Catch up: back to Istanbul.

This morning I woke up in Manhattan. My friend Steve and his girlfriend Janet have been kind enough to take me in as I start to adjust to life in America. They've just moved into a new apartment but have found room to put down a full sized mattress which is the most comfortable place I've slept in quite some time.

The nice thing about travelling westward around the world from North America is that you get the interminable flight across the Pacific out of the way straight off. The flight across the Atlantic takes about half the time, which makes for a much more reasonable, thought still quite long, travel day. On the flight from Amsterdam through Dublin to JFK, I kept checking my watch to find the sun still shining ever later into the night that would have been falling were I still in Europe. The time difference is only six hours, but my body is still a little confused today.

Annie flew home from Berlin last Friday, May 4th and I spent another couple days in Berlin before heading to Amsterdam. There's so much writing I must catch up on, so Annie and my last night in Berlin and my time in Amsterdam will have to wait for a bit.

First, I'd like to return to Istanbul from a month ago...

Turkey is two and a half hours ahead of India, from which I'd so recently arrived on April 4th. My first two early mornings in Istanbul were spent walking deserted streets and watching the city awake and go to work. None of the tourists joints in Sultanahmet are open before eight, which means I had to walk to a more local section of the city before I found a cafe from which to watch the Turks head to work.

One of the remarkable things about Istanbul is that all the old, historic landmarks that still exist are themselves built over the ruins of even older structures. For instance, immediately adjacent to where the Blue Mosque stands today are the barest remnants of the enormous Hippodrome, the popular entertainment center of Roman times. All that remain are a few monuments and obelisks that stood in the center. The many sights that do still exist create quite an ambitious itinerary for the prospective tourist.

The central neighborhood of Sultanahmet has been the center of Byzantium, Constantanople, and Istanbul. In addition to the Hagia Sophia, the Basilica Cistern, and the Blue Mosque, it also contains the Topkapı Palace, the Archeology Museum, and a Mosaics Museum. The Hagia Sophia, "Church of the Holy Wisdom", was built under Emperor Justinian I in the sixth century AD. By the time it was converted into a museum in 1935, it had been burned twice, reconstructed, converted to a mosque, and restored from the toll of time. The scale of the church/mosque is immense--The main chamber dwarfs the visitors that stand at ground level, gazing up at the painted dome. The second level that surrounds the main chamber is reached by a long ramp circling upwards and contains the famous Christian mosaics.

The Basilica Cistern, also constructed in the sixth century to supply Constantinople with water, is another gigantic marvel. Marble columns hold the roof nine meters above the floor of the subterranean room that measures 143 by 65 meters. A wooden walkway has been built in a circuit around the cistern for the benefit of sightseers. Erie acoustics, dripping water, and dramatic lighting make it one of the more memorable sights.

The Sultanahmet Mosque, or Blue Mosque, so known because of the blue tiles that decorate the interior of the dome, sits a short distance from the Haghia Sophia. It's construction in the early 17th century drew criticism because its six minarets were seen as an arrogant rival to the mosque in Mecca. Topkapı Palace, perched above the Bosporous at the very eastern extent of Sultanahment, is a sprawling complex that was the center of the Ottoman government until the 19th century. It is a unique form of museum where the historic artefacts used by the Sultanate are found in displays spread around the palace.

Further west of Sultanahment, the Bazaar Quarter holds the Grand Bazaar, the Spice Bazaar, and the New Mosque all on a hill that slopes up slightly from the Golden Horn to the north. Bounding Istanbul even further to the west are what remain of the Theodosian Walls that stretch for 6670 meters, constructed to protect Constantinope from land attacks. Theodosius II had this two-tiered wall built from 412 to 422 AD when the city outgrew the previous wall built by Constantine The Great. Just inside these walls is the Chora Church or Kariye Museum which holds some of the best preserved frescoes and mosaics in Istanbul, created in the 14th century.

Turkish identity is a complicated issue--of which the current political uncertainty is a symptom. Ankara--the capital--and Istanbul seem more like isolated bits of the modern Turkish Republic's secular legacy, set amidst a more traditionally focused nation. Although, technically, I spent a week in Turkey, I think my experience was a very narrow view of the broader Turkish culture.

Half Asian, Wholly European

A colony named Byzantion was founded on the land of present-day Istanbul in 667 BC by an Athenian named Byzas. Placed between Thrace and the Balkans to the west and Anatolia to the east, the region's history seems defined by almost incessant conflict. By the time Alexander the Great took Byzantion in 334 BC, it had already lived under three different foreign rulers: Lydian, Persian, and Athenian.

Byzantium came under Roman control in 64 BC and served as an important administrative center for the eastern parts of the empire until Constantine the Great moved his capital there from Rome in 330 AD. The city, renamed New Rome, was more commonly called Constantinople. Constantine's successor divided the empire between his two sons in 395 AD and when the western half fell to the Europeans in 476 AD, Constantinople became the sole center of Roman power.

Aside from the fifty-eight year period when the Latins of the Fourth Crusade controlled it, Constantinople remained free, albeit in decline until 1453. The Ottomans had been chipping away at Byzantium possessions to the east since Osman I declared their independence in 1301. On May 29th, 1453 Sultan Mehmet II finally took Constantinople and begin rebuilding what he had just took so much time to destroy. Instead of starting from scratch, many of the old Byzantine churches were converted to mosques and still exist in roughly their original proportions today.

The Ottomans controlled Constantinople with widely varying levels of competence until the Sultanate was abolished in 1922 with the declaration of the secular Turkish republic, led by Mustafa Kemal Pasa, also known as Ataturk (Father of the Turks). The issue of a secular republic ruling a Muslim majority is a large issue for modern-day Turkey. The first few pages of the Turkish Daily News normally contain at least two stories about government conduct in relation to religious beliefs.

Istanbul feels like a European city, not only because of all the European tourists, but because the buildings are well maintained, the streets are clean, and the people have a sophisticated fashion sense. The cleanliness was a pleasant shock after ten weeks in Asia.

Istanbul stradles the south end of the Bosporus, the waterway that connects the Black Sea to the Sea of Marmara. Central Istanbul, which holds the highest concentration of historical sights, sits on the western side.

I stayed in Sultanahmet, a district built over and around some of the oldest pieces of Byzantine and Ottoman architecture. After a bit of a fiasco where I found that the hotel I had chosen no longer existed, I checked in to a small, family run hostel literally in the shadow of the Haghia Sofia, or Church of Holy Wisdom. The Blue Mosque was a mere two hundred yards further south, and the Topkapi Palace, overlooking the Bosporus, just a little further to the east. The Bazar Quarter is immediately west of Sultanahmet and an inlet called the Golden Horn separates this section of Istanbul from the busy Beyoglu district to the north.