The man standing outside Istanbul’s Topkapi Palace is holding two small white rabbits. Intrigued, I hop across the road to find out more.
“These are,” he says, pointing to Fluff and Stuff, “two very clever rabbits. They can tell fortunes.”
Fair enough, for just one Turkish lira, I’ll give it a go. One of the rabbits, I think it’s Fluff, noses around inside a cardboard box and pulls out a small piece of white paper, which the rabbit owner then unwraps and reads.
“You will enjoy a long and prosperous life,” the man says.
“Anything else?”
“You can try again if you give me another lira.” I don’t hang around because I’m anxious to get on with my long and prosperous life so I wink and suggest the same words are written – in Turkish – on every piece of paper.
Now confident about my own future, I wonder about the outlook for Turkey, a country with a complex and multi-layered history that continues to perch, precariously at times, between Europe and Asia, between democratic government and military rule, between a secular society and one influenced by Islam.
While attempting to persuade the European Union that it is worthy of EU membership, Turkey has been making small social changes that will have earned a few nods of approval from the bureaucrats in Brussels.
Istanbul’s main Taksim Square last year saw a march commemorating international gay pride day, a first for Turkey, although it didn’t go off without some police intervention.
Turkey is also promoting a healthier lifestyle. Smoking has been banned from restaurants, cafes and bars but since more than one in three Turks smokes, even the threat of a 5000 lira ($3000) fine may not be enough to encourage cafe owners to stop customers lighting up.
Less popular with tourists and some locals is the heavy government tax on alcoholic drinks, including wine, even though Turks are moderate drinkers.
Other habits are less easy to control. They appear to include a requirement for taxi drivers to sting tourists around Istanbul’s busiest tourist sites. Some, but not all, taxi drivers waiting outside the Grand Bazaar adjust their meters for tourists to record fares three times what they should be.
Another oddity about Istanbul is the small legion of mobile shoeshine boys – although most of them are men rather than boys – who will drop one of their brushes as you pass them in the street.
After this had occurred three times in a day, and I had picked up the brush and handed it back to its owner each time, I realised the “accidentally” dropped brush was an excuse to start a conversation, which included an offer of a shoe shine, for a modest fee of course, as thanks for picking up the brush.
These quibbles aside, and to be fair it’s not uncommon elsewhere in the world for taxi drivers to take advantage of gullible tourists, Turkey is moving forward confidently. For Istanbul, its status as European Capital of Culture last year gave it an opportunity to showcase the best of its considerable art, culture and heritage to the rest of the world, and also to involve its own citizens – especially its younger population – in a year-long celebration.
The influence of the Ottomans, who knocked about these parts for centuries, pervades Istanbul, nowhere more so than in the domed and beautiful mosaic hammams (bath houses), the crowning example being the Baths of Roxelana, with its towering steam rooms, ritual washing quarters, and extensive massage platforms. Roxelana – named after the wife of a sultan, Suleiman the Magnificent, became an important social centre, particularly for Muslim women.
The baths were designated for the use of the congregation of Hagia Sophia when it was used as a mosque. The women’s entrance was at one end of the building and the men’s at the other. Oddly, the building is now a government-run upmarket carpet shop,
Hagia Sophia, built by Constantine the Great in the fourth century and reconstructed by Justinian in the sixth century, has twice burnt down and been rebuilt. For the past 16 years the ornate ceilings have been restored to their original glory, the work finishing only last year.
Istanbul’s icons also include the Ottoman Empire’s Topkapi Palace and the Blue Mosque and the grand palaces, Dolmabahce Palace and the Ciragan Palace.
No less impressive – and my personal favourite – is Basilica Cistern, the sixth century underground cistern below St Sophia Square, built by the Romans to bring water to palaces in the vicinity.
Tucked between and beyond the most popular tourists sites, life goes on in old Istanbul pretty much undisturbed. Turkish, Arab and Kurdish families still live side by side in early 20th century apartment blocks in streets surrounding the Galata Tower.
It’s a noisy area but the clamour is generated by street life: kids playing football, men crowding around the backgammon boards in tea houses, women using a pulley system to haul baskets of vegetables bought from a mobile greengrocer to their upper floor apartments, and junk sellers hawking their wares.
In narrow streets close to the Grand Central Station, where once a year the Orient Express ends its journey from Paris, people go about their business as they have done for years.
It has the appearance of a theatre backstage where the workers are scurrying about before the curtain goes up on the main event – in this case the nearby Topkapi Palace, the Grand Bazaar and the Spice Bazaar, Hagia Sophia and the Basilica Cistern.
It was here that I had a most enjoyable visit to a barber. A haircut, wash, neck and shoulder massage, shave and singe, plus a cup of strong Turkish coffee and a chat with locals who dropped in to kill time. All for less than $A10.
The intensity of the locals’ conversation rose as a cut-throat razor went to work around my chin and neck. I began to think of Fluff and Stuff and hoped that I still had a long and prosperous life.
Beyond Istanbul on the Bosphorus dividing Asia and Europe, a boat trip to Anadolu Kavagi, close to the entrance to the Black Sea, allows time for lunch between taking the return journey, passing on the way Istanbul’s summer playgrounds, Ortakoy and Galatasaray island, built for the sports club of the same name.
Look carefully and you may spot one of Australia’s best-known footballers, Harry Kewell, now plying his trade with Galatasaray in the Turkish premier league.
Thewest.com.au