Istanbul! seven things I noticed...

A post a little bit after the event, but later is better than never...
My girlfriend, Sue, and I spent five days in the Big Stan during the Easter holidays, and had a great time. It's been four and a bit years since I was last there, but the changes have been really noticeable. Just thought I'd share what was most memorable:

..and a collage of the five hundred or so pics I took.

1) The Metro System

This was only really properly getting under way back in 2009, and I remember when I first boarded the original line from Atakoy to Aksaray back in the 90's. I have to say that, as far as the main centres are concerned, this is a really well-conceived and joined-up, something I never thought I would say about the state of Istanbul's traffic twenty years ago. I even risked the dodgy plumbing of the Mamaray, the line going under the sea between Sirkeci and Kadikoy, and was genuinely astonished by the speed of the service. The Istanbul travel card (similar to an Oyster Card in London) was also a definite plus. 

Having said that, from the journeys I did, it seems that it is an effective service only for certain, wealthier parts of the city.

2) Kadikoy

It's been absolutely yonks since I last went there, and I was pleasantly surprised by it - the Carsi is an excellent area of small lanes full of different types of food shops, and the restaurant and bar scene is much livelier than it once was.

3) Kumkapi

Disappointing, with the exception of the live street music - I found the menus a bit uninspiring, and the food wasn't much cop, with the exception of some genuinely exquisite fresh mackerel fillets. The place hasn't aged well.

4) Wine prices

What the HELL is going on with the price of wine?? It's ridiculous: over 40 quid for a mediocre bottle! Just a few years ago, Turkey had a fledgling wine industry that was developing into something bold and interesting - now, the government seems determined to strangle it. Gone, it seems, are the days of buying a bottle of Dog Killer for about 50p.

5) The underground bins, and the relative cleanliness

Seems a bit dumb, but the underground bins in Sultanahmet are a huge improvement on the stinking cat-ridden skips that blocked every corner of a few years ago. The tourist areas are also definitely way cleaner than before.

6) The range of tourists

Again, this may seem odd, but back in the mid nineties, virtually all the tourists were Europeans, Americans, and Japanese: Now, just wandering around the main tourist drags is extraordinarily eclectic, with a significant number of visitors from all round the Middle East, possibly because of the Magnificent Century factor.

7) A different kind of edge

This is a bit hard to quantify, but it was something that I felt - Istanbul seemed to have a different atmosphere in the people on the street. It was as if its febrile air of hustle and trade had been subtly changed to have something else, a tension that was waiting to be released, a sensation of almost imperceptible fear. The only way I can express it is that it was as if the whole city was keeping one eye over its shoulder to check who could be listening. 

Just one little tree.....

It's not much to look at really. Just another park in another big city, surrounded by roads full of dust in the summer and mud in the winter, and always stuffed with noise and fumes. It's not particularly large, or even really that green. If you're a tourist, you may not even realise it's there, as it's easy to pass by as you go to the Metro station or wait for a bus. But in a city where space is at a premium, where outdoor play facilities for children are rare and open spaces fewer still, it's a little green lung. This is Gezi Park in Taksim, Istanbul.

So why am I writing about it? Because, for the past couple of days, thousands of Istanbulites have been protesting there, trying to stop it being razed to the ground. And why is it being destroyed? To make way for yet another shopping mall. A shopping mall financed by leading members of the ruling AKP party, by people with eyes only for a profit. Right now, as I write, the police are attacking what has been a peaceful protest with tear gas grenades, pepper spray and rubber bullets. They are firing the pepper spray directly into people's faces. They have been firing the gas grenades into the metro station, where people not even involved in the protest, including children, have found themselves choking.

All for a few trees in a little park in a big city.

Of course, it's really about something much bigger: about the conflict in Turkey's soul between the aims and ideals of the secular republic and the Islamist desires of the government; about the endless struggle between civil liberties and libertarian greed; about the hunger for control and repression against the right to freedom of expression; It's about fights that take place every day between the over-mighty and the mass of people, all over the world.

This protest over this little park is just the latest act of unveiling the truth about a deeply ugly, authoritarian ruling party, run by billionaires who award business contracts to each other and leech the wealth out of an entire nation, who reward districts that have elected their MPs by channelling state money there while throttling aid to regions that dared vote differently, who censor, ban and imprison, who have a cavalier disregard for human rights, and who get away with it because the Turkish media has become a supine, discombobulated cheerer-on.

The only thing the AKP really worships, it seems, is the power of money.

But in a little park in a big city, surrounded by dust and noise, and right now filled with gas, tears and blood and protest, something, something is happening. The Turkish people have turned, and right now, they are saying 'Enough is ENOUGH'.

The thing is, one little tree is one little tree, but give it time, and it can become a whole forest.