And before you can say knife another month is over again ... Hard to believe, but it has already been more than five weeks that I occupied my small island home for the first time. 'Home' – it already feels like that! Renovation finished so far and I dutifully established routine life again, i.e. sitting and writing my thesis.
Monday, February 21. 2011
Going local in Istanbul?!
by Kristina Kamp
Granted, but since there is not much up anyway on this 5 x 5 km2 spot on the map, the latter one has, admittedly, not been exceedingly difficult.
This place, for sure, is its own micro-cosmos. Resting in the warm midday-sun on a stone at the top hill this becomes strikingly apparent. Having the whole island just down to my feet with the monstrous, endless skyline of Istanbul only a few kilometers away at the same time is kind of surreal. (We don't even have an ATM here...)
Hence, I can hardly recall the feeling I used to have when starting out in this city. Living in Istanbul's center at that time, with my workplace far outside, my way to office took a good 1.5 hours – if there was NO traffic! I used to change the vehicle three, sometimes four times, if I was too late to catch the service bus on the way. I hated it! When entering the office door I was already fed-up for the day. And when reaching home in the evening I was usually done with the world, out of use, finished.
It sounds strange thus, but though my social life was rather restricted at that time, that 1.5 years were definitely those of which I would say I discovered this city best. Never before and never after in my life, did I come across more different places and people, lifestyles and worldviews.
Maslak for example, Istanbul's financial district, is such a place. I would have never put a foot in there if I would not have had to. A Manhattan-like skyline, domicile of the big brands, bank houses and shopping malls, huge highways, endless streams of creeping traffic, noise … – Mercy to the one who gets lost here!
Nor would I have had the chance to look into the life of Istanbul's upper class community. Luxury hotels and restaurants up the Bosporus shores, where the water taps are gold-plated and where the crust is cut off from the bread served in the cocktails, where the business meetings and prestigious weddings are staged. These are the places where Maslak's people can simply 'buy' some hours of space and silence.
I doubt also that I would have really undertaken that depressive visits to Istanbul's outskirts, those districts of which no one really knows the names, where ten-thousands of people struggle for life in self-constructed tin shacks, where one can hardly access drinkable water, where no bus goes …
Some 'lucky' ones here make it one day to one of those soulless, government-payed, jerry-built, mass housing areas (Which, in fact, differ from it's expensive middle-class variant only in so far as the latter one has an additional security fence and a fitness studio on the roof...)
No, my Istanbul life would have probably happened in some few central districts. Beyoglu, respectively, where students go out for beer and shopping, where the parties and activists have their offices and the Sundays are filled with demonstrations in row, where the old Greek and Armenian buildings still impress with their run-down, thus giving evidence of how Istanbul's life looked like 100 years ago. Squatted today by inter-country immigrants, through increasingly stratified by gentrificating students, artists and intellectuals, this can create a crazy mix of people and lifestyles in just one street. Admittedly, three of the five flats I inhabited in the last 3,5 years were located in this district.
Of course, I would have taken my foreign visitors to Sultanahmet and the Bazaar quarters, the touristic hot spots, where sunburned tourists stroll through the streets with travel guides, where every shop seller knows five languages and has a dozen of relatives in Germany.
And at some beautiful weekend I would have jumped on the mini-bus to the Black Sea Shore or to the Belgrade Forest to spend some free-time.
But beyond? Already Bostanci at the Asian side, where the pugs and other miniature dogs wear panned coats when accompanying their sunglassy owners to shopping and Gloria's Jeans, where all the psychotherapists are located - would have mostly been out of my radius.
Hence, last not least, it was certainly my job which made me discovering the city. So I got to know its chances and opportunities, I also got face with it's borders, it's get-nos. In somehow, I learned how to use it, i.e. when, how, and what fore, where to go to...
But that's my story. And in somehow a very privileged one. Hence, I doubt that the Kempinski-guy will ever enjoy a stroll through the shabby backstreets along the Golden Horn, discovering it's old synagogues and churches. The single mother of 6 children in the shantytown has surely other things to think of that a trip to the Bosporus shore, and if she would hardly be able to pay it.
However, is there a general need to be that mobile in this city? Certainly not. Since usually every neighborhood includes everything it needs for survival (i.e.: a pharmacy, a small supermarket, a grocer, a repairmen, a tailor) routine life can usually be arranged in front of the door. (Online shopping rates high among Istanbulians, either!) Hence, whether someone starts looking beyond that horizon, discovers others lifestyles and opportunities, is a matter of interest, and all too often of money.
Istanbul certainly allows, and sometimes forces, everyone to live in one's own way. Me, for now, I decided to be a bit more immobile. I am happy with that.
Granted, but since there is not much up anyway on this 5 x 5 km2 spot on the map, the latter one has, admittedly, not been exceedingly difficult.
This place, for sure, is its own micro-cosmos. Resting in the warm midday-sun on a stone at the top hill this becomes strikingly apparent. Having the whole island just down to my feet with the monstrous, endless skyline of Istanbul only a few kilometers away at the same time is kind of surreal. (We don't even have an ATM here...)
Hence, I can hardly recall the feeling I used to have when starting out in this city. Living in Istanbul's center at that time, with my workplace far outside, my way to office took a good 1.5 hours – if there was NO traffic! I used to change the vehicle three, sometimes four times, if I was too late to catch the service bus on the way. I hated it! When entering the office door I was already fed-up for the day. And when reaching home in the evening I was usually done with the world, out of use, finished.
It sounds strange thus, but though my social life was rather restricted at that time, that 1.5 years were definitely those of which I would say I discovered this city best. Never before and never after in my life, did I come across more different places and people, lifestyles and worldviews.
Maslak for example, Istanbul's financial district, is such a place. I would have never put a foot in there if I would not have had to. A Manhattan-like skyline, domicile of the big brands, bank houses and shopping malls, huge highways, endless streams of creeping traffic, noise … – Mercy to the one who gets lost here!
Nor would I have had the chance to look into the life of Istanbul's upper class community. Luxury hotels and restaurants up the Bosporus shores, where the water taps are gold-plated and where the crust is cut off from the bread served in the cocktails, where the business meetings and prestigious weddings are staged. These are the places where Maslak's people can simply 'buy' some hours of space and silence.
I doubt also that I would have really undertaken that depressive visits to Istanbul's outskirts, those districts of which no one really knows the names, where ten-thousands of people struggle for life in self-constructed tin shacks, where one can hardly access drinkable water, where no bus goes …
Some 'lucky' ones here make it one day to one of those soulless, government-payed, jerry-built, mass housing areas (Which, in fact, differ from it's expensive middle-class variant only in so far as the latter one has an additional security fence and a fitness studio on the roof...)
No, my Istanbul life would have probably happened in some few central districts. Beyoglu, respectively, where students go out for beer and shopping, where the parties and activists have their offices and the Sundays are filled with demonstrations in row, where the old Greek and Armenian buildings still impress with their run-down, thus giving evidence of how Istanbul's life looked like 100 years ago. Squatted today by inter-country immigrants, through increasingly stratified by gentrificating students, artists and intellectuals, this can create a crazy mix of people and lifestyles in just one street. Admittedly, three of the five flats I inhabited in the last 3,5 years were located in this district.
Of course, I would have taken my foreign visitors to Sultanahmet and the Bazaar quarters, the touristic hot spots, where sunburned tourists stroll through the streets with travel guides, where every shop seller knows five languages and has a dozen of relatives in Germany.
And at some beautiful weekend I would have jumped on the mini-bus to the Black Sea Shore or to the Belgrade Forest to spend some free-time.
But beyond? Already Bostanci at the Asian side, where the pugs and other miniature dogs wear panned coats when accompanying their sunglassy owners to shopping and Gloria's Jeans, where all the psychotherapists are located - would have mostly been out of my radius.
Hence, last not least, it was certainly my job which made me discovering the city. So I got to know its chances and opportunities, I also got face with it's borders, it's get-nos. In somehow, I learned how to use it, i.e. when, how, and what fore, where to go to...
But that's my story. And in somehow a very privileged one. Hence, I doubt that the Kempinski-guy will ever enjoy a stroll through the shabby backstreets along the Golden Horn, discovering it's old synagogues and churches. The single mother of 6 children in the shantytown has surely other things to think of that a trip to the Bosporus shore, and if she would hardly be able to pay it.
However, is there a general need to be that mobile in this city? Certainly not. Since usually every neighborhood includes everything it needs for survival (i.e.: a pharmacy, a small supermarket, a grocer, a repairmen, a tailor) routine life can usually be arranged in front of the door. (Online shopping rates high among Istanbulians, either!) Hence, whether someone starts looking beyond that horizon, discovers others lifestyles and opportunities, is a matter of interest, and all too often of money.
Istanbul certainly allows, and sometimes forces, everyone to live in one's own way. Me, for now, I decided to be a bit more immobile. I am happy with that.
Trackbacks
Trackback specific URI for this entry
No Trackbacks
