Istanbul
Looking out the window of my Turkish Airlines flight as it landed at Ataturk International, I distinctly remember three thoughts crossing my mind: 1) wow, there are a lot of ships in the Sea of Marmara, 2) wow, there are a lot of mosque minarets rising out of the hyper-dense urban settlements and 3) there is city everywhere. After clearing customs and immigration, I was greeted by my girlfriend and her father and promptly whisked off into the wonders of Istanbul rush hour traffic. Surveying my surroundings as the car jockeyed for space in a free-for-all expressway entrance,things at first seemed quite familiar: the cars, the roadway and the infrastructure all seemed very European. And yet, the scene that lay before me certainly wasn’t: sprawling away from the roadside was a haphazardly constructed urban density like I’d never seen.
After China, I thought I’d seen the gamut of overwhelming urban vistas. But this was something completely different. It’s just mountains of city. Heaps of city. Nothing but city. Looking out at my surroundings (which I had ample time to do given that we were in heavy traffic), I saw undulating waves of urbanity completely covering the vista to the extent that it was difficult to make out any space that was not covered by low-rise tenements,shacks,warehouses, satellite dishes, pulsating highways,tangled power lines or junk-crowded lots. I was pretty overwhelmed by this scene, urbanization and development buff that I am. My girlfriend’s father probably thought he’d just picked up a mute, because I was too awe-struck to say much.
Zoning is, obviously, not to popular in the great urban sprawl of Istanbul. Four-to-five floor buildings were built beneath, on top, beside and through each other, with windows facing in numerous directions. As we gradually made our way into the central area of the city, things only got more interesting. Huge and ancient walls suddenly sprung up beside the roadway, and soon I got a glimpse of the famous Bosporus as the road snaked along its shores. I remember it was around this point that I started thinking 1) what the f***, I’m in Istanbul! and 2) this city exudes the sort of exoticism that most other ‘exotic’ places could only dream of.
Istanbul was like all worlds crashed into one. Huge, sprawling, bustling, chaotic and dirty, but also beautiful, stunning and impeccably clean where you least expect it to be. I won’t even bother to describe the wealth of architectural gems: pick your major Islamo-Judeo-Christian religion,historical kingdom or Eurasian cultural group, and chances are you can find a material ode to it somewhere in this city. It has European cafe culture vibrancy smothered in Asian traffic sensibilities; a world-savvy middle-class swerving around beggars dancing between belching buses; wild bazaars and winding, quiet leafy streets. The infrastructure is as shiny and new as it is overwhelmed and crumbling. Watching the sun set behind the Golden Horn, silhouetting the mosques like a postcard couldn’t even manage, I watched the bridges pulsating with glistening traffic and pedestrians, the water rushing with ferries, and just soaked it all up. This is what I live for.
During my time in Istanbul, we were blessed with brilliant, smog-free blue sky and sunshine, perfect for the scenery-soaking I’m so fond of. We wandered through neighbourhoods, relaxed around Turkish coffee, took ferries across the Bosporus, chatted around tea, visited astounding historical relics, enjoyed some coffee on a rooftop terrace on a bustling pedestrian street. Hmm, did I mention that caffeine was a major part of my experience in Istanbul? So was the call to prayer, which, emitted from a number of mosques probably in the thousands, tends to make itself heard. We even took a decrepit motorboat ‘ferry’ across the Golden Horn, on which the operator encouraged me to stand up and take pictures of the surrounding sights. Given the rate at which the boat was rocking, if I had followed his advice he would likely have had to fish me out of the Golden Horn.
One thing that impressed me throughout my time in Istanbul was that it came across as bright, cheery and pretty damn clean considering the chaos that visits its streets daily. On our ferry tour of the Bosporus (which I’m told has been significantly cleaned up in the past few years), the beauty of the scenery would put most ‘developed’ world cities to complete fucking shame. Now, I don’t usually swear on this blog, but I feel the need to emphasize just how impressive this was. A city of untold millions in a ‘developing’ country managing, for the most part, not to live in its own filth. I know more than a few places that could benefit from that approach.
Needless to say, I was pretty impressed with Istanbul. I’m sure, like all gigantic cities, living there has its drawbacks, dangers and frustrations, particularly for the millions who are not as fortunate as I. But as a destination, the city does not disappoint. I’d nearly given up on the possibility of urban form originality, with so many ‘exotic’ cities revealing themselves to be nothing more than a few historic structures smothered in ugly highrises, shopping malls and general urban development that makes tacky look good. Yes, Istanbul has some ugly highrises and shopping malls. Yes, it has Starbucks (honestly, who cares?). Yes, it has about twenty times more cars than it knows what to do with. Yes, Istanbul is in the throes of ‘modernization’, like other major cities around the world desperate to build out of their perceived backwardness. Yet in Istanbul, thankfully, it would appear that this perceived ‘backwardness’ is not equated with its rich architectural and cultural heritage. The city is not ‘preserved’ because it is poor, but rather because it has a sense of style. The city’s timeless layers are something to be celebrated, to be proudly displayed to the world. For once, here is a city that knows where all the disposable, shoddy development belongs: the suburbs. In an age when urban development trends are of the sort to make anyone who isn’t blind recoil in disgust, Istanbul dares to be different. Standing on a bridge over the Golden Horn facing the minarets and domes of Sultanamet at dusk, it’s hard not to think that,despite all the nonsense, the world can still be a pretty wondrous place.
And now, after all that, here are the pictures.
