiet, and that there had been very few European tourists since the Atatürk airport attacks in June and the failed coup last month, which was heavily protested by the Turkish people. I thought of my early morning starts, when I’d shared the city with only the cats of Istanbul. I hadn’t had to queue for anything except the heavily-guarded security barriers at the entrance to the airport on my return home the following morning. There were many signs everywhere, on the backs of magazines, in the trams, and on the ships:

We the Turkish people. Photo by The Marathon Snail.

I asked a local what the words meant, and he loosely translated them as “We, the Turkish people, do not accept acts of terrorism”.

On the way back to my hostel I was tempted into a bar by a waiter (who didn’t have to try very hard) underneath the Galata Bridge to have a beer overlooking the Bosphorus, with the ships busying across the channel. The lines of the fishermen dropped down from the top level to the water below me, and I could see the little fishes biting at the morsels of bread. Some managed to escape with the bread intact, and, thinking of my guilty sandwich the day before, I felt happy for them. The waiter’s name was Mehmet and we had a long, pleasant chat about science, religion, and fish sandwiches. He had difficulty understanding the concept of atheism and the lack of belief in something. He thought perhaps there was an atheist Book, or that the belief was in science, although I pointed out that science and religion, far from being mutually exclusive, have historically been closely related, and in fact the some of the earliest pioneers of science and greatest scholars made their contributions in the Islamic Golden Age. He told me that the fish used in the balık ekmek sandwich I had eaten yesterday was not fresh from the Bosphorus, but had been imported from Norway, as had the ones on the seafood menu in his restaurant, he added confidentially. The fishes caught on the bridge were taken home for family consumption only. I was a little disappointed, and hoped that my sandwich had somehow been an exception. I tried to ask some fishermen whether they sold their catch to the restaurants or took them home, but I didn’t find one who understood my question. (I later learned that official fishing was out of season and that it would recommence shortly).

Fishermen on the double-layered Galata Bridge. Photo by The Marathon Snail. 

I had read in the Lonely Planet to ignore the shoe shiners if they drop their brush, as it was a scam. I was curious to see how this would work, so when I saw a brush fall carelessly to the ground just ahead of a man in front of me, I watched closely. The man slowed, pointed out the brush to the shoe shiner, and walked on. Thinking that the shoe shiner’s attempt had failed, I sped up to his pace and asked quietly, “Why did you drop your brush?” The shoe shiner merely smiled at me, and, running up to the man, put down his little stool, sat on it, and instantly had all of his brushes and waxes laid out and the polishing started before the man had even had time to look down. He was in. Not so much a scam, I thought, as an enterprising capitalisation of the initial human interaction that made it so much more difficult for the customer to refuse.

I ended my last day with a pide - a boat-shaped flatbread made with freshly-rolled white dough, and stuffed with cheese, mushrooms, and tomatoes, and baked until gooey. I ate it with a small salad and an Ayran - a salted yoghurt drink.

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More on Istanbul posts (chronological order):
A goddamn flight on a goddamn plane - karma strikes a rude man as I head to Istanbul
A sexual proposition and a dinner invitation in Istanbul, one of which I accepted - I eat menemen
The Third Continent - I accidentally go to Asia after dinner
The cats of Istanbul - exploring Istanbul