Istanbul in Retrospect

History, unfortunately, is like money. The more of it you have the less it is worth. In the United States, the Betsy Ross house is a historical landmark with its own website and preservation committee. In Istanbul, the Theodosian Walls, a 3 mile stretch of what is widely accepted to be the most impressive medieval fortifications ever constructed (circa 408 AD) provide shelter to homeless Turks and a place for the locals to plant their okra. The problem is not that Istanbulus don’t care about their history; in fact it is illegal to take any artifact much older than a record player out of the country. There is just so too much of it. After the sack of Rome in 410 Istanbul aka Constantinople became The City of the medieval world and was referred to as such as far away as Scandinavia. When barbarian backwaters such as Paris and London supported no more than 30,000 inhabitants, Constantinople boasted over 600,000 people living inside the city walls and over one million in the surrounding suburbs and villages. The remains of all the homes, markets and places of worship for these people are all about a meter down waiting to frustrate anyone who wants to build on the land.

Thus grandiose ruins seem to pop out of the ground like weeds. Workers at the lot next to my hostel appeared to have stumbled across what could be a part of the Great Palace of Byzantium. Widening a street near the Valens aqueduct revealed a massive Basilica the remains of which are now scattered in a public park. To accommodate the ever-expanding number of priceless historical artifacts, the Istanbul Archeological Museum decided to build a massive addition only to discover that a ruined Byzantine monastery already occupied the expansion site. Even the water surrounding the city is not free of historical landmines. Construction on a new subway tunnel under the Bosporus Straits is already months behind schedule because a collection of ancient ships were discovered sunk in Üsküdar’s harbor. The remains of these ships have subsequently filled the museum past capacity once again. It’s a vicious cycle.

It is somewhat ironic that the two things that one cannot avoid on the streets of Istanbul are authentic historical sites and street vendors peddling less-than-authentic designer clothes. For some reason, Dolce & Gabbana appear to be the favorite victim for copyright infringement on the streets of the city. There is probably more counterfeit D&G for sale in Istanbul than the actual company has produced since its founding in 1985. The peddlers are everywhere: in tunnels under the street, on bridges over the streets, on the medians in the middle of the streets, in the bazaars, and at the ferry stops. Even legitimate store owners brazenly market their knock-off products. One of my favorite sightings was a t-shirt with ABERCROMIE screen printed across the front and a tag that read “Hollister.” It was 5 Lira.

Another vivid memory of mine from Istanbul was the driving. Turkish drivers are equally bad no matter what city you are in, but in Istanbul there are more drivers on tighter streets, complicating traffic problems exponentially. Red lights in Turkey are treated more like stop signs and the stop signs like the blinking yellow light you get after midnight in the US. Instead of driving in lanes, Turks drive in globs. If General Motors wants to cut costs they might consider not installing blinkers on the Opals they send to Turkey because no one uses them here anyway. In three weeks I witnessed 5 traffic accidents (none serious) and only gathered up the courage to use a taxi once.

I loved Istanbul. I think my favorite part was that when I walked out of my hostel in the morning, there was no telling what adventure I would encounter that day. Would I be eating something I could pronounce for lunch? Certainly not. Would I run across the ruins of the Sea Walls lost in Fatih? Maybe. Would I be run off the road my a crazed taxi driver before noon? Most definitely. I don’t know how I could grow tired of Istanbul. It constantly surprised me in the most spectacular ways.

I’ll post something about what I am doing in Antalya later this week. Today I started school.