Istanbul's 'First of the Month Church'

"The ones for marriage are four lira; the rest are two lira," the older woman explained patiently as I surveyed the plastic takeout containers arrayed across the tables she and a few others were setting up on the sidewalk before the sun had even fully risen. Each small tub was filled with tiny colorful trinkets loosely connected in some way to the label on its lid: "araba için" (for car), "okul için" (for school), "bebek için" (for baby), and more than a dozen others.

Despite the early hour, a small trickle of people, mostly women, were already finding their way to this drab street corner around the back side of the sprawling İMÇ complex in Unkapanı, where high walls hid all but the cross atop the Ayın Biri Kilisesi.

I can say without a doubt that I've never run to church before, but not knowing whether this tradition that I'd heard about over the years would be continuing during pandemic times, I figured this way I would have gotten my morning exercise in regardless. So I pulled on long tights instead of my usual shorts, tossed a long-sleeved shirt, a T-shirt dress, and a scarf (just in case – having grown up Protestant and being nonreligious for decades, I'm never quite sure what the etiquette in an Orthodox church should be) in my running backpack, and headed out the door, catching glimpses of a rich violet and magenta sunrise between buildings in Beyoğlu and crossing the Atatürk Bridge over the Golden Horn with morning traffic on one side and fishermen lined up on the other.

The Ayın Biri Kilisesi, a Rum (Greek) Orthodox church, is best known – as its extremely literal nickname, "First of the Month Church," suggests – as a place to go on the first day of each month, to seek good fortune in some aspect(s) of your life. (Its "real" name is variously listed as Vefa Kilisesi, after the neighborhood, or Meryem Ana Kilisesi, based on one story of its origin, in which the Virgin Mary appeared in a dream to an Albanian Orthodox girl and told her that there was a holy spring underneath her family's garden and that a church should be built there.) As with many such folk traditions, actual religiosity seems to be no barrier to participation, with members of the majority Muslim population joining the city's few remaining Christians. After the year we've all had, I too figured any potential source of luck was worth giving a try.

After slipping my more-modest change of clothes on over my running kit, I selected five gold-hued trinkets from the tables outside the church, each attached to a short, brightly colored ribbon with a small safety pin: a hamsa/Hand of Fatima, başarı için (for success); a dragonfly, kariyer için (for career); a lock and key, huzur mutluluk için (for serenity and happiness); a heart, sağlık için (for health); and a slightly different heart, aşk için (for love).

Though I'm told the first-of-the-month ritual can draw hours-long lines when it fall on a (non-lockdown!) Sunday, on this Monday morning, the courtyard enclosed by the church's walls was serene. A handful of visitors sat on benches, chatting and drinking tea alongside some scattered gravestones and column capitals, while others lit candles inside a cabin-like building, or waited to get into the main church. One man walked around handing out candy, which I later learned is a show of gratitude displayed by someone whose wish made previously at Ayın Biri had been granted. 

Icons adorned the walls inside the small but prettily decorated and lovingly tended church, where a slightly bewildering array of rituals awaited. (Fortunately, I ran into a friend who'd visited previously and could provide some guidance.) From one booth, a man offered small keys for four lira each. Next were candles lined up on a stand with a slot for donations. In the corner, a priest asked me my name, then placed a heavy embroidered cloth over my head and intoned some almost inaudible words. Here and in a small chamber downstairs that also houses a holy spring said to date to the early 1700s, people paused before icons hanging on the walls. Holding up their little keys, they mimed the motion of unlocking each side of the cabinets around the images, or tracing their outlines. My nominally Catholic friend suggested I cross myself with each trinket as I moved along the line, which I did, crossing the one representing the wish I most want fulfilled in front of a few different icons for good measure.

If any of my wishes come true, I'll do as tradition holds I should and return the "blessed" key to the church, along with sweets to share with those who haven't been so lucky yet.

Epiphany on the Golden Horn

The bell began ringing out at 12:30 pm sharp, its sound carrying to the water's edge from an unseen church somewhere behind a cacophony of buildings in various states of (dis)repair. No gentle tinkle but an effortful pealing, it continued for a full five minutes as the assembled crowd shuffled a bit impatiently. As its clanking ebbed away, voices murmuring in both Turkish and Greek came to the fore and police swept the spectators to the sidelines. The Patriarch was arriving.

Every year on 6 January, Istanbul's small remaining Greek Orthodox community celebrates Epiphany, the baptism of Jesus – a day they call Theophany – at the Church of St. George in the Fener neighborhood along the Golden Horn. Following what I'm told is always a lengthy mass, the congregation processed to the nearby waterfront, where they joined the awaiting press cadre, at least one Turkish tour group, and assorted other bystanders as a drone circled overhead and small idling boats churned up the waters.

On a pier across a short stretch of water, two men in swimming briefs paced, stretched, and swung their arms. All the while they each kept a keen eye on His All-Holiness Bartholomew I, Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople, as the elderly archbishop slowly ascended a platform set up for the occasion, topped with a scroll on a stand.

My position in the crowd meant I couldn't see the movement of the Patriarch's hand, so before I knew it, the two men were in the water, racing to be the first to retrieve the wooden cross that His Holiness had tossed in as per tradition. Pointing my camera in their general direction, I clicked as fast as I could until after one had reached the cross, kissed it, and held it triumphantly aloft. It was all over so quickly; as a woman next to me laughed to her friend afterwards, "I don't even know what I took pictures of!" 

Similar ceremonies were prevented in Greece this year due to the coronavirus pandemic – in Thessaloniki, police and coast guard patrolled the waterfront to prevent them, according to the Associated Press – and both the crowds and the number of participants in Istanbul were much diminished. (Last year's event drew some 30 swimmers on a frigid day, many of whom had traveled from Greece or other Orthodox countries.) But I was pleased to have finally (after all these years!) witnessed this distinctive event, getting my renewed vows to Try More New Things^TM (2021-Style, i.e. locally) and resurrect this long-moribund blog off to a good start, at least for now...

The forgotten ruins of Bathonea

On a warm day in June 2016, I was part of a hearty band of hikers who hacked through the thick and thorny brush surrounding Istanbul's Küçükçekmece Lake to reach the largely forgotten remains of a bustling Byzantine trading port.

The ruins of Bathonea, located on the outskirts of the city far from its historic center, came as a magical surprise to me, but archaeologists have been working for a decade to uncover their secrets.

I highlighted a few of their finds in a short piece for Discover magazine's November 2017 issue: "The Secrets Beneath a Suburb."

Istanbul art madness

Art-lovers in Istanbul were spoiled for choice this fall, with the annual art fair Contemporary Istanbul changing its usual place in the calendar to coincide with the Istanbul Biennial, and dozens upon dozens of museums, galleries and artist-run spaces opening new shows at the same time.

Trying to catch them all made for an exhausting but invigorating few weeks of exhibition-hopping, during which I wrote four pieces of arts coverage:

• "Istanbul's Biggest Art Festival Branches Out to Greece," on the Istanbul Biennial and its "neighboring event" on the Greek island of Lesvos, for Lonely Planet

• "New Date, Director and Galleries Reinvigorate Contemporary Istanbul in Art Fair’s 12th Year," on the latest edition of Contemporary Istanbul, for Selections

• "This Stunning Ottoman Villa in Istanbul is Open to Visitors for the First Time with Contemporary Art Exhibition," on the Ömer M. Koç Collection exhibit at the Abdülmecid Efendi Köşkü, for Lonely Planet

• "Beauty Versus Reality – Ai Weiwei," on the world-renowned Chinese artist's first solo exhibition in Turkey, at the Sakıp Sabanci Museum, for Selections

A city and its food

Photo via Fare Magazine

The new magazine Fare, devoted to "exploring city culture through food, history, and community," chose Istanbul as the feature city for its inaugural issue, which was published this week. It's full of beautiful photography and design, and an eclectic selection of articles, including a piece by me on some of Istanbul's lesser-known sweet treats, such as the beyaz tatlı once beloved by the city's Greek, Jewish and Armenian communities and now, like the people who once ate it, largely swept away in a tide of cultural and culinary homogenization.

My piece, "Beyond Baklava," and a wealth of other stories are available in Fare Issue 1: Istanbul, on sale at independent book and magazine stores and other locations in Turkey and Europe -- and available for shipping worldwide.

Bonus photos:

Üç Şekerleme proprietor Altuğ Dörtler scooping out some beyaz tatlı for a guest (me!)

A rainbow array of sweets for sale at Üç Yıldız Şekerleme in Istanbul's Beyoğlu district

10 yıldır

A soft rain fell as people gathered in Istanbul this afternoon to once again mark the anniversary of the death of Hrant Dink. The Armenian-Turkish journalist was assassinated in front of the office of his newspaper, Agos, 10 years ago today. His family is still seeking justice for the murder.

Where the outcry over Dink's killing in 2007 spurred hope that some old wounds in Turkey might yet be healed, the country today seems more divided and damaged, as Dink's widow, Rakel, reminded in her speech with a wrenching rundown of the past decade's pain:

What has happened in the last 10 years? Oh my darling. The Malatya massacre, İskenderun, Sevag Balıkçı, Roboski, Gezi, Suruç, Diyarbakır, Sur, Mardin, Nusaybin, Cizre, Şırnak, Tahir Elçi, Ankara, July 15th, Maçka, İzmir, Gaziantep, Ortaköy, Airport attack and the war in the Middle East. Operations, terror...

The always-poignant commemoration was a bit subdued this year; under the "state of emergency" imposed since last summer's failed coup, there was no march from Taksim Square to the Agos offices in Harbiye. With Istanbul having suffered yet another horrific terror attack less than three weeks previously, security was high, with bag checks to enter the cordoned-off area in front of Agos, and both visibly armed and plainclothes police mingling amidst the crowd.

But none of this could diminish the power of the words spoken there, both those by Rakel Dink, and those earlier in the remembrance:

"We are all Turks, Armenians, Kurds, Laz, Circassian, Alevi... 

"We are in front of Agos today in these difficult times... 

"We are sustaining your voice and your struggle, but we miss you."

A death in the mahalle

The steadily falling snow that has blanketed Istanbul over the last 36 hours has brought a welcome hush to the city's noisy, jostling streets and a momentary sense of peace that has lately been in far too short of supply. But the edginess created by recent months' terrorist attacks was quick to grip my heart once again at the sound of a loud voice on the street outside my apartment building.

Cautiously looking out the window, I felt the tension in my chest immediately ease, replaced with a warm sadness at the sight of dozens of people lined up in the snow-covered street, holding their gloved hands up in prayer as an imam in a long cloak and red-and-white cap recited verses over a green coffin.

Bundled up for the minus-zero temperatures, the mourners listened quietly and still as the ruhuna fatiha was read. Afterwards, some consoled each other, touching the sides of their heads together in greeting, while others reached out to lay a hand on the coffin as the open-bed truck belonging to the municipal funeral services department slowly pulled away down the street to transport the body to its final resting place for burial. Başınız sağolsun.

Top spots in Kadıköy

Artsy, eclectic Istanbullus are flocking to the city’s once-sleepy Asian side and its lively cafes, galleries, bars, shops, and eateries. For visitors staying near the historic sights of Sultanahmet, a short and scenically stunning ferry ride across continents is all it takes to join them....

I've been contracted by Lonely Planet to help update their online coverage of Istanbul over the next few months, an assignment I kicked off by writing a short guide to Kadıköy, a neighborhood that seems more vibrant every time I hop across the Bosphorus to visit it.

Read the rest of my travel guide, "10 places to soak up the vibe of Istanbul’s Kadıköy neighbourhood," on the Lonely Planet website.

An urban island nocturne

As modern urban dwellers, we're generally out of touch with the world's natural rhythms, waking to alarm clocks instead of the sunrise and going to sleep under the glow of streetlights that obscure our view of the stars. A friend confessed

Ready to hike through the night.
Photo by Nick Hobbs/Hiking Istanbul.

recently that while newly living in an Istanbul apartment with a Bosphorus view, there were some nights that the water was so brightly illuminated she thought there must be floodlights on at a nearby stadium or construction site. "And then," she said with a laugh, "I realized it was the full moon!"

An urge to overcome that sense of disconnection is part of what drove two dozen nature-starved Istanbul residents to do something a bit mad on a recent Friday night.

The 9 p.m. ferry from Eminönü to Büyükada, the largest of the Princes' Islands off the city's coast, was mostly empty. During the hour-and-a-half ride, those of us traveling alone with backpacks and walking shoes eyed each other curiously, finally working up the nerve to ask, "Are you going on the hike?"

Taking in the view.
Photo by Nick Hobbs/Hiking Istanbul.

After disembarking and assembling as a group around 10:30 p.m., we reviewed the plan: to walk through the night under the full moon around the quiet country roads and sparsely wooded paths encircling the island.

The glow of streetlights dogged us for longer than expected, but once we'd escaped their intrusive glare, it was just us and the night. We strode forward surprisingly assuredly under moonlight strong enough to cast shadows of tree branches as distinct as any you'd see in the daytime. The only sounds at times were crickets chirping, a murmur of wind, and the ground crunching underfoot. (Those moments, unfortunately, were few and far between thanks to the loud and banal chatter of a handful of hikers who ignored repeated requests, first politely and then not-so, to allow others to enjoy a quiet walking meditation.)

The empty streets of Büyükada.

From the top of the island, rocky outcroppings glowed white in the moonlight as the lights of the city sparkled far beyond. Though the islands are far from its heaving crowds and densely packed development, Istanbul in some ways never seems so massive as when viewed from this remote vantage point, its buildings upon buildings sprawling out along the distant horizon as far as the eye can see. Beneath us, the rolling slopes of the islands themselves spilled down to the dark sea. Vain attempts to capture the scene photographically only served to show to how much more the eye can see than an iPhone.

As the night wore on, our feet started to move forward almost mechanically as a dreamlike state began to cloud our tired minds. Creating an 18.5 kilometer hike on this small island meant looping back to some of the same points and starting out anew on a different trail, adding to the disorientation as we wondered amongst ourselves, "Have we been here before or I am just imagining things?"

First light from the ferry.

Notions of a middle-of-the-night swim were thwarted by the high walls erected around the island's privatized beaches, and we ended up finishing our route earlier than expected, with nothing to do but plop down on the sidewalk on the outskirts of town and stare at the sea until the first ferry back to the mainland departed at 5:50 a.m. As we walked to the dock, the streets of Büyükada were still shrouded in darkness and had something of the feel of an abandoned movie set. Scattered lights shone from only a bakery or two, the smell of fresh bread emanating from within.

Back to the city.

The first glimmers of dawn only began to appear in the sky as the ferry made its languid way around the smaller islands, picking up a scant few passengers on each one. Unable any longer to resist the embrace of sleep, we stretched out on the vinyl-covered benches and fell into deep slumbers, rousing periodically to watch and photograph the progress of the sun into the sky until the familiar minarets and skyscrapers and apartment blocks were again in view, all bathed in a warm, welcoming glow.

Farewell to a favorite Istanbul restaurant

Influenced by the organic, locally grown California cuisine of Alice Waters, young chef Didem Şenol brought a fresh approach to Turkish cooking when she opened Lokanta Maya in 2010, eschewing rigid food combinations and letting high-quality ingredients shine.

Since writing up my first meal at Lokanta Maya in a restaurant review for Istanbul Eats, I'd enjoyed many delicious evenings there with friends, celebrating birthdays, entertaining out-of-town guests, or simply treating ourselves to top-notch food and good Turkish wine in a pleasing setting.

Sadly, the troubles that have enveloped Turkey this year have not been good for business, and at the end of July, Maya joined the growing list of places in Istanbul closing their doors. A small silver lining was the chance to speak with the ever-gracious and thoughtful Şenol about her decision to close the restaurant, her culinary philosophy, and the changing urban fabric around us.

>> Read my interview with Didem Şenol, "Farewell Lokanta Maya: Istanbul and Local Culinary Pioneer Hit Hard Times," on Culinary Backstreets (the successor site to Istanbul Eats).

A view from Istanbul during the #TurkeyCoupAttempt

Glancing at the to-do list on my desk that I’d scribbled just hours before, the scrap of paper seemed to have appeared from some alternate universe too banal to be believed.

My story featured on the CityLab homepage.

Set alarm for 6 a.m. Take out the trash when I go out for an early-morning run. Bring some money to buy fruit for breakfast on the way home.

Cowering on the entryway floor at 3 a.m. as jets roared past, their sonic booms shaking the building and threatening to break the windows, hadn’t been part of the plan....

As shots rang out outside my window and concerned messages pinged in from friends and family around the world, my editor at CityLab, The Atlantic's website on urban issues, asked me if I'd like to write something about my personal experience of being in Istanbul during what turned out to be a failed military coup.

Read the rest of that essay, "Istanbul, the Day After," on CityLab.

For more on the politics of the coup attempt, its aftermath, and its possible ramifications, here are some news, analysis, and commentary pieces I think are worth a read:

• "The night Erdoğan almost lost Turkey," Noah Blaser, Foreign Policy, 15 July 2016
• "The tragedy of Turkey's attempted coup," Jenny White, CNN, 16 July 2016
• "Turkey's failed coup gives its president a chance to seize more power," Piotr Zalewski, The Economist, 16 July 2016
• "Turkey's last coup: What I saw in Ankara," Selim Koru, War on the Rocks, 16 July 2016
• "Erdoğan’s Pyrrhic victory," Hugh Pope and Nigar Göksel, Politico, 17 July 2016
• "Erdoğan promised to bring true democracy to Turkey. Instead, he’s held it hostage," Elmira Bayrasli, Quartz, 17 July 2016
• "No ordinary weekend: personal reflections on a failed coup," Başak Çalı, Medium, 17 July 2016
• "Turkish president foiled coup with luck, tech savvy," Dion Nissenbaum, Adam Entous, and Emre Peker, The Wall Street Journal, 17 July 2016
• "Brutality of Turkey's failed coup caught on phones, social media," Ayla Jean Yackley, Reuters, 18 July 2016
• "How the internet saved Turkey’s internet-hating president," Zeynep Tüfekçi, The New York Times, 18 July 2016
• "Vast purge in Turkey as thousands are detained in post-coup backlash," Tim Arango, Ceylan Yeginsu, and Ben Hubbard, The New York Times, 18 July 2016
• "The view from Taksim Square," William Armstrong, The Times Literary Supplement, 19 July 2016

As it happened: CNN Türk page for "news related to the 
15 July 2016 coup". The main headline reads: "Group of
soldiers in the TRT building have issued a statement."

Fear, flux, and forgetting

When suicide bombers staged a deadly attack on check-in counters at Brussels Airport in March, I wasn’t the only person to breathe a small sigh of relief over my local hub being Istanbul’s Atatürk Airport, where all passengers and bags are screened at the curbside entrances to the terminals. Taking my laptop out of my carry-on and stripping off my belt and boots twice per trip suddenly seemed not a hassle but a boon.

But on June 28, that extra layer of security itself became a target for suicide attackers, who killed at least 45 passengers, visitors, and staff at Europe’s third-busiest airport. It’s not the first time Istanbul has been hit by terrorism in recent months, and it likely won’t be the last. But in this ancient, ever-dynamic metropolis, fear and forgetting are vying for supremacy – and both are changing the city in discomfiting ways.

I first passed through Atatürk Airport in spring 2001, arriving alone from the U.S. to visit an American friend who had recently relocated to Turkey. September 11 was still five months in the future and my passport, now bulging with extra pages, was nearly blank. My 15-year relationship with Istanbul that began on that trip has since gone through all the stages of a difficult love affair: infatuation at first sight, longing from afar, thrill of discovery, arguments, disappointments, rejection, new hope, repeated heartbreak, determination to try again. (Of course, since this is a city we’re talking about, these are all one-sided emotions, but, well, some relationships are like that, değil mi?)

Over the same period, trips to what was once a strange and unfamiliar airport – the first I’d ever visited alone in a country where I didn’t speak the language, its halls filled with an eye-popping array of the world’s people, carrying out their sad farewells, joyous reunions, and anxious or excited waits in a multitude of attires and tongues – had become grindingly rote. The travelers I know in Istanbul gripe about the long lines at passport control, the regular delays, the mediocre dining and drinking options (unless you have the golden ticket to the THY executive lounge), the high likelihood of having to be shuttled out onto the tarmac to board your plane, and the overcrowded gate areas, where holiday-makers and Hajj pilgrims alike spill out of the seats and onto the ground, turning aisles into obstacle courses of suitcases and sprawling bodies. Atatürk’s chronic overcrowding has been cited by the Turkish government as a reason for building a massive (and controversial) third airport on Istanbul’s remote Black Sea coast.

In recent months, though, a resurgence of political violence in the country’s Southeast and a handful of previous terror attacks in Ankara and Istanbul – including one on the bustling pedestrian thoroughfare İstiklal Caddesi, close to my home – had done what once seemed unthinkable: left Atatürk Airport at times feeling almost like a ghost town. The dramatic drop in tourism to Turkey has been as palpable at the airport as it has on İstiklal and in Istanbul’s central Taksim Square, all places I love to hate for their chaotic crowds and crumbling, inadequate infrastructure.

But like misfortune befalling an annoying friend or relative you might complain about in private but never truly wish ill, seeing these places so subdued has been a burden rather than a relief. I can hardly enjoy the relative peace and quiet of an airport, a street, or a square when I know that the reasons for the unfamiliar calm are anything but peaceful, that the sheer excitement I once felt as a tourist to Istanbul must now be shot through with trepidation for anyone who still dares to visit our battered and beleaguered city.

Our city of chaos and endless construction

Within 12 hours of last week’s attacks, Atatürk Airport was back up and running, a fact that seemed to shock many who commented on social media about how strange it was to see passengers going about their travels amid bullet holes and debris. Others noted throughout the day how quickly the cleanup was proceeding, and how the city lacked a memorial like the public messages of grief and solidarity that quickly appeared in the Belgian capital after the Brussels attack.

After eight years living in Istanbul, none of this really came as a surprise to me. Ours is a city in constant flux, one being endlessly torn down and rebuilt. We swim in Bosporus bays in the shadow of bridge construction, dine on sidewalks next to torn-up streets, shop in grocery stores and underground arcades with exposed wires hanging from the ceiling. We cross construction sites on our daily commutes, squeeze past cement mixers, walk under rickety scaffolding, and go to art exhibits in crumbling buildings awaiting renovation. We search in vain for beloved bars and cafes swept away by the tide of redevelopment, and stand perplexedly in front of new neon signage, wondering how we could have already forgotten what so recently occupied the space where this brand-new shop now stands.

In short, we live with chaos and we live with erasure. And these days we -- like so many others the world 'round -- live with terrorism too.

They paved paradise...

There's a long-running joke in the United States that suburban housing developments -- places with monikers like Fair Oaks, Orange Grove, or Willow Springs -- are named after whatever was torn out to make room for the construction of the new homes and roads.

A similar logic seems like it may have been at work in Istanbul's far-flung outskirts, where, as I traveled 40 kilometers on the metrobus to carry out a frankly preposterous bureaucratic errand (more on that later), I passed places with names like Cevizlibağ (“Vineyard with walnuts”), İncirli (“With figs”), Bahçelievler (“Houses with gardens”), Şirinevler (“Charming houses”), Sefaköy (“Delight village”) Cennet Mahallesi (“Paradise neighborhood”), Saadetdere (“Happiness creek”), and Güzelyurt (“Beautiful homeland”).

They pretty much all looked like this:

Vibrant, vexing, and all too vulnerable İstiklal

On my very first visit to Turkey, 15 years ago, my traveling companions and I spent a couple of nights in a charmingly shabby hotel overlooking İstiklal Caddesi, an incredibly busy pedestrian street in the heart of Istanbul. We were young then, staying out late each night drinking cheap beer in crummy bars, and I don't recall being bothered by the noise. But I vividly remember the excitement of standing on our small balcony, raptly watching the throngs of people passing by below until the wee hours of the night. I'd never been anywhere that felt so alive.

For better or for worse, İstiklal is a melting pot, though that seems too gentle of a term for a place that sends all different kinds of people colliding into each other, often literally (look where you're going, will ya?!): camera-toting tourists, scarf-waving football fanatics, street vendors hawking everything from stuffed mussels to glow-in-the-dark devil horns, rambunctious teenagers, chanting protesters, armor-clad riot police, busking street musicians, bag-laden shoppers, over-persistent charity solicitors, bar- and gallery-hoppers, scammers, gropers, lovebirds, drunks, and many more. As dynamic as the crowds are the storefronts themselves, which change so rapidly as malls and chain stores push out beloved local institutions that even after just a few days away, you can barely recall what used to be where that shiny new kebab shop is now, a phenomenon my friends and I have come to think of as "Istanbul amnesia."

In the eight years I've now lived here in Istanbul, I've walked down İstiklal an uncountable number of times, at every hour of the day and in every season, from the scorching heat of summer when pedestrians cling to the shadows cast by the buildings lining either side of the avenue to cold winter nights when snowball fights break out among people slip-sliding their way down the icy street. Familiarity breeds a bit of contempt, though, and for the local resident, İstiklal is more often annoying than it is enthralling. The noise, the tacky shops, the crumbling pavement, the strong possibility of getting teargassed, the crowds, oh, the crowds. But a place so woven into the fabric of our daily lives can't fail to hold cherished memories as well: the thrill of being caught up amidst an exuberant, defiant post-Gezi crowd of Gay Pride parade revelers; of venturing into dilapidated hans for dinner and dancing at raucous Greek and Laz meyhanes; of tipsily weaving through the crowd hand-in-hand with someone you're simply crazy about.

This morning, I was at the gym just off Taksim Square, one of İstiklal's endpoints, when a news ticker on the TV caught my eye: "İstanbul İstiklal Caddesinde patlama meydana geldi." An explosion has occurred on Istanbul's İskiklal Avenue.

After multiple bomb attacks in Ankara, and amid a heightened threat of terrorism not only in Turkey but in many places around the world, I thought I had braced myself for this news, but my heart was still in my throat as I waited for the ticker to cycle through seemingly endless lines of entertainment, sports, and business news before eventually updating. Two dead, six wounded.

I exited the gym to find the building surrounded by riot police, lined up in front of yellow caution tape blocking off the entry to Taksim, and milling about amidst the small crowd of people who all looked as shocked, confused, and uncertain about what to do next as I felt. I walked home under the loud thrumming of helicopters overhead, anxious to be in front of my computer where I could watch the "I'm safe" messages roll in online from friends, breathing a sigh of relief with each one.

The night before the bombing, I'd been out on İstiklal yet again, albeit a bit warily. Renewed security warnings had noticeably reduced the usual crush of people, leaving typically packed bars and restaurants with many empty tables. There was some jovial bravado amongst those who'd ventured out, and jokes at the expense of someone whose fearful wife had forbidden him to leave home. It all seemed rather cavalier the next morning, with at least four (plus the suicide bomber) dead just around the corner from where we'd been cracking open beers. After the bombing, İstiklal was closed off for many hours; by the time it reopened, I was getting ready to head across the Bosphorus on a nearly empty ferry, encountering the same eerily vacant streets people had been photographing all over the city. Always-frenetic Istanbul was quieter even than on the biggest annual holidays, with an inescapable somberness.

I saw online that İstiklal shopkeepers had laid red carnations and small candles at the site of the attack, carrying signs that read "We are here, we are not afraid." These commemorative tokens may last a day or two, the consciousness of passing a place of tragedy a bit longer. But soon, I am sure, Istanbul amnesia will set in once more, and the street that we love, hate, and love to hate will again be filled with throngs of people, not out of defiance but because life somehow just always goes on.

Uncertain future for one of world's oldest urban farms

Driving into Istanbul from Atatürk Airport, the crumbling fortifications along the Marmara Sea demarcate where the historic, pre-sprawl city begins. But though they may evoke oohs and ahhs out the window, few visitors venture back to explore the 1,500-year-old city walls on foot.

My first time walking the 6.5-kilometer length of the walls was full of surprises: homing pigeons for sale in a parking lot, spectacular (if precarious) views, a livestock market for Kurban Bayramı (Eid al-Adha) sacrifice animals. Most striking of all were the gardens: lush plots of fruits and vegetables squeezed between the walls and the modern highway that now loops outside it. Years later, urban redevelopment has transformed or rendered inaccessible many areas along the walls, but some of the market gardens (called bostan in Turkish) remain, a last vestige of an ancient urban agricultural tradition.

I've written previously about the Yedikule bostan by the city walls for The Atlantic's City Lab, and about other examples of urban agriculture in Istanbul for Culinary Backstreets and Zester Daily. A new threat to the Yedikule bostan early this year prompted me to take a deeper look at the gardens' past, present, and future.

>> Read my new article, "In Istanbul's Ancient Gardens, A Battle for Future Harvests," in Yale Environment 360

Let's vote! What's the ugliest building in Istanbul?

From the great Ottoman palaces of old to the graceful late-19th-century apartment buildings lining many of Beyoğlu's winding streets, Istanbul has much for the architecture-lover to appreciate. Even some of its umpteen malls are award-winning.

But as you venture out further into the city's endless sprawl, the situation gets grimmer: kilometer after kilometer of cheaply put-together apartment blocks, office towers, industrial facilities, and strip malls. Amid that drab parade, however some buildings still stand out -- for their absolute atrociousness.

Since Turkey has yet to follow Britain's lead and invent an "award" for the ugliest new building of the year, let's get the competition going ourselves...

A friend threw down the gauntlet on Twitter, asking "Is there an uglier building in #Istanbul than #Bakırköy Adalet Sarayı?"

Can't deny it, that's pretty ugly. My money, however, has always been on the 212 Power Outlet in Bağcılar, a landmark on my former daily commute:

And the nominations kept rolling in...

The Perpa Ticaret Merkezi in Şişli:

The rather phallic (and completely out of sync with its surroundings) Ritz-Carlton hotel near Taksim:

The TRT building in Tepebaşı (of which I must admit I've become strangely fond):

The Doubletree hotel in Moda:

The so-kitschy-it's-almost-cute Mustafa Kanat Camii (aka "the Darth Vader mosque") in Ataşehir:

And last, but certainly not least, the under-construction Andromeda Plus residence in Ataşehir, aptly described by a friend as a design that "has to be modelled on [developer Ali] Ağaoğlu's infant son's first Lego creation. No other explanation":

Now it's your turn to weigh in:

What building deserves the title of Istanbul's ugliest?

Open Studio Days in Istanbul

Walking down a frequently trod street in our Beyoğlu neighborhood, we peered more closely than usual at the houses lining either side, eyeing doorsteps and overhead windows for the pink balloon that meant there was art inside.

Jewelry by İrem Burcu Ummansu

I had been excited to learn that the “Open Studio Days” (Açık Stüdyo Günleri) concept was finally coming to Istanbul. SF Open Studios had always been one of my favorite events back in my San Francisco days, offering a full month of opportunities to explore new neighborhoods, meet local artists, peek into their studios, and maybe even buy a print or two. And the weekend-long Istanbul Open Studio Days got off to a good start right away, with a nicely printed brochure containing details on the participating artists and maps to guide us on our urban treasure hunt.

Painting by Desen Halıçınarlı

Starting off near home in Çukurcuma and working our way down to Tophane and Karaköy, a friend and I stepped gingerly into the first location on our self-plotted tour, feeling a little awkward about entering a stranger’s house, but were warmly greeted by the artist, who cheerfully offered us snacks and showed us her colorful painted caricatures and ceramic pieces. Proceeding more confidently after that, we climbed to fifth-floor walkup apartments and into dusty hans (traditional commercial buildings). We got lost a couple of times and failed entirely to find one or two studios on the list.

In Karaköy, we enviously ogled beautiful jewelry reflecting the architectural forms of old Beyoğlu buildings. I fell madly in love with one painter’s moody cityscapes — and got to step out onto her roof terrace to see some of the vistas that inspire her — but was afraid to ask how much they cost.

Paintings by Begüm Mütevellioğlu

The next day, we did it all over again, boarding a ferry to Kadıköy and diving into the streets of Yeldeğirmeni, a newly hip Asian-side neighborhood where crumbling Ottoman-era wooden houses sit amongst new apartment buildings and even newer cafes and boutiques.

One of the artists’ studios was inside one of those old wooden houses, offering a rare glimpse inside a characteristic (but quickly vanishing) style of Istanbul architecture along with some fine paintings. With lots of street art to look at along the way, we visited a printmaking studio, stood around awkwardly while one artist hosted what appeared to be a dinner party for her friends, and scratched our heads over some conceptual works in a gallery.

Print by Mediha Sevinç

Wrapping up the days with beers in one of Kadıköy’s many lively bars, we raised our glasses to toast a successful weekend meeting up-and-coming artists, looking at their works in progress, seeing some of their inspirations, and poking into some new corners of the city. A few duds aside, the Açık Stüydo Günleri had been a wonderful, well-organized event. Too bad it only happens once a year.

Race day, Istanbul style

Most runners expect to complete a race to the sound of spectator cheers, announcers calling out finishing times, and some high-energy music from the post-race party.

What participants in the Istanbul Half Marathon on Sunday heard at the finish line instead were religious chants and songs, amplified to ear-splitting volume, from the gender-segregated celebration of the Prophet Mohammed's birthday that some city official had apparently seen fit to schedule for the same time in the same concrete wasteland, er, "meeting area."

Photo: Hope Gross Mandel

The incongruous pairing could be seen as a metaphor for the mix of ideologies and cultures jostling, not always comfortably, up against each other in Turkey. It certainly created humorous juxtapositions, with lycra-clad women -- some stripping down to their sports bras to change out of their sweaty race shirts -- gathered on one side, those swathed head-to-toe in black robes (an unusually conservative mode of covering for Turkey) on the other.

Istanbul's disparate realities also intruded into the day's sporting event in the form of bedraggled Roma and refugee children wandering around the race course, alternately trying to high-five runners and block their path. (In general, little effort is made at Turkish races to keep bystanders and runners separated, as the photo below demonstrates, and as any runner who's had to dodge around a street vendor and his simit cart mid-race can attest.)

Photo: Vodafone İstanbul Yarı Maratonu

Certainly, local flavor can add to the racing experience: Running past tanks and military bands along the route, and having the post-race entertainment include a show of soldiers performing rappelling demonstrations from helicopters hovering overhead made completing my first-ever 10k as part of the Beirut Marathon particularly memorable.

But after an 8k, a 10k, two 15ks, and a half marathon's worth of Istanbul races with chaotic starts so jam-packed as to drive people to walk on top of the portable toilets to bypass the crowds; emptied-out water stops; nonexistent crowd control; self-aggrandizing speeches by public officials who've done nothing to encourage sporting culture; mis-calculated route mileage; spectator-less sidelines, cars zipping onto the course before the race is over; and bag-retrieval melees, someday running a properly organized race is going to seem like the real novelty. 

As time goes by

The impermanence of life, and both the pain and comfort that can promise, threads through much of Scottish artist Robert Montgomery's work currently on display at the Istanbul'74 gallery in the Galatasaray neighborhood of Istanbul.

Billboards and neon signs are his canvases for text-based works both politically aligned against these mediums' usual capitalist, establishment messaging and personally resonant of the longings and fears such advertisements emptily offer to assuage.

Some serve as reminders of how quickly beautiful moments can pass by:

"...Every morning some of
the things you have 
loved will always be 
behind you."

Others as assurances that the oppressive forces in the world will also eventually come to an end:

Montgomery's works speak of civilizations that have crumbled, dreams that have withered, people and places that have become lost to us.... but also of how those losses are themselves impermanent. One particularly bittersweet piece concisely conjures up the human connections so deeply affecting that you may never be fully free of them:

What the words leave open to interpretation is whether the "ghosts" are benevolent presences, or haunting ones, evoking memories that you cherish the ability to revisit, or ones painful to recall, but more painful yet to let go.

TO VISIT: "Robert Montgomery" is on view until 18 April at the Istanbul'74 gallery in Istanbul's Galatasaray neighborhood. The gallery is open Monday to Friday from 11 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. and Saturday from 1 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. Free admission.

A very Beyoğlu 'Christmas'

Amid the now-annual calls from some outraged corners of Turkey's religious establishment and conservative press for Muslims not to celebrate New Year's -- a holiday that has taken on many of the outward trappings of Christmas -- the usual mashup of traditions continued to mark the occasion in Istanbul's Beyoğlu district, a historic hub for minorities and foreigners.

On shopping thoroughfare İstiklal Caddesi, jam-packed crowds had braved the frigid wind and sleety rain to snap up last-minute gifts, including the red underwear and other lingerie believed to bring good luck in the coming year if worn on New Year's Eve.

In the nearby backstreets, a lights-and-ornaments-bedecked tree made an incongruous sight on a drab, rubble-strewn corner.

And the scattered seeds of a smashed pomegranate recalled the area's once-thriving community of Greeks, among whom tossing and breaking the fruit^* as the new year arrives is thought to herald abundance and good fortune.

Happy new year / Mutlu yıllar / Καλή χρονιά / Շնորհաւոր Նոր Տարի / Bonne année / Gutes neues Jahr !

* Apparently Turks and Armenians also share the same practice...