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Tag: Istanbul

  • ISTANBUL – ISRAELI SINGER YASMIN LEVY SAYS WILL GO TO PALESTINE FOR CONCERT IF INVITED

    ISTANBUL – ISRAELI SINGER YASMIN LEVY SAYS WILL GO TO PALESTINE FOR CONCERT IF INVITED

    Yasmin Levy2

    ISTANBUL – Israeli singer and songwriter Yasmin Levy

    said on Friday that she would go to Palestine for a concert if she was

    invited.In an exclusive interview with AA, Levy said violence and deaths in the Middle East could no way be justified.

    Levy said she would willingly go to Palestine for a concert if the Palestinians invited her.The Israeli musician is actually in Istanbul to give concerts in Turkey.Levy said she knew that wars would end one day, however things would not change so easily. She said there had been an ongoing dispute between her country and Palestine, and he could go to a concert in Palestine if she was invited.The musician said the lyrics of a song she would sing for the two countries would be, “I am extending my hand my brother, and you extend yours too, and we touch each other, we need this.”Levy said there would be a song in such lyrics in her new album, and she wished she could go to Palestine but regretted that politicians were making such a thing difficult.

    An Israeli singer-songwriter of Judaeo-Spanish music, Yasmin Levy’s father was also a composer and cantor.With her distinctive and emotive style, Yasmin has brought a new interpretation to the medieval Ladino/Judeo-Spanish song by incorporating more “modern” sounds of Andalusian Flamenco and Persian, as well as combining instruments like the darbuka, oud, violin, cello, and piano.Yasmin’s work earned her the Anna Lindh Euro-Mediterranean Foundation Award for promoting cross-cultural dialogue between musicians from three cultures.

     

    AA

     

    Photo: Eyeball Fm

  • Istanbul’s ferries survive change

    Istanbul’s ferries survive change

    FAMILIAR RITE: A passenger ferry arrives at Eminonu pier in the European side of Istanbul.
    FAMILIAR RITE: A passenger ferry arrives at Eminonu pier in the European side of Istanbul.

    With a rush of churning water then a jolt, the Karaoglanoglu ferry docks at Karakoy passenger terminal on Istanbul’s European shore and a familiar rite begins.

    Young men dart from the waiting room and leap aboard before the gangway is fixed, racing for a prized spot on the benches just above the water.

    Parents with children make for the top deck of the 34-year-old ferry, the best place for feeding the flocks of seagulls, who swoop to catch morsels of bread as they fly.

    Huge changes lie in store for how the citizens of this growing city of almost 15 million people cross the Bosphorus Strait, which separates its European and Asian shores.

    The government will shortly tender a third Bosphorus bridge, expected to bear rail as well as vehicles, and on the seabed giant tubes will encase a privately-operated commuter rail link, the Marmaray, and another a twin-deck road.

    While these projects will offer speed, convenience, and landmark engineering, they are unlikely to capture citizens’ hearts in the same way as the old-fashioned ferries.

    Even the city itself acknowledges the affection in which the ferry boats are held.

    Istanbul Municipality this month sold its high-speed passenger and vehicle ferries to a Turkish-Scottish consortium – but hived off the slower boats into a separate firm, Sehir Hatlari (City Lines), to be kept in state hands.

    “Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality wanted to keep operating those lines as a public service,” said Hamdi Ugur, Vice President at Finansinvest which advised the city on the privatization.

    Municipal transport experts say the city is trying to invite large private investment but also segment the market and ensure affordability for its citizens whose income spectrum is huge.

    High-speed vessels charge more than double the traditional ferries to make a slightly longer distance crossing.

    “People would riot if we cut the ferries’ journey time by even a minute,” said Suleyman Genc, manager of City Lines, whose boats carry 150,000 people a day and charge 1.75 Turkish lira (NZ$1.42) for the 20-minute crossing.

    “It is the most pleasant form of transport in Istanbul.”

    A look at the expressions of content and repose aboard the Karaoglanoglu, as passengers drink dainty glasses of Turkish tea from the buffet, or photograph yet again the famous skyline, corroborates his view.

    Elsewhere in Istanbul vehicles are lined bumper-to-bumper on the Bosphorus and Fatih Sultan Mehmet suspension bridges, crowded buses stand in grid-locked rush-hour roads, and taxi drivers honk in fury at the congestion.

    “Istanbul is beautiful, the Bosphorus is beautiful, but the ferries make them even more beautiful,” said Hasan Cebesoy, a 48-year-old civil servant sitting on the outside deck, crossing to the Asian side of the city.

    The history of sea transport in Istanbul reflects the history of a city to which modernization and industrialization came suddenly.

    At first a few solitary steam boats began to operate in Ottoman Istanbul’s waters, but such was their popularity that by 1851 the state founded its own ferry company — from which today’s City Lines derives.

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    Turkish Nobel laureate writer Orhan Pamuk describes how the city’s citizens doted on every ferry ever owned by City Lines and how his father could recognize each boat by its silhouette.

    When the city needed to add to its fleet in 2005 it allowed the public to vote on their favourite model. They chose the vessel most closely resembling the ones they knew and loved.

    “I always sit upstairs for the view and of course I find the old ferries the most beautiful,” said 65-year-old pensioner Esmet Ulukut, fondly patting a wooden window sill.

    “I wouldn’t want to use any of the tunnels under the sea, I wouldn’t want to take the risk,” he said.

    The decommissioning in 2008 of the Fenerbahce ferry, built in Glasgow in 1952 and widely considered the most beautiful, sparked protests.

    “That length of service is two or three times longer than the average life of a ferry,” said Genc.

    The vessels’ unusual slender frame caters to the challenges of serving in one of the world’s busiest shipping straits.

    “Maneuverability is very important. They have to serve crowded harbors where at rush hour a ferry might be arriving every 15 minutes. They also need to unload and reload passengers very rapidly,” said Ilhan Or, professor of industrial engineering at Istanbul’s Bosphorus University.

    – Reuters

    via Istanbul’s ferries survive change | Stuff.co.nz.

  • An Islamabad-Istanbul train that will traverse 6,500 km

    An Islamabad-Istanbul train that will traverse 6,500 km

    Islamabad, April 18 (IANS) A cargo train that will cover a distance of 6,500 km from Islamabad through Tehran to Istanbul will be ‘running in less than a year’, an official said.

    The ambitious project got a final shape during the April 11-14 official visit of President Asif Ali Zardari to Turkish capital Ankara.

    Turkish Union of Chambers (TOBB) has said it will immediately start a company to run the project and the company will seek collaboration with Pakistan and Iran business groups to execute it, Associated Press of Pakistan reported.

    ‘We are planning to get the train running in less than a year,’ TOBB president Rifat Hisarciklioglu was quoted as saying.

    The weekly trains are expected to make a one-way trip in 11 days between Istanbul and Islamabad.

    The report said the train will open up the European and Asian markets for Pakistan.

    President Asif Ali Zardari, during his visit, held discussions with Turkish President Abdullah Gul, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and Grand National Assembly Speaker Mehmet Ali Sahin.

    Pakistan and Turkey are keen to expand their bilateral trade volume from existing $1 billion to $2 billion by year 2012.

     

  • Chef recreates ‘lost recipes’ of Ottoman Empire

    Chef recreates ‘lost recipes’ of Ottoman Empire

    By A. Craig Copetas

    Bloomberg News

    tugra ciraganISTANBUL — Ottoman Empire chef Ugur Alparslan spends more time in the library than he does in the kitchen.

    “These are the lost recipes,” Alparslan says as the sun sets over the Golden Horn and the tables at his Tugra restaurant in the Ciragan Palace Kempinski hotel on Istanbul’s shore begin to fill with 21st-century merchants seeking the missing tastes and aromas of imperial Ottoman Constantinople.

    For Alparslan, 49, his ancient menu is as real today as the many portraits of Sultan Mehmed II, who in 1453 conquered Byzantium. The House of Osman, or Ottoman Dynasty, shaped the city on the Bosphorus into the first headquarters for what would become the luxury-goods industry.

    Occidental trumpery merchants assigned to the Ottoman court often compared meals at the sultan’s Topkapi palace and elsewhere in the city to those served at Belshazzar’s Babylonian feast. Back in Europe, their reports were at first digested with a pinch of salt, until the 19th-century French chef Alexis Soyer traveled to Constantinople during the Crimean War for a taste of the empire’s Balkan-Caucasus-Persian-Arab-Levant-Mediterranean fusion cooking.

    “For me, delicious and lavish food was the epicenter of the Ottoman Empire,” Alparslan says, unveiling a $27.10 grilled winter-celery appetizer decorated with beans, gingered olive oil and tarragon sauce. Yet the chef laments as another choice, a $28 saffron ravioli stuffed with flakes of sun-dried chili and thyme sauce, slides off the serving spoon.

    “The sultans did not embrace the printing press,” he says. “So I continually search old handwritten manuscripts to find promising new dishes from the past. I see my job as illuminating history through food.”

    Sifting through 493 years of Ottoman culinary chronicles isn’t for the meek. The sultans only ate off of gold, silver or green celadon plates that alchemists said either detected or defused poison.

    If the toxins failed, the killers turned to kitchen scissors, as was the case with Sultan Abdulaziz. He was assassinated in 1876 by rivals just a few yards from the Ciragan ovens, where Alparslan and his eight assistant chefs today concoct a $42 charcoal-grilled lamb “kulbasti” swaddled in smoked walnuts, eggplant, onion and sprinkled with a sauce of fresh- squeezed pomegranate juice.

    The only mystery is whether Alparslan’s mastery of the skillet would have landed him a job in any of Topkapi’s 10 kitchens, which included separate larders, stoves and recipes for the sultan, the grand vizier, the harem and the eunuchs. Sultanic scribes noted that the imperial kitchens daily served some 370 pounds of almonds washed down with 63 gallons of musk-scented rose water. And that was just for snacks.

    Ottoman business and political leaders conspired to obtain cooking titles such as “Superintendent of Sherbets,” a sort of dessert manager, whose responsibilities would have included overseeing the creation of Tugra’s $15 cinnamon halvah wrapped around fig ice cream or the restaurant’s baked quince with clotted cream laced with pomegranate syrup.

    High-ranking military officers in the sultan’s elite Janissary Corps vied for the exalted position of “corbaci,” or soup cook, an influential decoration akin to a knighthood that allowed them the privilege of wearing a ladle on their belt. Alparslan’s $19 sour lentil soup with fried eggplant and chickpeas is a triumphant reminder of the Janissary’s luxury mess hall and the need to keep an army fed.

    Tugra opened in 1991, though locals say the restaurant’s past chefs would have met the same fate as those whose dishes displeased the sultan.

    “A golden cord, tightened around the neck, the strangled body put in a sack and thrown in the Bosphorus,” is how English teacher and carpet dealer Huseyin Palioglu describes the outcome of a meal poorly served to the sultan and his guests. “There are many restaurants in Istanbul that offer palace cuisine, but Tugra is as accurate and delicious as the food can get under the circumstances.”

    Alparslan, who took command of the kitchen in 2002, has transformed Tugra from a luxury tourist trap inspired by whimsy into one of the world’s finest restaurants. It’s an historical incubator, where it’s best to avoid the overpriced French vintages in favor of a $207 2008 Doluca Alcitepe Saroz, a Cabernet Sauvignon-Shiraz blend from the Dardanelles.

    The wine nowadays is poured without a great dollop of the finely crushed natural Bahraini pearls once enjoyed by the empire’s commercial elite. Still, the heady 14.9 percent alcoholic content helps one imagine a time when affluent global businessmen gathered in Constantinople over clotted buffalo yogurt to discuss goat-hair futures.

    • DETAILS: Tugra, Ciragan Palace Kempinski, Istanbul; www.kempinski.com or 011-90-212-v326-v4646.

    via Chef recreates ‘lost recipes’ of Ottoman Empire – Travel – MiamiHerald.com.

  • Istanbul Hip & Cool: Unique, Sophisticated Pleasures In Turkey’s Cultural Capital

    Istanbul Hip & Cool: Unique, Sophisticated Pleasures In Turkey’s Cultural Capital

    NEW YORK, NY (April, 2011) — Because Istanbul is known only as an exotic and historic city, few are aware that it has become a hip, cool destination with incredible designers, sophisticated restaurants and cafes, music festivals with top Turkish and international talent, trendy boutiques and a lively nightlife that attracts cosmopolitan travelers from around the world.

    Below are a few suggestions for places to “see and be seen” in Istanbul:

    Lunch at Istanbul Modern

    Situated in a converted warehouse on the Bosporus, the Istanbul Modern features contemporary art by local artists, a sculpture garden and restaurant. After strolling through the exhibits, be sure to plan lunch on the stylish terrace overlooking the Bosporus, where the view rivals the art and the food is wonderful too.

    Get a Bird’s Eye View: Mikla and 360

    Mikla, located on the roof of the Marmara Pera Hotel is one of the city’s most elegant dining venues and has unforgettable skyline views. One of the coolest bars in Istanbul, 360 is a rooftop lounge with panoramic views of the city’s skyline from the spire of St. Antoine Church to Topkapi Palace and Sultanahmet. Its central location on Istiklal Street makes it popular with trendsetters in Istanbul, who congregate for sunset cocktails, artfully presented modern Turkish cuisine and the latest dance tunes played by popular DJs.

    Istanbul’s newest restaurants, nightspots and cafes

    • Nublu Istanbul @ Babylon, an offshoot of Nublu NYC, offers hot music groups and artists, and is owned by internationally acclaimed Turkish jazz artist Ilhan ErÅŸahin.

    • Bird Bar & Grill, serves world cuisine inspired by the chef’s travels to France, Italy, New York and elsewhere.

    • Up Lounge Bar & Restaurant in the New Tulip City Hotel welcomes customers with a modern Mediterranean and seafood menu prepared by Pelin Görpe, a young chef who cooked in several popular restaurants in the United States.

    • Corvus Wine & Bite, owned by the Corvus Vineyards, offers a great spot for a glass of wine and tapas dishes.

    • Owned and managed by the 360 Group, Fish is a multi-level venue specializing in unique appetizers and seafood dishes.

    Foodie Havens: Contrast of Contemporary and Classic

    • Minyon at W Istanbul: The latest venue for Istanbul’s hottest new chef, Emre Capa, Minyon has become one of the stars of the city’s trendy dining and nightlife scene. This contemporary space provides an upbeat entertaining evening of dining on Capa’s “small plates” cuisine, viewing artwork by young Turkish artists and feeling the rhythm of electronic and lounge music. Surprising dishes from around the globe such as mint and lemon risotto, a square ciabatta burger with pear confit, and mastica crème brulee blend with Capa’s special style.

    • Asitane’s chef has spent years studying the recipes of the lavish Ottoman era and serves true Ottoman “court” cuisine with over 200 historic dishes. The restaurant’s charming garden provides an oasis of tranquility amidst the energy of downtown Istanbul. It is located beside a hidden treasure, ancient Chora Church with its rare and spectacular frescos of the life of Mary.

    Explore a trendy neighborhood – Cihangir

    Cihangir is a small bohemian neighborhood where many painters, caricaturists, actors, writers, journalists and foreigners reside and enjoy the bookstores, galleries, and boutiques. The area’s many cafes and bistros provide a venue for lively conversations about theater, film, literature, politics and philosophy. Book a table at the bustling Meyra Café and Restaurant or visit other popular spots including Café Susam, Kahvedan and Smyrna.

    Cool Art on the Edge

    When Americans think of Istanbul they tend to think of history, the glories of the opulent Ottoman Empire and ancient archaeological sites. In fact, Turkey’s cultural capital also has one of the liveliest contemporary art scenes in the world.

    • Opened in 2005 in what had once been Istanbul’s Victorian-era Bristol Hotel, the Pera Museum is a cultural center with permanent and changing exhibits of art and ceramics

    • Santral Istanbul, another new contemporary art museum, was created by Istanbul Bilgi University as a project for urban revitalization and encompasses educational programs, outdoor recreation areas, residences for visiting artists and ample space for the creation and display of contemporary works of art

    • Misir Apartments, deceptively contained in a restored 19th-century building, are home to some of Istanbul’s most controversial and modern artists whose works are regularly shown in galleries on the premises. Visit the Galerist and Galeri Nev which showcase the work of local artists who have caught the attention of international dealers.

    Shopping, Chic and Funky Markets and Boutiques

    There may be no better place in the world to shop than Istanbul. Already famous for its Ortaköy Bazaar, the 4000 shops in the 15th century Grand Bazaar and colorful 17th century Spice Market, Istanbul is also home to trendy shopping areas full of designer boutiques, which attract sophisticated visitors from around the world:

    • Nisantasi on Istanbul’s European side and BaÄŸdat Caddesi, or Baghdad Avenue, on the Asian side are the “Rodeo Drives” of Istanbul

    • The handsomely restored Akaretler row houses in Besiktas are known for their expensive homes, museums, art galleries and exclusive shops

    • The little neighborhood Cukurcuma is a favorite among antique experts and artists

    • Equally artistic Cihangir, with its hilly streets, small boutiques, vintage shops and cafes might make you think of San Francisco.

    For more information on Turkey, call 1-877-FOR-TURKEY or contact the Turkish Culture and Tourist Offices in New York at 212-687-2194 or in Washington, D.C., at 202-612-6800, or Los Angeles at 323-937-8066 and visit their Web sites at www.tourismturkey.org.

    About Turkey

    Turkey is a modern country with a captivating blend of antiquity and contemporary and of East and West. The cradle of civilization and center of world history today stands as one of the fastest-growing tourism destinations in the world. Turkey was the site of the first human settlement; the seat of the Byzantine, Roman and Ottoman Empires; the birthplace of Homer and the last home of the Virgin Mary, just to name a few. Today Turkey, with its spectacular coastline, majestic mountains, cosmopolitan cities and quaint villages is one of the world’s most fascinating destinations.

  • Talks continue over Taliban office in Istanbul

    Talks continue over Taliban office in Istanbul

    ANKARA – Hürriyet Daily News

    Potential U.S. support to the idea of Turkey hosting a political office for Taliban militants from Afghanistan has given a boost to the initiative, first suggested late last year.

    Former Afghan President Burhanuddin Rabbani, who heads the Afghan High Peace Council, discussed the issue during a visit to Turkey last month, a member of the council told the Associated Press.

    “Turkey didn’t say no,” Arsala Rahmani was quoted as saying. “It is a key issue for resolving the situation in Afghanistan. It’s important for the Taliban to have a political address – a place – to talk to the world face-to-face. We have said in the past that without an address, solving the problem will be difficult.”

    No official application has yet been made for such an office, but Turkish approval could bolster Afghan President Hamid Karzai’s efforts to integrate moderate Taliban into mainstream society, a senior Turkish Foreign Ministry diplomat said Monday.

    “This is an issue still under discussion. The Americans also say an office can be opened,” the diplomat told the Hürriyet Daily News & Economic Review, speaking on condition of anonymity. “We are not acting on our own. This can happen only with the positive opinion of every party concerned.”

    Rahmani, a member of the peace council set up by the Afghan government to work toward a political solution, told the Associated Press that Turkey is already making plans for the office but it will take time to work out the details.

    The issue is expected to come up during the visit of Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari, who was scheduled to be in Ankara late Monday.

    “Pakistan fully supports Afghan efforts for peace and stability in Afghanistan,” a Pakistani Embassy spokesman told the Daily News.