Category: Culture/Art

Istanbul, An Enchanting Paradise – For Cats

Istanbul, An Enchanting Paradise – For Cats

Istanbul, An Enchanting Paradise – For Cats Turkish delight – (laszlo-photo) By Boris Kalnoky

DIE WELT/Worldcrunch

ISTANBUL – Mornings around nine, when shop owners on Galip Dede Street open their doors, dozens of cats appear out of nowhere. They know it’s breakfast time. Not right away: the men first have to unpack new merchandise, stock the shelves, and check the till.

But then they put out bowls of water for the cats, who have been waiting patiently and attentively, and strew generous amounts of dried cat food about. Only then do they drink their own morning tea, standing in front of their shops chatting with each other along the small cobblestone street. Sometimes they play with the animals, teasing them benevolently or stroking them.

This is the time of day after I’ve dropped my daughter off at her school, stopped for a coffee on Istiklal Street and read the papers, and am now slowly wending my way home. And I never fail to be surprised by Istanbul’s animal-loving culture – or the huge numbers of street cats.

A few summers ago the weather was particularly hot, and there was an Istanbul-wide campaign on both the radio and Internet encouraging everybody to put out bowls of water for the cats. Many thousands of people did just that, and water in small plastic bowls or yoghurt pots were everywhere to be seen in the city’s streets.

Customs are different in different countries: in Germany, for example, many people have pets while relatively few have them in Turkey. But the Turkish look after street animals as if they were their own.

Particularly in front of some of the mosques. On Galip Dede Street, a favorite place to stroll in the inner city, mosque cats have become an actual attraction, much caressed and photographed by tourists.

All the benefits of a pet without the inconvenience

This year, city residents for the first time provided their street cats with boxes where cat moms can raise their young. Children particularly get a charge out of this, running over from the playground to cuddle the tiny bundles of fur.

But cats aren’t the only ones with fans among residents and tourists alike. Near the Galata Tower, focal point of my personal small world of narrow streets and aged buildings, along with the cats there’s also a pack of street dogs.

Every morning the butcher next door throws them a massive beef bone that they work on for hours. When they’re done, they get drowsy and don’t budge even if you step over them or take pictures.

All of this is actually a nice solution for parties concerned: people can do the things that are the reason for keeping pets in the first place – care for them, and make their daily lives a little more fun and friendly. And the animals get enough to eat, and learn to know the best places for a little grub.

They also have a lot of freedom, and perhaps a much more interesting albeit harder life than if they were limited to a small apartment or courtyard as is so often the case in Germany.

Read the article in the original language.

Photo by – laszlo-photo

via Istanbul, An Enchanting Paradise – For Cats – Worldcrunch – All News is Global.

October 1, 2012
R.I.P. – Başımız Sağolsun

Berkant Samanyolu – YouTube.

October 1, 2012
Chinese culture shines in Istanbul

A Chinese Culture Week themed “The Modern Silk Road” opened here on Saturday, serving attendants a feast for the eyes and appetite.

The week-long event, as part of 2012 China Culture Year, features documentaries, Mongolian art shows and Chinese cuisine, presenting China’s traditional culture and the lifestyle of its ethnic minorities.

At the opening ceremony, artists from north China’s Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region performed a series of Mongolian songs and dances, and gave the guests Hada, a piece of silk used as greeting gift.

“This is my first time receiving Chinese culture, and I hope someday I can go there and learn more,” Fatimah, a college student in Istanbul, told Xinhua, adding she was impressed by the performance.

“An Eternal Lamb,” a selected film in The Montreal World Film Festival last year, depicted the lifestyle of Chinese Kazakh people with a local presence, which drew wide applause among the audience.

Two Chinese Huaiyang Cuisine chefs, Xiong Shiwei and Zhang Baojian, were also invited to prepare dishes.

via Chinese culture shines in Istanbul – Globaltimes.cn.

October 1, 2012
Making City Istanbul – Dexigner

Making City Istanbul

September 30, 2012 | by Senay Gokcen17

Making City Istanbul is the last exhibition of the 5th IABR: Making City. The exhibition is part of Musibet, the main exhibition of the first Istanbul Design Biennial that opens on October 10 at Istanbul Modern.

Inspired by the IABR’s approach, architect Emre Arolat, the curator of Musibet, invited the IABR to present its working method and three key projects – the Test Sites in Rotterdam, São Paulo and Istanbul – in the form of a new, small exhibition: a ‘manual’ for the future of Istanbul.

“Like all metropolitan regions in the world Istanbul is preparing itself for the challenges ahead,” commented George Brugmans, Director of IABR. “How can we harmonise rapidly advancing urbanisation with ecological and economic concerns? In the next few years, the urban planners, designers, politicians, cultural operators, citizens and entrepreneurs of Istanbul will need to find common ground on this issue.”

Making City Istanbul presents three urban projects that not only offer concrete solutions for specific local issues, but also present inspiring strategies and examples that are offered as inspiration and possible benchmarks.

Test Site Rotterdam argues that Making City essentially depends on human beings: we all have a role to play when it comes to the sustainable transformation of our habitat. São Paulo provides us with examples of how the clash between social and ecological issues may be solved by playing the card of economics. And IABR Atelier Istanbul shows us that a separation of functions is less sustainable than an integrated vision that embeds agriculture, water management and forestry in the process of on-going urbanisation.

via Making City Istanbul – Dexigner.

October 1, 2012
Turkey | Once upon a time in Anatolia

Turkey | Once upon a time in Anatolia

Unique physical structures and great historic sites in a land of the ancient and the modern

Komal Sharma

Hot-air balloon rides begin at 5 every morning. Photo: Komal Sharma/Mint

Updated: Fri, Sep 28 2012. 07 12 PM IST

It’s a heady rise, as the burly captain of our hot-air balloon fires up the ship, sending flames into the air. The balloon rises to the sky, slowly revealing the landscape of Cappadocia, a city in the interiors of Turkey, in a region called Anatolia. Brown plateaus are interspersed with grasslands, snow-covered mountain peaks from the Taurus range occupy the horizon, and the early morning sky is dotted with about 100 hot-air balloons. And, of course, you spot the curious-looking spires below, made from rock, looking as if they have windows carved into them.

The fairy chimneys, as the locals call them, are a unique geographical feature of Cappadocia.

We descend after a 45-minute balloon trip, and it’s a perfect landing, with sparkling wine waiting for us, along with wild-flower bouquets and instant photographs. After this early morning celebration, we head out, by car this time, to explore the fairy chimneys. Cappadocia is a town known for these volcanic geographic features. Long before human civilization etched villages and cities on the Anatolian landscape, volcanic lava flowed through these arid lands, leaving behind intriguing spectacles. The volcanic ash settled in layers over centuries, and as erosion took place, the softer, lower-lying rock got washed away and the harder rock on top remained, creating what looks like a slender giant wearing a big hat—Demoiselles Coiffées, to the French imagination. Then, of course, human civilization—sometimes pagans, sometimes missionaries, and sometimes the followers of Islam—walked these lands and made homes in these mountains, at times hiding, at times looting and attacking, depending on which group was more powerful at the time.

The new and the ancient:A walk down the colonnaded main street of Ephesus, an ancient Roman city. Photo: Komal Sharma/Mint

Our tour guide Emre, a blue-eyed boy, conscientiously took us through these fairy chimneys. Some were ancient churches with beautiful frescoes, converted into mosques with desecrated faces, then restored and converted into museums. The history of Cappadocia, and all of Turkey for that matter, is replete with wars, religious conflict and, of course, trade. Turkey lay on the Silk Route, on the crossroads of civilizations. The Greeks, the Ottomans, the Romans, all marched through it.

Enamoured and confused by the history of Turkey, and at how man is capable of doing things both beautiful and brutal, we return to our hotel, the Museum, which works as a trip in itself. A boutique hotel sitting on top of a hill, it is built within and around a multitude of fairy chimneys and old structures that have been preserved, turning them into lounges and luxurious suites. The main deck is on the edge of a cliff, with an infinity pool and half-broken Greek stone arches. The view is an empty road meandering through the plateaus and a crimson horizon in the distance.

A tree atop the Pigeon Valley in Cappadocia, with the characteristic Turkish evil eyes tied to it. Photo: Komal Sharma/Mint.

Two days later, from this brown land of cobbled streets and the quaint countryside of Anatolia, we take a flight to the more flamboyant west coast. We land in Izmir, a town which was a stopover on the Silk Route, and take a 2-hour drive to Kusadasi, a cute honeymoon town. With the emerald blue waters of the Aegean Sea, cruise liners, Mediterranean islands in the distance, young couples on scooters and 1970s convertibles, romance is in the Kusadasi air. But that’s not all; for, it’s also the base town for visiting the ancient Greek sites of Ephesus, Aphrodisias, Miletus, and others.

Before we head out again for our history lesson, we stop at a seaside restaurant, with rickety chairs kept right on the shore, the waves washing up our heels and rows of cats waiting wide-eyed for us to throw them some balik. That’s the menu, balik (fish), lots of salata (green leafy salad), button mushrooms stuffed with peynir (cottage cheese) and baked in clay pots, and, of course, bira (beer). It’s only apt that Theobroma (food of the gods) is a word of Greek origin.

Graphic: Ahmed Raza Khan/Mint

Our tour guide for the day, Gulsum, decided to start us off with the charming little Greek village of Sirince. Old Greek women, who stayed behind after the population exchange of 1923—when ethnic Greeks left for Greece—hold a flea market selling apple wine and apricots, crochet table linen, cotton dresses, turquoise jewellery, and freshly picked berries. Nobody speaks English, but it’s easy to pick up a little Turkish with a whole range of words very similar to Hindustani. Dukkan (shop), sebzi (vegetables), duniya (world), kitap (kitab or book) are a few examples.

One of the shopkeepers explained their greeting, meherabba. “In olden times, when two people used to meet in a desert, they said meherabba to each other, meaning, I am not your enemy, I come in peace.”

For the next two days, we were on the road, exploring ancient cities. We walked down the colonnaded main street in Ephesus, saw what remains of the Temple of Artemis, the massive stadiums—Gulsum informed us that stadiums with a significant depth were for gladiator fights; others were for the non-violent performing arts—the agoras (marketplaces), the Temple of Apollo and larger than life sculptures of Medusa and Nike, still standing after all these years. It feels like time travel, a journey into another era.

These are some of the best preserved archaeological sites in the world, and they hint at the scale and grandeur with which people in the Hellenistic era lived.

However, grandeur is only one side of the coin. As the day passes listening to Gulsum narrate stories of Roman emperors, the defence of the Seljuks, or the invasions of Muslim rulers, one is compelled to believe that whole cities were built either to assert power, or for self-preservation, or to propagate religions and the gods.

But in the process of occupying and killing, for vengeance or honour, things of great beauty were built, razed and rebuilt.

September 29, 2012
Bosnia and Herzegovina

EU Enlargement

This month’s focus: Bosnia and Herzegovina. Discover the country’s unique blend of cultures and religions, its vibrant spirit and its stunning and unspoiled natural scenery.

via Sep 28, 2012 2:55pm.

September 28, 2012