What's going to save Turkish tourism this week?

War across the border and conflict and terrorist bombings at home have sent Turkey's tourism industry into a tailspin. The downing of a Russian jet didn't help matters. Neither, probably, did attacks on Asian visitors. The situation is so dire that the headline of a satirical news story was echoed by hotel owners' actual complaints to a real news outlet after the most recent bomb in Istanbul: that there are no reservations left to be cancelled.

With 8 percent of the country's entire workforce employed directly in tourism and the downturn showing no signs of abating, this is no laughing matter. But the seemingly endless list of attempts to save the industry is by turns sad, hilarious, head-scratching, and appalling (and ever-so-occasionally pragmatic). So what's going to save Turkish tourism this week? Is it...

1) Shooing away those unsightly refugees?

2) Giving school kids an extra two weeks of vacation?

3) Organizing a Justin Bieber concert?

4) Taxing Turks who travel abroad?

5) Building Chinatowns in major Turkish cities?

6) Promoting halal holidays?

7) Offering submarine tours of the Mediterranean?

8) Sinking an airplane into the ocean?

9) Filming a new soap opera?

10) Subsidizing charter flights?

11) Building the world's largest duty-free shop?

12) Praying?

Seems your (and my) guess is as good as anyone else's, so what would you propose to save Turkish tourism? I considered suggesting that Turkey steal an idea from its neighbor Georgia and welcome foreign travelers with complimentary wine, but a free bottle of Turkish plonk might scare even more visitors away.

UPDATE (13 July 2016): With fences mended with Russia, and domestic travel boosted to record levels by the declaration of a nine-day holiday following the fasting month of Ramadan, things may be looking up for the tourism industry. But Turkey is taking no chances: The Black Sea city of Samsun recently announced that construction is almost complete on the world's first golf course on an artificial island. 

2016: An Ikamet Odyssey

Tales of pell-mell races across the Eminyet courtyard and sharp-elbowed scuffles at the residence-permit application counter were swapped over Efes like war stories among expats when I initially arrived in Turkey. By the time I made my own first application, things had settled into some manner of organized confusion. But, like the course of true love, bureaucratic progress did never did run smooth. One particularly bad year, a friend had to queue in front of the Emniyet in the middle of night, where she reported people were selling places in line. When the process was decentralized to local police stations, crowded waiting rooms were replaced by bored young officers flirtatiously or sadistically (it was sometimes hard to tell which) quizzing female applicants on American sports teams or the capital cities of random English-speaking countries.

This past year, the mass influx of Syrians and other refugees led Turkey to set up an entire new bureaucracy for processing foreign residents, the Göç İdaresi (Migration Administration). Those of us who'd already been in the country for a while were promised efficient new electronic renewals, under which "the foreigners shall be informed through their e-mail addresses" of any missing documents, and receive an SMS when the permit is ready to be delivered. And there the odyssey began:

✔ Gather necessary paperwork, get ID photos taken, fill in online application. So easy! 

✔ Go to tax office in Eminönü, pay required fees for the renewal. A little elbowing required at the cashier's counter, but not too bad. 

✔ Bring receipts home to scan them, along with the rest of the application documents (you never know what might get lost in the mail). 

✔ Package up original documents and receipts and take them to the post office to send them to the Göç İdaresi by registered mail. 

✔ Track the letter online and see that it's reached its destination two days later. So far, so good! 

✔ Wait.

✔ Wait. 

✔ Wait some more.

✔  Decide after two and a half months that maybe it would be a good idea to check on things. Call the mobile number you've been given of someone at the Göç İdaresi in Fatih. He tells you to come in (wait, what happened to letting applicants know by phone or email? never mind, don't ask...) so they can see if your paperwork is in order. Uh-oh. 

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Cheap-beer chic

A few years ago, I wrote a blog post entitled "Better things to do with a can (or bottle) of Efes than drinking it." If I were writing it now, the list would most certainly be topped (no pun intended) by this bottle-cap purse hand-crocheted by the wonderful craftswomen of Çöp(m)adam.

Founded by longtime American expat Tara Hopkins, who I previously profiled for MORE magazine, this social-entrepreneurship business (the name is a play on words that means "garbage ladies") is based in the Turkish Aegean town of Ayvalık. Hopkins hires women who have never worked for pay before to create playful, beautiful handicrafts out of recycled materials -- bags, aprons, stuffed animals, wallets, frames, tea towels, cushion covers, keychain decorations, and more.

Their bottle-cap bags come in various sizes, from shoulder bags to clutches to wallets, and are made with an assortment of colorful soda and beer bottle caps. After eight years of loving to hate Turkey's most famous beer, however, I just had to special-order an all-Efes version.

If you want one all of your own, you'd better hurry -- rumor has it that Efes will be switching over to pull-off bottle caps in the near future. The mediocre taste of the beer inside will surely remain the same, but the good crafting materials will become in short supply.

Check out the full catalogue of products, and inquire about your own special orders, over at the Çöp(m)adam website.

Top 10 reasons I dread shopping for running shoes in Istanbul

If anything can be more challenging (and aggravating) than running in Istanbul, it's buying running shoes in Istanbul. Admittedly, I like shopping about as much as going to the dentist even under the best of circumstances, but my experiences across the gamut here -- at specialist local running shops, outlets of international brands, and general sporting-goods stores -- would be funny if they weren't so frustrating. Here's just 10 of the ways salespeople have left me reconsidering the possibility of inner-city barefoot running, cement, broken glass, and general detritus be damned.

1. Not stocking women's shoes larger than size 39 or 40, then balking at the idea of letting me try on men's sizes.


2. Telling me I don't actually have wide feet (you'd think I might have noticed in 40 years of buying shoes) then passive-aggressively recommending a model that a quick Google search reveals typically runs narrow.





Photo courtesy kovats

3. Not stocking any wide widths at the shop of a international brand known for offering the majority of its shoes in multiple widths, then telling me it's because "everyone in Turkey's feet are standart."


4. Telling me that too-small shoes couldn't possibly have caused my feet to start to fall asleep while running, "there must be something wrong with your nerves."


5. Asking me if I "run long distances, like 5 kilometers?"


6. Snickering when I try to explain that my left foot is larger than my right (which is not uncommon, okay?) then continuing to insist on only giving me the right-foot shoe to try on first.


7. Gesturing at a long wall of shoes and asking with a shrug, "So what do you want to try on?"


8. Not bothering to measure my feet or bring out the same pair of shoes in multiple sizes, just moving straight on to totally different models when the first one is a bit snug.


9. Explaining, when I say that one pair of shoes fits a bit better than the last one, that it's because they're "very professional."


10. Offering up, in response to a request for trail running shoes, a strangely stiff pair that turn out to be (when consulting the manufacturer's website later) "approach shoes" meant for technical hiking/rock-climbing.


11. Telling me my foot's shape "is not very nice."

Oh wait, never mind that last one. That wasn't a shoe salesperson, that was a physical therapist.

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:

Nowruz mubarak / Newroz pîroz be

Happy Nowruz, Novruz, Newrozê, Navrūz, Nevruz…

This new year’s celebration has become politically fraught and often associated with violence and repression in Turkey, eclipsing the message that an Iranian friend so beautifully describes:

"That's what Persian New Year is all about, to leave the dark behind and celebrate the light; to not chose the evil (which are dark thoughts) but the good (again, our good thoughts). In Zoroastrianism, we believe it's the human choices that make 'Evil' or 'Good' exist. So let's chose life and celebrate it."

A faravahar in Yazd, Iran. The different elements of this symbol
represent different aspects of Zoroastrian beliefs.

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

Turkey's 'hidden' coast: The Black Sea

My first hints that there was something different going on in Turkey's Black Sea region came in Istanbul — watching environmental films that depicted the rugged beauty of its remote mountains and their hardy, sometimes eccentric inhabitants, and reveling in a wealth of unfamiliar flavors at the (sadly now shuttered) "Laz meyhane" Mohti, where hamsi popped up in everything from corn bread to omelets served in the raucous music- and smoke-filled restaurant.

Visiting the region for the first time last spring, I spent a week reporting on environmental threats from dams, mines, and other development, meanwhile picking up intriguing tidbits — the distinctive regional architecture, the melting pot of languages and cultures — that left me wanting to return.

The two travel lists I wrote for Matador Network this month offer just a taste of what the region has to offer — if its natural beauty and rich cultural diversity can be preserved:

• 9 Historic Places in Turkey Where You’ll Feel Like You’ve Stepped Back in Time

• 11 Things People in Turkey's Black Sea Region Always Have to Explain to Visitors

#RefugeesWelcome: Here’s how you can help

When I first moved to Istanbul, the near-total lack of people living on the street stood in stark contrast to my native San Francisco, where homelessness has been a serious problem for decades. The war in Syria changed all that. I’ve become used to seeing the men who sleep outside the hotel where I go to the gym, huddling against the air vent for some scant warmth and propping up cardboard to ward off the wind; the children racing in and out of traffic to beg from cars, sometimes with a plastic bag of sickly-yellow inhalant drugs in one hand; the families begging on the sidewalk with their Syrian passports held open to passersby.

Syrian Kurdish refugees arriving in Turkey. Photo: EC/ECHO

Not all of the nearly 2.5 million Syrians in Turkey are homeless, of course. Though only around 220,000 are in the refugee camps set up near the border, others are renting (often overcrowded, overpriced, substandard) apartments, or squatting in abandoned buildings. And, of course, many are embarking on the dangerous and difficult journey to Europe, boarding flimsy boats to reach Greek islands like Lesbos and then crossing the Balkans by train, bus, or on foot. Photos of these refugees – and, in particular, of the body of one 3-year-old boy washed up on a beach in Turkey – have awakened the rest of the world to the desperate reality with which people in this region were already far too familiar.

Though there’s been much handwringing about the lack of response to the plight of Syrians and other refugees, and an increasingly ugly anti-Muslim backlash, I’m holding firm to my belief that most people (or at least, most of you) are, like me, not heartless or ignorant or prejudiced, but instead overwhelmed by the scale and scope of suffering in the world and feeling powerless to do anything about it. If that rings true for you, please join me in taking at least one of the following actions today, and continuing to look for ways to do more tomorrow.

Pro-refugee rally in Melbourne.
Photo: John Englart (Takver)/Flickr CC-by-SA

Individual efforts can’t bring an end to these devastating crises but they can save, and improve, lives. If you don’t have the time to volunteer, donate money; if you don’t have the money to spend, ask friends and families to donate on your behalf in lieu of giving you a Christmas present.

If you know of other ways to help refugees, from Syria or elsewhere, locally or globally, by giving money or time, please post them in the comments and I’ll keep updating this list. And please feel share this post widely. I know there’s a lot of options for ways to help, but don’t get overwhelmed! Just pick one, randomly or whatever speaks to you most. Let’s not let hate win or hope die.

> Donate to organizations saving lives and providing humanitarian relief

> Buy a gift that supports refugees
> Support education for Syrian students

> Volunteer your time and skills

> Give a refugee a place to live

> Donate goods

> Lobby for political change

> Stay informed and speak out

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