An American in Turkey

You all may or may not have heard about the string of bombings in Turkey over the past two days. If you want a detailed run down of what has happened look on cnn.com and bbc.co.uk. If you would like a complete history of the PKK (Kurdish Nationalists) and their actions over the past two years visit travel.state.gov and look at the travel page for Turkey. As for myself being affected my group has made a couple of changes to the upcoming tour schedule. Mainly we will be avoiding Kuşadarsı, which is a large port city that is an appetizing site for tourists and terrorists alike, this also means we will be bypassing the Roman site of Ephessos. So the new itinerary looks something like this:

Wed morning - leaving at 7.45am for Gallipoli and later Troy, spending the night in Altınoluk (a small beach resort on the Aegean)
Thursday - leave, see and spend night in Pergamon.
Friday - Bypass Ephessos and see Aphrodesias and spend the night in Pamukkale
Saturday - Day trip to Sardis, spend the night in Pamukkale
Sunday - Quick stop in Gordion, and then on to Ankara

I suggest taking a look at a map, because it is hard to explain the geography of the coast in a blog.

And now, if you don't mind, I'd like to step on the soap box a little bit and also give a little more background to my take on what is going on.

The PKK is a political party of Kurdish nationalists that support any and all efforts for the creation of a Kurdish Republic that includes lands in eastern, south eastern Turkey, northern Syria and northern Iraq. The group has sponsored or laid claim to several small strings of bombingsin Turkey since the large Turkish police campaign in the early nineties that wiped out a lot of its infrastructure. The current string has been claimed by a splinter sect of the PKK that appears to be highly unorganized and unsophisticated. They are targeting tourists in order to scare foreigners away from funneling money into Turkey's number one industry. Thus, this sort of thing tends to happen in some capacity or another at the very beginning and in the middle of the tourist season (april-september). Also tomorrow is the Turkish holiday that comemmorates Ataturks victory over the Greeks, and some Kurds have always felt slighted by the holiday. On top of things the cheif of staff of the Turkish military is changing hands, and as one of our supervisors explained the PKK wanted "welcome him with the appropriate fireworks".

Things have been dicey in the Middle East over the past few years as you all know, and people in Turkey specifically have felt a bit testy about everything. One thing that is not necesarrily pervasive is the carte-blanche dislike of the USA, I have gotten into conversations with a few Turks and when such subjects as my country come up it seems that the love America, but have a strong dislike of our current head of state, yet as soon as you say that you agree with them everything is peachy (of course if I happened to be a supporter of Bush I might feel bad about this, but I'm not). I have witnessed here one or two peaceful, well policed, yet agitated protest marches against the actions of the USA and Israel. To that end I have been doubly impressed by the abilities of the Turkish police forces in containing these marches and identifying suspicious materials and bomb threats. I have supreme confidence in Turkish authorities to carry out a proper investigation of the bombings and bring the perpetrators to the appropriate level of justice. Knowing that it is toursits that are being targeted, it becomes relatively easy to avoid such run ins. If you simply travel off the beaten path a bit and stay out of tourist traps your level of safety triples, and that is what we intend to do on this trip. That said, we will keep a close watch on the state department travel advisory, and if a threat is raised (and one would hope it would not be a knee-jerk reaction to minor incidents) more serious actions will be taken on our groups part.

OK, in all, I am safe, my group is safe, and the bombings have not drastically affected our plans. My next blog may not come until I make it to Ankara, I am unsure of my ability to connect to the internet until then. Take care all of you, and don't worry too much about me.

Wow, what a busy weekend out here. Saturday we had a relatively relaxing day on Büyükada (Greek Prinkipo, English literally "Big Island"). After and hour on a ferry we made it to this slice of paradise that really seemed like a step back in time. There are hardly any automobiles on the island, most people walk or go by horseback. We took an hour long carriage tour of the island that used to house exiled Byzantine princes and is home to a couple of well known monasteries. The small town is famous for its donduroma (turkish word for ice cream), and its elite British yacht club which is a popular place for ministers of parliament to summer. We got a friend of our tour guide to take us around the club, which was incredibly lavish. It is also known that many heads of state including Ataturk himself has spent time there.

Sunday was packed, beginning with the Koriye (Chora) Tile Museum. This relatively small Byzantine church is jam packed with beautiful mosaics that are remarkably well preserved. The church was converted to a minor mosque with the belltower taken down and replaced with a minaret. The mosaics mostly depict the lives of Mary and Jesus, with some very interesting scenes from the Gnostic gospels, one in particular showing the courting of Mary. As the story goes (Gospel of Philip) Mary was courted by one man from each of the tweleve tribes of Israel, each man brought along a staff. Whichever man's staff blossomed first, she would marry, as it turns out Joseph was the lucky guy. While this seems a little silly, one thing it does do is heighten the divinity of Mary and Joseph, as not only was their conception immaculate, their courtship even had divine elements.

After the museum I led a small group up to Edirne Kapı, the main gate of the Theodosian Walls. This is the point at which Fatih Mehmet first entered the city as conqueror in 1453 and the gate through which each Ottoman Sultan would pass after he was crowned at Eyüp. This was possibly the most adventurous site so far on the trip. In order to climb to the main tower we had to scale a set of steps that had a rather treacherous incline and were in some state of disrepair. Nonetheless we made it up and down safely, and it was certainly worth it for the breathtaking view of the city.

Next we visited the Suleymaniye Camii, the second largest Ottoman mosque in Istanbul. It was built in th 16th century by the most prolific architecht of the Islamic (and arguably the entire) world, Mimar Sinan. Sinan built nearly a hundred mosques throughout the empire and Suleymaniye is his masterpeice. It was built as an Ottoman response to Ayasofya, with a vast open space uncrowded by large columns similar to Sultanahmet. It also was a lot more peaceful than Sultanahmet in that fewer tourists visit it. The mosque also has a prolific cemetary which includes the tombs of three Sultans, including Suleyman the Magnificent and his wife Roxelana, the most famous of all the Sultans wives for having an extraordinary command of the Harem and being a political powerhouse.

In all, it was an incredibly busy weekend which began with the Beşıktaş game on Friday (if you are traveling in Europe, a football game is an absolute must, being in an American sports stadium doesn't come close), and ended with a wonderful all expenses paid dinner cruise up the Bosphorus.

I may post again before the trip down the Aegean, or I may not. In the meantime, more pictures are going up on my snapfish account, email me if you want to see them (or just post a comment with your email in the text). Also I will add to my facebook album for those of you with facebook accounts.

Topkapı Sarayı was the Imperial Palace of the Ottoman Empire for close to 400 years until the construction of Dolmabahçe Sarayı in the 18th century. It translates literally to “Palace of the Cannon Gate” it is positioned directly north of Ayasofya exactly where the Bosphorus meets the Golden Horn. It is hard to compare to other Imperial Palaces, such as Buckingham or even the White House. Its grounds are surely bigger than both, spanning three giant courtyards that are surrounded by buildings which today house many of the artifacts of the Ottoman Empire. The rooms are small and (the functional ones at least) are plainly decorated with divan couches on the outer walls and classic Ottoman tiles on the walls (mostly from Iznik). Perhaps the most exciting of these rooms was the imperial council or Divan. This neo-cabinet is not impressive in size, probably half the size of the cabinet in the White House, was the most powerful room in the world for almost 400 years. In the room there was no table, no throne, simple the couches were the sultan would sit with his grand vizier and other bureaucrats on a level playing field. While this seems odd it makes some sense, while the Ottoman emperor had an up or down vote on pretty much everything going on in the empire, he formed none of the policy and usually knew relatively little about what was going on outside the walls of the palace and therefore hardly excerised his up or down privelige. This put the much more talented (and qualified) grand viziers at the top of the political food chain.

The other main attraction of Topkapı is the treasury and reliquaries. The second courtyard houses both the wealth and the legitmacy of the empire. The current treasury exhibit houses a collection of jewels that vastly surpasses that which is housed in the Tower of London (trust me I've seen both). It is odd that a Muslim empire would pride itself on such vast quantities of jewelry and such, but when you think about it the treasury worked to legitimize the Ottomans in the face of the Western Empires, who placed a much higher value on such wealth. In this Palace that stands on the edge of east and west this portion certainly diisplays itself to the west.

The counterpart to the Treasury is the Muslim reliquary room. As protector of the caliphate (a nominal title that may or may not have been properly passed to the Ottomans) and protector of the Holy Cities, the Ottoman Empire holds in Topkapı many import Muslim artifacts. They include the sword of Muhammad and the four rightly guided caliphs as well as a letter written by the Prophet and reliquaries of his hair, teeth and dust from his tomb. This collection was made to legitimize the Turks in the eyes of its muslim counterparts to the East.

More on Ayasofya coming soon.

A note on pictures, I will try to post a bunch on Facebook soon so if you are on facebook, you don't have to email me in order to see my collection.

If you would like to view pictures from this weekend and in the future, send me an email at jdryan@uchicago.edu or post to the wall with your email address in the text.

I'm using a snapfish account which made it a lot easier to upload a lot of pics, but it is not open to the public and I have to send you a personal invitation to check them out.

More commentary coming soon...

The first sight we visited this Saturday was the Imperial Mosque of Sultan Ahmet I, also known as Sultanahmet Camii or The Blue Mosque. It is a massive mosque whose dome is only matched in height by the Ayasofya. It stands roughly 300 yards across the Hippodrome from Ayasofya. Its massive dome towers roughly 140 feet in the air with a cascade of half domes in its support structure. It has six minarets that was, and still is, highly unusual. When it was built the main mosque in Mecca only had five minarets, and thus it had to add two more after Sultanahmet was completed. Inside the walls are covered in exquisite blue Iznik tile (for which the Europeans gave it the name Blue Mosque).

The mosque still functions today, as does every mosque with the exception of Ayasofya, and is open most of the day to tourists. This is first mosque I’ve ever been inside in and I must say it left on me an impression that was much different than any comparable cathedral or church I’ve visited. While a cathedral may have several shrines and statues to different saints this, and every mosque, has only writing and floral patterns with a cavernous open space for prayer. Depictions of human beings are forbidden amongst religious Muslims because only God has the ability to create man, and any attempt to replicate such an action is an insult to his intelligence. While I don’t necessarily agree with such reasoning the function is successful, there is nothing inside this mosque to distract you from intent prayer. Even the separation of men from women is not done to nominate women as a second-class, but because if men and women could see each other during prayer it would be a distraction.

In all, Sultanahmet displays two things successfully, a majestic piece of architecture that loses none of its serene functionality.

With my bag arriving today and a big weekend of sightseeing ahead I will be using more and more Turkish nouns and placenames. So in order for you to understand the way how some things are pronounced, I am providing this little guide;

A - ah as in Hallelujah
E - ay as in bay
İ - long i as in night
I - uh or short i\u as in but
O - normal long O as in pomegranate
Ö - normal ummlau pronunciation, think German
U - long U as in boot
Ü - ew as in mute
C - hard J as in jay
Ç - ch as in chai
G - guh as in great
Ğ - silent letter, extends the vowel sounds around it
S - s as in say
Ş - sh as in shore
J - jha, like french jeton

Everything else is just lıke English.

Güle Güle!

I knew it was coming, but it isn't that bad. Yesterday we scoped out a bunch of buildings in Sultanahmet including the Blue Mosque, Ayasofya and Aya Irini. We tried to get into a concert by world renknowned Israeli composer Daniel Barenboim in the Aya Irini (for those who don't know this byzantine church outdates its sister Ayasofya by a few decades and sits on the grounds of Topkapi Palace). The standing room tickets for the concert were 50 YTL (about 35 USD), so we decided against it. So we walked to the Galata Bridge and had dinner at a fish place on the bridge. The bridge is a crazy place to eat, waiters are pushier than normal in trying to get you to sit down, kind of unsettling as an American, but it's just the wayy it is. We had a decent dinner of sea bass, but it would later prove a little disagreeable with my stomach. It's ok now though, I'm lucky to have only a minor bout with the Sultan.

As for my bag it seems the service that finds bags for BA has located it, but won't tell me where it is or when I'll get it. Regardless this is comforting news.

We might either be going to the Asian side or hanging around Besiktas. I'll update tomorrow.

Hello from Istanbul everyone! After an incredibly harried day or so of travel (let's just say heathrow wasn't the best place to fly through this weekend) I arrived at the Gumussuyu campus of Istanbul Technical University. For those of you with a map Gumussuyu is near the tip of the northern asian landmass right about where the boshporus and the golden horn meet. It is in pretty close proximity to Taksim Square (the modern business center of Istanbul) and Dolmabahce Palace, which was the imperial Ottoman residence for the last two hundred or so years of its existence. Life hear is amazing, there is almost always something to do or see and I've been getting around on a few turkish words along with some bastardized arabic, french and spanish. Yesterday we visited Ortakoy which is a small bohemian neighborhood on the shore of the bosphorus. There we did a little shopping, ate at a nice cafe and took a cruise (only 5 lira!) up the bosphorus and saw Rumeli and Andalou Hisari (two castles that stand on opposite sides of the bosphorus at its narrowest point. The Bosphorus is a fascinating body of water, almost constantly filled with large containment carriers coming from Russia. Last night we got a gootaste of two Turkish specialties, kebap and gozumilye (not sure about the spelling). Kebap as you might expect is simply roast lamb, the other is a thin baked dough with feta or yellow cheese and spinach inside (think quesadilla). Both were delicious. We topped the evening off with nargile (hookah and flavored tobacco) and tea. Today we had our first turkish lesson, which is three hours long every day.

Thats about all for now, I'll write back in a couple of days.

...Now breathe out. Ok, we all heard the news this morning about the terror plots on planes to and from Gatwick and Heathrow (which is where my stopover is, I'm starting to wish I had spent the couple extra clams to use Lufthansa) and for sure my day tomorrow will be long and boring, but at least I'm confident I will make to Istanbul eventually. To anybody who might be worrying about me, try to worry as little as possible, its not good for your health and it looks like my first post from Istanbul will come later than expected. As for worrying myself, I assure you that I am worrying more about waiting in line and finding something to do on the airplane than what most in the media/government might want me to worry about (sorry Mr. Gingrich, that WWWIII wet dream isn't coming true any time soon). Alright, so that is it for now, my next post will be from the Besiktas campus of Istanbul Technical University just north of the Golden Horn.