At dinner that evening, we talked about Turkey, my sister- and brother-in-law shaking their heads in wonder—and envy. They wished that India, in the same time period, could have made this much progress.

After living somewhere for awhile—or visiting a place multiple times—you start to develop opinions. I’ve been to India eight times, most recently this past month, and Turkey was my home from 2010 to 2013. Here, in an attempt to cross-pollinate, I present some comparisons and contrasts. Caveat: terrorism currently affects both countries, Turkey more so at this moment. That topic—and an evaluation of top leadership in both countries—is beyond the scope of this essay. So, please try to disengage from recent perceptions as depicted in the media.

Turkey, which emerged in the late 1940s from military dictatorship, strikes visitors as an orderly place. Turks enjoy smooth roads, clean air, and firm law enforcement. Few bars on windows indicate that the country feels fairly secure from petty crime. Turks revere the idea of government and laud the person who pays the most taxes each year.

India, with a democratic tradition also dating to the 1940s, appears chaotic. Garbage lies in the streets. Cities seem unplanned. The air in cities like Delhi is foul. Indians seem to expect little from their government. My husband long ago told me that his middle-class family does not vote. Why? Because their votes are swamped by the vast, poverty-stricken majority.

Turkey was never colonized. Indeed as Ottomans, Turks were themselves colonizers for centuries. India was colonized, primarily by the British, for over three centuries. Both countries, in throwing off their pasts, went through population exchanges. Turkey in 1923 expelling its citizens of Greek origin, and India in 1947, when Pakistan was created. Apprentices of the great Turkish architect, Mimar Sinan, helped design the Taj Mahal.

Nearly all of Turkey’s citizens are Muslims, and its Kurdish minority looks and worships just like the Turkish majority. By contrast, all religions reside on the Indian subcontinent: Hinduism, Islam, Christianity, Sikkism, Jainism, Zoroastrianism, Buddhism. You can be on the steps of a Hindu temple and hear the Muslim ezan loud and clear. It is surely easier to govern, easier to get citizens to pull together, in a homogenous country.

Turkey is most impressive in that it accomplished so very much in the middle years of the twentieth century. While India has also made progress, what impresses me most about that country is the creativity and brainpower of the people it sends to the U.S. Surely no other immigrant group in the U.S. has been so dazzlingly successful.

Two countries with much to admire: India for its brilliant human exports and Turkey for its successful, up-by-the-bootstraps century.

I would rather live in Turkey than in India. But I do think that homogenous countries are at a disadvantage in today’s world. There is simply a dearth of different ideas, and citizens are not called on to be flexible and creative. Turkey should loosen up a little in order for the full flower of its people’s creativity to blossom. Now that you have mastered control, Turkey, start learning to embrace complexity and diversity. Open yourself to diversity, to messiness, and even to a little dirt. It will be good for your soul.

People from heterogenous countries are wizards of adaptability. That trait helps them as they go out into the world and that, I believe, is the secret of the Indian sauce. Nice work, Indians, but do try lift up those who work for your public sector. Without good government, life can be nightmarish.

The post Some Thoughts on India and Turkey appeared first on Sue's Turkish Adventures.

“Greg, it’s been great talking to you, but I have to go,” I say into the telephone, glancing at my watch. It is just after 8 on a Sunday morning. Sankar and I often wake to a phone call from one of our adult children, for whom it is late night in Minnesota or New York. Today Greg is on the line, but he gets to talk only with me; Sankar is on a ten-day trip to South Africa and Dubai. And I’m in a hurry because I’m joining a tour of “Istanbul’s Seventh Hill” at 8:30 down on the Sea Road.

The conversation hasn’t been long enough for me to truly listen to Greg’s ideas and concerns, and I hang up feeling wistful. I could be more supportive if I wasn’t so far away.

Greg, 22, has been out of college for four months and he doesn’t have a job. He is sleeping on various friends’ couches in Manhattan, serving banquets and clerking in retail stores. We haven’t been overly concerned, feeling it is typical for a new graduate to flail a bit, particularly in the midst of The Great Recession. But when I think of him, struggling to gain traction in Manhattan, my heart goes out to him.

Greg and Angela visited us briefly in August and they got acquainted with Ümit. Now, as we drive around the city, he often asks if Greg has found a job yet. “No, nothing yet,” I always answer, and make a joke about couch surfing.

Finally one day, Ümit lets loose with a question it seems he has had for some time. It reveals how little he knows about the size of New York City and its distance from Minnesota—and what illustrious Americans he thinks Sandy and I are. “Don’t you and Sandy know anyone in New York?”

I’m pretty sure that my answer, an astonished, upwardly inflected “no,” is hard for Ümit to understand. A Turkish family would provide rent and a living allowance for unemployed offspring of any age.

Now, making sure I have my keys and camera, I leave the apartment building, closing the outer door carefully to avoid waking up ground-floor residents. Few Turks are out on the roads on Saturday and Sunday mornings, and I’m pretty sure my neighbors are also indulging in what seems to be a national preference for sleeping in.

Out of the compound, I turn right toward the edge of the hill that faces the Bosphorus and begin my descent. Past the mini-mart that sells homemade flatbread and where I’ve seen the male proprietors watching videotapes of Sex and The City. Thwack. My feet hit hard on the pavement that slants away from them, punctuating the negative thoughts I’m having. Why did Sankar bring me here to Turkey only to travel out of the country half the time? Thwack. Down the steep street lined with charming old houses. I have to introduce myself to a bus full of strangers today in order to have something to do. Thwack. Around the corner and onto the small road on which stray dogs occupy one side and cats occupy the other. I am far more alone here than I was back home. Thwack. Down the main street of Arnavutköy past the bakery, the kuruyemiş (dried fruits and nuts) shop, several kebab restaurants and a video store called The End. I can’t even help my kids because I’m too far away. Thwack.

Today will be my first trip with the American Research Institute in Turkey, (ARIT), the group that I signed up with at the IWI fair in September. The Seventh Hill trip is billed as “a unique tour of the Byzantine and Ottoman city, and some of its important but little-visited churches and mosques.”

I’m down at sea level now, on flat ground. I turn right and see a bus sitting a few blocks ahead. A knot of people, perhaps a dozen, are standing outside of it. They look to be my age or older and are conversing animatedly. Thoroughly in a bad mood, I slow down and actually consider turning around and walking back up the hill. But what will I do all day alone in the apartment? I move toward the group.

A middle-aged Turkish woman with a dark pageboy sees me and introduces herself as Tulin, one of the trip organizers.

“Hi — welcome! What is your name?”

I tell her and she puts an X by it on her list. Then, smiling, I stand on the edge of the group, finally introducing myself to one couple. The woman’s name is Heleny. She is a retired school superintendent from Virginia, here in Istanbul teaching at the Üsküdar School for Girls. Üsküdar, formerly Scutari, is where Florence Nightingale established a hospital during the Crimean War. Heleny’s husband, Bill, is a retired lawyer. “I cook, but I don’t clean,” he quips.

It is time to board the bus, and I climb on. A dozen others are already seated. My instinct is to take one of four or five empty pairs of seats, but then I notice another lone woman and something makes me turn away from my solitude and put myself out. I ask if the seat next to her is free, and she nods.

I sit down and we begin to talk. She is fortyish and pretty, with light brown shoulder-length hair and large doe eyes. Her name is Elif. She is Turkish but tells me she has just returned to Istanbul after twenty years in London. The reason? A divorce from her British husband. She tells me it feels strange after two decades to be in Turkey, that London feels like her real home. Well, another outsider.

Elif and I converse as the bus starts up and this distracts me from my sour mood. I feel some of my negativity draining away. Our guide stands up in the front of the bus, picks up a microphone, and addresses us. He is Haluk Çetinkaya, a bald, 40-ish professor of archaeology from Istanbul’s Mimar Sinan University. He announces that, within a mere five block area on the Seventh Hill, we are going to see a 16^th century mosque, a monastery complex that dates back to the 5^th century, a Christian church from the 13th century, and a former soldier’s barracks that closed in the 1800s.

The bus rumbles south along the Bosphorus toward the Old City and then turns and winds away from the familiar tourist sites. We navigate narrow roads for ten minutes or so, stopping and starting, and then disembark in a part of town I haven’t seen before. Mostly filled with nondescript twentieth century buildings, it is apparently the Seventh Hill, and encompasses a western section of the ancient walled city.

We troop off the bus and gather together. I edge toward Professor Çetinkaya so street noise doesn’t prevent me from hearing what he says. He points across a wide, busy street at three freestanding walls arranged in a convex quarter circle. They are made of red brick and gray stone, giving them a striped appearance. Two of the walls have large arched window openings from which vegetation protrudes, and partial roofs that slant toward the wall in the middle, which is lower, with a convex bulge on top.

They are all that is left of St. John Studion, a religious complex that was founded in 462 CE by a Roman priest named Studius. It came into prominence as a monastery at the beginning of the 9^th century, attracting Christianity’s premier calligraphers; composers of sacred hymns; and illuminators of manuscripts, some of which can be found in Venice and the Vatican City.

Functioning for a millennium up to and after the 1453 Muslim conquest, St John Studion inspired monasteries such as Mount Athos in Greece, but not long after the conquest, it became a mosque and the monks in residence were dismissed. Like human remains, this old church body is now merely a skeleton.

Mulling this tale of ephemerality, we are led down and across the street where Professor Çetinkaya points to a nineteenth century structure that looks like a hotel or apartment building. It is the former barracks of the Janissaries, the Ottoman Empire’s elite infantry troops. I have heard the word janissary before, but don’t know its significance.

The professor explains that the Janissaries were young boys recruited from Balkan Christian families starting in the 1500s and compelled (against the tenets of Islam), to convert. They received military as well as liberal arts training, and wore elaborate red and yellow uniforms and tall white tubular felt hats. Particularly talented recruits received a higher standard of education and became part of the Ottoman class of viziers (officials; the word is related to wizard) as well as engineers, architects, physicians, and scientists. Over its 300-year history, the Janissary system became hereditary and the Janissaries themselves gradually became corrupt and inclined to revolt. The system was abandoned in 1826.

The most illustrious Janissary of all designed the next building we are to visit, the Şehzade (sheh ZA day) or Prince’s Mosque. As we walk toward this magnificent structure, we learn about Mimar Sinan (Sinan, the architect), for whom Professor Çetinkaya’s university is named.

Mimar Sinan is considered the greatest of all Ottoman architects, comparable to Michelangelo, his contemporary in the West. He was conscripted from a Christian family, probably of Armenian or Greek origin, in 1512, and worked for Turkish sultans throughout the 1500s, producing the loveliest mosques in Istanbul, along with schools, mausoleums, palaces, mansions, and bridges. Istanbul is adorned with Mimar Sinan’s work.

Mimar Sinan built the Şehzade Mosque in 1543 for Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent, who presided over the Ottoman empire at its apex. The purpose? To commemorate the death of Suleiman’s 22-year-old eldest son, Prince Mehmet, from smallpox. Suleiman was apparently so heartbroken that he sat with his son’s body for three days before allowing it to be taken away and buried. How his subjects must have pitied their ruler, his power and prestige granting no reprieve from death. Even sultans must bow to the will of Allah.

The Sehzade Mosque’s exterior glows in various shades of pink and white marble. The professor points out its elaborately-carved arches, its inlayed minarets, and its ribbed and fretted domes.

To enter, we pass through an elaborately carved stone entrance into a courtyard that contains a domed marble “ablutions fountain,” where male worshippers wash their hands and feet before praying. None of us do any washing, but we remove our shoes before walking up and into the carpeted mosque itself.

Inside, other people are milling around and several men are kneeling in prayer, but this is not one of the five daily prayer times during which non-Muslims are excluded. The professor invites us to sit down on the lush, deep orange carpeting while he begins explaining the building’s interior. My first impression is of sunshine and curved edges. Light seems to stream in from everywhere: the stained glass windows as well as the full and semi-domes above them.

The carpet features rows of dark blue repeating patterns about three feet by two feet in size, that look like arched doorways. These indicate where each worshipper is to kneel and the direction he is to face. In essence, these are the pews, and they run in rows all the way to the edge of the sanctuary, with no “aisles” or other spaces. This horizontal orientation makes the room appear wider than it is deep, and enforces a kind of equality among male worshippers (women occupy a confined space in the back of the mosque.)

The central dome floats high above us, patterned in red, blue and black and bordered by burgundy and white stripes. Patterned half domes spring from the central dome, giving an impression of endlessness. This, I will learn, is a feature of all Sinan mosques.

Lowering our eyes, we see the mihrab, a stone niche indicating the direction of Mecca. Next to it is the mimbar, or pulpit, reached by a series of steps concealed by a curtain. The mimbar is capped by a fanciful turret painted in golds, blues and reds.

A black iron chandelier perhaps twenty feet in diameter hangs low in the middle of the sanctuary. Its swirl of curving lines and individual lights causes the mosque’s interior to sparkle. Arched colonnades extend around the building.

The Sehzade’s detailed, repeating patterns and inscriptions, and its layer-upon-layer surfaces give the building an air of eternal mystery that seems a perfect accompaniment to religious faith. Overall, my impression is of glory, not the severity I still expect in an Islamic structure.

Professor Çetinkaya brings us out of our reverie by reminding us that the Şehzade Mosque was built only ninety years after the Muslim takeover of Constantinople. He then says something that surprises me, and he repeats it: “They were the same people. They were the same people.”

What does he mean? He explains that a new population was not brought in to replace the Christians living in defeated Constantinople. After the Conquest, the same people remained, gradually—or rapidly—switching their allegiance to the faith of their conquerors. So if one were to trace the ancestry of the people currently living on this land, Christian heritage would be uncovered. And farther back, one would find that these “same people” worshipped Greek gods and goddesses, maintaining statues of Zeus and Athena in their backyards.

This information makes me think differently of Turks, and I realize I’ve assumed religious beliefs are implacable. Later I will read that the Christian Byzantines felt that their defeat was a sign that God no longer favored their belief system.

Leaving the mosque, we walk on an unkempt path toward the Kalenderhane Mosque, a cozy sixth century former Christian church built on the site of Roman baths. One regime replacing another. The church’s orientation is north-south, but when the Ottomans replaced the Byzantines and it was converted into a mosque, its focus had to turn toward Mecca. Its carpeting, patterned to help worshippers face Mecca, is installed at a dizzying diagonal.

We stop at a kebab place for lunch and I meet some of my tour companions. Peter and Elaine, long-time Istanbul residents, he from the U.K. and she South African. A retired professor of history named Will, also British. Tulin, who helped organize the trip. A thin, older Japanese gentleman who sits reading a book written in Russian and doesn’t meet anyone’s gaze. Doug and Jean, here on a posting with the State Depatment. Friendly and unpretentious people, studious people, some delightfully eccentric. People a lot like me and, I remind myself, these folks were also new to Istanbul once, and disoriented. How easy it is to forget that.

As we sip tulip glasses of tea after lunch, people ask me about our arrival and jobs here, and encourage me to join upcoming ARIT tours, designed to go deep into the country’s history. It feels great.

In the afternoon, we are taken to a seven-turreted section of Istanbul’s ancient land walls called Yedikule (yedi = seven; kule = castle) and a functioning Greek Orthodox Church, for some reason also called the Balikli Camii, or Fishy Mosque, which has an underground spring full of goldfish. But at this point, I have hit a wall and am finding it difficult to receive, let alone integrate any more information. But I’m not complaining. The day has been dazzling, providing completely new insights, none of which are in my guidebook. It has taken me completely away from my everyday concerns.

It is past 5 pm when we climb back on the bus. My legs ache and I am tired of listening. Funny how my empty apartment now seems like just the thing. But on the way back, the bus encounters heavy traffic on the narrow Sea Road, with no place to turn off. We sit only a mile and a half from our destination, but inching forward; we can do nothing but wait. This is Istanbul: narrow streets, lots of waterways, and serious traffic chokepoints.

Elif and I chat desultorily. Then a sixty-something woman in front of us turns around and introduces herself. Kate is attractive, with dark hair framing her face and large, dark eyes. She could pass as a Turk, but she tells us she is British, and she has an interesting story. Her parents worked for the British embassy and, growing up, she lived in several foreign countries, including the U.S. When she was in college in England, her parents were posted to Ankara, and on a visit to them one summer, she fell in love with a Turk. They married and have lived in Istanbul for forty years.

Kate tells Elif that for her, England feels strange, whereas Turkey is home. The two women’s stories are mirror images of each other. I ponder Elif’s current struggle and Kate’s long-ago adjustment to a Turkey much less modern than today.

The day has been filled with stories of dislocation and loss. A group of Byzantine scholars packing up for a long trip west, hoping perhaps Rome will take them in. The Janissaries, including Mimar Sinan, wrenched from their families and their religion. The magnificent Sultan, inconsolable over his young son’s death. A defeated city turning away from its faith. All of these dwarf my tiny current sufferings.

The entire city, it seems, is built on the concept of transplantation, the need to adapt and readapt to change. Perhaps all places are, but Istanbul seems more so, a crossroads for divergent peoples and the site of furious battles to establish religious supremacy. The day has given me a glimpse of the lessons this place might hold—as well as, surprisingly, my first, tiny sense of belonging.

The bus finally arrives, and I disembark, feeling weary but pleased. Spending the day around new people and beginning to learn about this complex city was just the tonic I needed. As I walk back up the hill, it occurs to me that perhaps as I learn to make my way here, Greg, displaced by choice, is also learning to navigate the polyglot port city he has chosen to live in.

And Sankar: well, now I have taken the lead: I can introduce him to some new people. Something drew me to that lonely ARIT table at the IWI fair in September, and it seems my instincts were sound. I know he’ll love the group’s focus on history and its welcoming members. I can’t wait to tell him about my day.

The post City of Loss appeared first on Sue's Turkish Adventures.

Now back in Minnesota, I wrote this article to serve as your homework :). If you’re visiting Turkey for the first time, you’re in the right place. Let me know if you’d like any other tips, and enjoy what follows!

Introduction

Is it possible to make sense of a country’s two thousand year history when you have only a few days and don’t speak the language? I think it is. Plan to visit Istanbul first. Then, as you branch out from this historic mecca, you will enjoy many other sites and landmarks. I will write about those in an upcoming post.

To help you make sense of places you’ll encounter in Istanbul and give you an edge on other tourists, I’ve organized this post into three categories. Each category represents a group of people or a person who shaped Turkey.

The three groups you should be excited to learn about include:

1. The Byzantines, folks who kept Christianity alive from 330 to 1453 CE.
2. The Ottomans, a group of tolerant Turks who spread their culture throughout the Middle East and Eastern Europe during the golden years of Islam.
3. Kemal Ataturk, a 20th century hero who fought off invading superpowers and put his proud stamp on the modern Turkish Republic.

The Best Byzantine Places to Visit

I don’t know about you, but I knew nothing about the Byzantines before I visited Turkey. It turns out they were early, devout Christians. They had caught the fever—and they put it into all of their art. And if you’ve ever attended church, you’ll understand what they were trying to tell us!

Stand in the Afternoon Sun in The Hagia Sophia

–Walk into the vast, ornate Hagia Sophia in the heart of Istanbul’s Old City. Built after Rome fell and the empire moved a thousand miles east, it was the largest church in the world for a millennium. That’s a thousand years, folks! Take in the vast exterior and the frescoes of Mary and angels. Climb a medieval ramp to the second floor and turn a corner to see a mosaic of Jesus so expressive you might burst into tears. Oh, and don’t miss the graffiti left by the Vikings.

“Read” the Bible on the Walls of St Savior of Chora Church

–Travel to the western edge of Istanbul’s Old City to visit the St. Savior of Chora church. There you’ll find familiar Bible stories—the turning of water into wine, Herod’s massacre of the innocents, Mary and Joseph’s flight to Bethlehem—expressed in mosaics. Yes, tiny little stones tell the tales – and they cover every inch of this incredible 11th century church.

Descend Into The Cisterns

–Walk down into the ghostly 6th century Basilica Cisterns, built to supply water to the Byzantines—and then for centuries, forgotten.

Walk Around Istanbul’s Ancient Land Walls

–Stroll along Istanbul’s Theodosian Walls, built in 413 CE, and consider what “state of the art defense” meant 1600 years ago. These two-layer structures were twelve meters high and two meters thick at their base, with 96 towers and, of course, a moat.

The Best Ottoman Places to Visit

Climb The Ramparts at Rumeli Hisari

–Imagine centuries of mismanagement that shrunk the Eastern Roman Empire down to one city: Constantinople. Head up the Bosphorus to Rumeli Hisari, a castle-like fortress built in a mere four months by Fatih Sultan Mehmet to prepare for his attack on Constantinople. (Imagine your own worst enemy setting up shop ten miles away, waiting for his chance to destroy you.) The Byzantines sent frantic letters to Europe begging for help, but little arrived. In Istanbul (formerly Constantinople), you’ll learn how the Ottomans outsmarted the Byzantines.

Enter the Battle at The Panorama Museum

–Put yourself right in the middle of Fatih Sultan Mehmet’s final, fatal siege at the Panorama Museum. An exciting book called Constantinople: The Last Conquest, by Roger Crowley, gives all the gory details. Then: re-visit the Walls to pinpoint their weak spots.

Marvel at Istanbul Military Museum

–Visit the Military Museum to touch the chain the Byzantines attached across the Golden Horn in an attempt to prevent Mehmet’s ships from entering and attacking where Constantinople was most vulnerable. Mehmet outsmarted the Byzantines. . . I’ll let you discover why on your own.

–Now consider re-visiting the Hagia Sophia to imagine it full of frightened citizens, praying to save the city as invaders break down the walls.

Fall in Love At The New Mosque

–Peer into the New Mosque (built in 1665) beside the Spice Bazaar and feel like you’re floating inside an enchanted cloud. Interested in more? Visit the grand hilltop Suleimaniye Mosque; the pink Mihrimah Mosque with its history of romantic longing; The Rustem Pasha Mosque, built in cooperation with business establishments next to the Spice Bazaar; and the tiny gemlike Sokullu Mehmet Pasha Mosque just off the Hippodrome.

Play Sultan at Topkapi Palace

–Walk through the Topkapi Saray, the palace of the pleasure-loving Ottoman Sultans. Gaze upon their ornate robes, walk through their harem, and imagine yourself brandishing imperial swords and entertaining guests in cushioned splendor.

Roam the Bazaars

— Shop like a sultan: Head to the The Spice Bazaar to buy pomegranate-flavored Turkish Delight, dried sweetmeats, and Iranian saffron. Walk through the 500-year-old Grand Bazaar, a mesmerizing array of over 4,000 shops.

The Best Ataturk Places to Visit

And finally, we come to the era of Ataturk, the father of Modern Turkey. This remarkable man fought off four invading countries at once—at one time, folks!—and then dragged a hidebound, superstitious country into modernity.

People-Watch on Istiklal Avenue

–Stroll glitzy, historic Istiklal Avenue and admire its architecture and exuberance. Istiklal is the word for independence, appropriate for the Ataturk’s Republic, admired throughout the Middle East.

Admire Photos of Ataturk’s Amazing Life

–Study the impressive black and white enlargements of Ataturk’s life that adorn the Sea Road on your way up to Rumeli Hisari.

Translate Turkish Words in a Dictionary

–Relish your ability to look up Turkish words thanks to Ataturk, who changed the Turkish alphabet from Arabic to Roman characters.

Lift a Cup of Boza

–Enjoy boza, a Turkish drink made from fermented bulgur, at Vefa Bozaci, a few blocks above the Suleimaniye mosque. Buy some roasted chickpeas across the street and add them to your cup as Turks do. Ataturk’s cup hangs on the wall for all to see.

Have a Conversation With Your Turkish Hosts

–Admire Turkish pride in the cleanliness and vigor of Istanbul, the patience Turks display in traffic, and above all, the warm hospitality granted to visitors.

Now that you’ve read this post, you can start devising your own plan to “conquer” Istanbul! You can do a minimalist tour in two days, but I’d recommend three or four. Let me know if you have any questions!

Note: Istanbul is a ten-hour direct flight from NY City. A ticket should cost you about $1,200.

The post The Best Places to Visit on Your First Time in Turkey (2015 Edition) appeared first on Sue's Turkish Adventures.

I tried to recall everything I’d ever learned or heard about Turkey. It wasn’t much. In fact I came up with just four facts. First, Turkey was the “Ottoman” in Ottoman Empire. Second, it was a member of NATO. Third, it wasn’t close friends with its neighbor, Greece (That from reading Louis de Berniers’ book, Birds Without Wings for my book group. The two countries had actually had a bitter population exchange in the 1920s). Last, I knew Turkey had had a leader named Atatürk. What was up with that name? Did the man’s name and the country’s name have anything to do with each other?

I didn’t quite know where Greece was in relation to Turkey. My neighbor declared it was to Turkey’s south. Later, checking a map, I discovered Greece lies west of Turkey.

In my mid-twenties, at the beginning of my year and a half tour in Yemen, I had met an American professor of Turkish history and his wife, Jan. When Jan mentioned they had lived for several years in Turkey. I voiced a common misperception.

“Turkey. That just seems like a dirty country.”

Jan fixed me with a rebuking stare. “It is very clean,” she said. Embarrassed, I fell silent. Later in life I would be highly critical of people who judged countries they had never visited.

Jan was probably used to hearing negative comments about Turkey. The movie, Midnight Express, had come out only a year earlier. Financed by Greece and directed by Oliver Stone, it portrayed horrors encountered in Turkish prisons by young Westerners caught smuggling drugs. The film frightened a generation of would-be travelers to Turkey.

I had never seen Midnight Express. In fact my present thoughts were not on a movie, but on a book that had nothing to do with Turkey per se. It was Culture Shock, A Wife’s Guide. Written by Robin Pascoe, an irreverent Canadian embassy wife, it asks the question, “In a marriage overseas, what else is there besides guilt and resentment?” Pascoe writes that the expatriate husband feels guilty for dragging his wife overseas, and the wife resents her husband for the same. Pascoe also confides that she “places feelings of isolation highest on my list of emotions that feed my antagonism toward my husband.” I felt like Pascoe had been watching me in Costa Rica.

In Costa Rica it had been easy to blame Sankar when things went wrong, and he had taken it without comment, the price he had to pay for his plum job. It had felt good to have this power while I felt otherwise powerless. And blaming my hubby for feeling lonely? I had been a master of that.

Talking Turkey

After Christmas, Sankar contacted a colleague who had recently returned from working in Istanbul. He and his wife agreed to meet us for dinner.

Our most pressing question was about housing, but I hoped this duo would also share some specific things we should either make sure to do, or make certain not to do for fear of offending Turks. Cultural do’s and don’t’s.

We had met with Sankar’s immediate predecessor and his family before going to Costa Rica. A large Chilean family, they had provided well-meaning tips but, already fluent in Spanish and with a special-needs child, their perspective was different from ours. That only became apparent until many months and several big decisions later. It was better, I learned, to seek advice from one’s own countrymen.

Mark and Beth, a handsome American couple in their early forties, met us just after Christmas at an Italian restaurant in St. Paul. Attempting a gracious start to our adventure while at the same time realizing I might be overdoing it, I presented them a thank-you box of Godiva chocolates.

The pair told us they had enjoyed Istanbul, but had chosen to live far north of the city, close to the International School their four children attended. Beth seemed reserved, but Mark rattled off the names of several attractive neighborhoods closer in, and I jotted them down in a notebook. He told me that my knowledge of Arabic would be helpful, but warned that Turks would be insulted if we referred to them as Arabs. He also cautioned against ever–ever–criticizing the founder of the Turkish Republic, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk. There was that name again, Atatürk. Apparently his memory was sacrosanct.

As our dinners were placed in front of us, I confided to Beth that I was worried about being lonely in Istanbul. I told her I had been alone much of the time in Costa Rica, with little to do. Beth brightened and became more talkative. She had a chemistry degree, she told me, and had found work as a volunteer science teacher at what she said was a “secret” evangelical Christian school. Overhearing that, Mark interrupted her and said no, it wasn’t a secret; the Turkish government was aware of the school. Beth shook her head in disagreement.

“Anyhow, you should go there and meet them. They would take you right in,” she enthused. Apparently it had been a lifesaver for her.

I wasn’t inclined toward conservative Christianity, but this was startling. In Yemen, proselytizing for any religion other than Islam had been strictly forbidden, and I shocked that anyone would attempt such a thing in a Muslim country. I was taken aback that Beth had brought up the topic. But then I had asked her for help.

As Sankar and I drove away after dinner, I had to fight the impulse to disparage Beth. The old me would have exclaimed, “Can you believe what she did in Istanbul?” as soon as we got into the car. Sankar would have listened, his mouth tight, thinking, Sue has already found something to dislike.

My dad had a habit of adding an admonition to every plan (“Sure, drive to Chicago, but you’re probably going to get stuck in traffic on the way.) While I knew he did so because he cared, it made him seem negative. I hadn’t intended to follow in his footsteps, but now I realized I was close to doing just that. Instead of throwing up roadblocks ahead of time, I criticized after the fact, as a way of presenting myself as discerning, letting people know I “didn’t miss a thing.” Now I began to realize how negative that also sounded, how it could cast a pall—or even direct blame.

Now, with some effort, and a feeling that I was leaving something important unsaid, I simply murmured something about what a nice evening it had been, and then rode home quietly. Before long, my frustration gave way to a sense of pride. Being gracious about the evening hadn’t been all that difficult. But would I be able to replicate this later, when deep in culture shock?

Our Friends Fear for Us

As the New Year approached, I told friends and neighbors about our plans. They seemed to bifurcate into two distinct groups: “We’re coming to see you!” and “Aren’t you afraid to go there?” All, however, were helpful, taking me out for goodbye lunches and dinners and listening to my concerns. I received several going- away gifts, mostly books. One was a slim, but substantial hardcover book called Eyewitness Travel Turkey. The cover photo featured a lapis lazuli body of water and a rugged-looking island with a sailboat lazing alongside it. Beneath was a summary of the attractions described inside the book: “bazaars, restaurants, beaches, mosques, history, carpets, hotels, national parks, shops, museums, ruins.” I sat down on my usual section of the couch and, snow flying outside, leafed through Eyewitness Travel Turkey.

Lavishly illustrated, the book divided Turkey into regions, including Thrace, the Aegean, the Mediterranean, and the Black Sea. As I paged through the book, words I’d known all my life, but never quite understood caught my eye. Byzantium. Caravansaray. Golden Horn. Topkapi (wasn’t that a movie back in the 1960s?) The Bosphorus (when had I first heard this word and what, exactly, did it refer to?)

Our Childhoods Started There

The country was unfolding. I gazed at photos of ruined castles, Roman arches, and round domes topped with golden crescent moons. Pictures of embroidered textiles and gilded mosaics leapt out, as did names of characters that had populated the fairy tales I’d read eons ago. Aladdin. King Midas. King Croesus. St. Nicholas.

I read about a church called the Hagia Sofia whose title meant holy wisdom. It was apparently a “vast edifice” that had stood in Istanbul since the 300s AD. And—this surprised me—it had been the largest church in the world for a thousand years.

The largest church for a millennium? How had I never heard about this place? I was still ambivalent about moving, but I couldn’t resist asking Sankar about it. He had grown up in India and had studied world history, something my high school hadn’t required. “How was a building in Turkey the largest church for so long?” I asked as we sat down to supper one evening.

“Well,” he replied, pleased at my interest. “When Rome fell, the empire and the control of Christianity moved east, to what is now Turkey. It was called the Eastern Roman Empire. Constantine ruled the city, and he named it after himself. He was the first emperor to convert to Christianity, so he built some important churches.

Like everyone, I knew the Roman Empire had fallen. But I had no idea what had happened after that. I had no idea that a city in now-Muslim Turkey had been the caretaker of my own religion.

Was it possible Turkey had something to teach me? And might living there help stitch together some of the facts that had free-floated in my head since childhood? I began to picture myself as a kind of scholar sitting alone (somehow this kind of loneliness did not seem unappealing) in a courtyard shaded by plane trees. Men wearing turbans and women in black robes passed by. My head was bent over an old book, its pages brittle and yellowed. I was beginning to sense the depth of Turkish history—and that I might enjoy uncovering it.

Still, some days I felt only dread. True, there would be a great deal to see and discover. But inevitably there would also be loneliness and incomprehensible situations. It would be so easy to react negatively.

I could only hope that gearing up intellectually would help me dodge resentment. That my curiosity might drag us out of the expatriate wife’s ruts of guilt and resentment.

I’d only taken a small step toward changing my attitude, but my success gave me hope I could manage bigger steps. And Eyewitness Travel Turkey? It had taken up residence on my kitchen table. I read a new section every day.

The post Istanbul: How to Prepare appeared first on Sue's Turkish Adventures.

In February, we sat with travel buds Arlene and Scott looking at maps in our National Geographic atlas. Should we go to Romania? Sankar says it looks like Switzerland, but with bargain basement prices. How about Poland, with its huge northern forest and fascinating, preserved Krakow? How about Slovakia, where at a Bratislava hotel, Sankar was given a free night’s lodging for being the first American to stay there?

After some discussion, we decided to focus on Croatia and Hungary. We had heard that Budapest was an ornately lovely city, and that Croatia had a coastline both scenic and historic. We would start in  Budapest and then rent a car and drive south through Croatia, looping back to finish in Hungary.

The Ottomans ruled this part of the world from the fifteenth to the seventeenth centuries, and I was hoping to see what they, and perhaps even their Byzantine predecessors, had left behind.

Hungary is landlocked, and its geography has been stable for nearly a century. Croatia is one of the world’s newest countries, carved, along with six other countries, out of what used to be Yugoslavia.

The long, curving edge shows that Croatia received most of Yugoslavia’s Adriatic coastline.

Arlene and I made our hotel reservations in March, including an airbnb apartment in Budapest. Then we put the trip on the back burner. Before long, however, it was mid-June and we were packing to go. After an overnight flight to Amsterdam and a short hop southward, on Wednesday, June 18, we landed in Budapest.

A Paprika of Discoveries

Our apartment was centrally located on the Pest side, decorated charmingly by IKEA. After a quick nap, we commenced touring the city. One of our first stops was the old Central Market, where we discovered the secret of paprika. It is simply red pepper powder.

We gazed at dozens of impressive 19th century buildings, and admired the stunning Parliament buildings along the Danube. We rode the historic #2 tram along the Danube, and ascended in a funicular to St. Matyas Church atop Buda Hill. One evening we went to a “ruins bar,” one of many bars built in old Communist buildings.

A Historical Reminder

An emotional highlight was The Shoes, a riverside monument to the Jews of Budapest. In 1944-45, a group of Jewish adults and children was brought to the river, ordered to take off their shoes, and then shot, their bodies carried away by the river. On the present day bank of the Danube, just a stone’s throw from Parliament, are 60 pairs of shoes, representing those left on the bank.

A Brand New Country

On Saturday we headed south across flat green plains into Croatia. Our first stop was Varazdin, a picture-perfect hamlet in northwest Croatia. In the mid-1700s, Varazdin was the capital of all of Croatia. There was not much of Ottoman or Byzantine interest, but we enjoyed a lovely reconstructed Baroque downtown, a 15^th century cathedral, and a restored 14^th century castle.

The next day we headed to the coast, the land gradually becoming drier and more hilly. We stopped at  Senj (pronounced Senny) on the Adriatic to see what we thought was an Ottoman fortress.  Our National Geographic guidebook described it as such, and it was called a kula, meaning tower (the Turkish word is kule). But inside, the plaques and inscriptions we read described the fortress as having been built in in 1558 to fight the Ottomans.

Hmmm, interesting. I was skeptical about the information on the plaques–was it merely self-serving?– but once I got back home I uncovered a preponderance of sources that confirmed the fortress as Croatian.

Then along the winding coastal road to Zadar, which encompasses a peninsula, settled in antiquity. Zadar was laid out for trading in the 9^th century B.C., taken over by the Romans in about 60 B.C. and then passed to the Byzantines in 550 A.D. The oldest buildings and fortifications include remains of a Roman forum founded by the Emperor Augustus in the third century A.D.

One building looked familiar, and I realized that I had become so accustomed to Byzantine stonework in Turkey that  I could recognize it almost instantly. It was a 9^th century basilica, built right on the Roman forum, now called the church of St. Donatus. One of those rare moments when you realize you possess a new and surprising bit of expertise.

A Divided Land

In the Middle Ages, the Orthodox Christians of Constantinople were vying with the Catholics in Rome to gain converts. It was in Eastern Europe that these  maneuvers were taking place. Is it any wonder that the former Yugoslavia ended up partly Orthodox and partly Roman Catholic—and later, partly Muslim?

Onward the next day through Trogir, another island town—nothing Ottoman or Byzantine, but a fine, small castle called Kamerlengo built by the Venetians in the 15^th century. We climbed to the top of it to view the whole town.

Then on to dazzling, unforgettable Dubrovnik, a medieval walled city smack on the Adriatic coast. I wasn’t expecting this kind of historical splendor, and it was certainly the highlight of our trip.

Our innkeeper, a tall, gregarious woman named Simona, told me she had visited Turkey six times and loved it. “Dubrovnik was never ruled by the Ottomans,” she told us. “It did pay protection money, however.”  The city was under Venetian and then Hungarian rule in the 11^th and 12^th centuries, and became a tributary of the Ottoman sultan in 1458.  An earthquake destroyed much of it in 1667, and in the 1680s the Ottomans lost the light control they had over Dubrovnik.

We did not see evidence of Byzantine or Ottoman construction. One of our Dubronik highlights was walking atop the medieval fortification walls. Here are several of the many photos we took.

Our stay in Dubrovnik was too short, and we left a bit sadly. Arlene mentioned the idea of bringing her entire family for a visit, and that was soothing. We could also think of coming back.

Bosnia: Scary?

A few miles west of the city we turned north and headed through forestland into Bosnia to see the single span stone arch bridge at Mostar. Considered one of the best examples of Ottoman architecture in the Balkans, it was built in the 16^th century, and designed by Mimar Hayruddin, a student of Sinan. The bridge was destroyed during the war in the 1990s, but rebuilt in 2003. The city was pleasant and its inhabitants friendly.

Then back to northern Croatia, with its forests and damp. We stayed in the middle of a park in an old mansion at Karlovac, and then headed via Zagreb back into Hungary.

Entering Zagreb our GPS struggled: it didn’t like hills. While Scott and Sankar maneuvered, I focused on the scenery. Lovely, parklike boulevards with elegant houses ringed the city. Could 3M transfer us here? I wondered. Somewhat by accident, we ended up in the center of town, facing the quaint, tile-roofed main cathedral.

We enjoyed walking around the spotless, well-preserved Gornji Grad, or Upper Town, with its 17th century buildings. For lunch, we descended to the Lower Town and bought some borek, one of my favorite Turkish foods, a pastry dish layered with white cheese.

After that, several hours on a winding, picturesque road from Zagreb northeast to the Hungarian border. Miles of small villages with cozy-looking old cottages brightened by bunches of red flowers. (By the way, the weather was perfect every day: sunny and upper 70s to low 80s, and the roads, most part of an easy-to-use toll system, were in superb condition.)

Capital of Culture

Late in the afternoon, we arrived in Pecs, which in 2010, along with Istanbul, was named European Capital of Culture. The small city’s historic sights lay in a compact area that was again very quiet—does Hungary have a monopoly on calm?—and we walked to most of them the next day: a cathedral, an early Christian mausoleum, a history museum, an old mosque. . .

. . . also a synagogue, and a pretty fountain with characteristic Pecs “blue glass.”  We saw few other tourists. A very good meal at Enoteca Corso Restaurant along the central pedestrian mall finished our visit.

Then on Saturday, back to Budapest. At one point we passed a sign for Mohacs, the site of a fierce 1526 battle in which Suleiman the Magnificent defeated Hungarian forces. We probably should have stopped, but we weren’t sure what there would actually be to see, so we kept going.

Up, up, this time to the city of Buda, facing Pest across the Danube. We had some cleanup touring to do in Budapest: see the famed Gellert baths and visit the National Museum. After that, we walked through the now-familiar streets across the Chain Bridge to Buda, once again taking the funicular up the hill. Our street, Uri Utca, was filled with stately, historic homes, but we had little time: early Sunday morning we had to fly back to Amsterdam and home.

And now, an Op/Ed

After a short trip, particularly the first to an area, one is left with various free-floating impressions. Here are a few of mine.

• The Hungarian language is totally unrelated–words, syntax, grammar, everything–to those of its German, Latin and Slavic neighbors. It is only faintly related to Finnish and Turkish. These are facts. How does linguistic isolation shape national psyche?
• Hungarians are reputed to be superbly hospitable; unfortunately the short-term tourist misses authentic interactions with locals.
• I was impressed with the intellectual climate in Hungary: frequent signs advertising classical concerts and lectures, and a conversation with a Gentile man who walked us around Budapest’s Jewish quarter with frank, honest explanations of Hungarian brutality.
• In both Croatia and Hungary, people were friendly and spoke English (I hate needing my own language, but there it is).
• We did run into a few cases of indifference among Hungarian tourism staff (a lingering effect of Communism?).
• Both countries had excellent English translations on signs, much better than in Turkey, where non-native English speakers take on this task. The results made Hungary and Croatia look smart and sophisticated.
• Neither country has the vast agriculture production of Turkey, even though Croatia’s climate is similarly Mediterranean. Displays at roadside stands and in farmer’s markets were sparse: cherries, a few apricots, tomatoes, melons and peppers. (I happily encountered some Turkish-like words: alma for apple and patlizsan for eggplant.) Restaurant meals did not feature many fruits or vegetables and, to our surprise, coastal Croatia did not offer much variety in the way of fish.

The more I think back on our trip, the fonder I grow. We traveled to places visited by  few people we know, requiring a certain focus and concentration. Now that we are familiar with Hungary and Croatia, I’d like to go back and enjoy them again — just as we would old friends.

The post Hungary, Croatia and what the Ottomans left behind appeared first on Sue's Turkish Adventures.

The Roman Empire was weakening when, in 324 CE, Emperor Constantine opened a second branch 840 miles to the east. He built a new church in the city he named after himself. Completed in 360 CE, it was known as the Hagia Sofia, Sofia being the phonetic spelling of the Greek word wisdom.

In 410 CE Visigoths destroyed Rome, and the western half of the empire sharply declined. Constantinople became the center of the Christian world, and the Hagia Sofia became the symbol of Byzantium.

Fires and revolts destroyed several versions of the Hagia Sofia. The current building was put up by Emperor Justinian I between 532 and 537. Built on a scale unprecedented in human history, it was the largest church in the world, and it maintained this status from 360 to 1453 CE, over a thousand years. It remains the finest example of Byzantine architecture.

Of his work, Justinian was said to have proclaimed, “Solomon, I have outdone thee!”

Ten thousand workers built the Hagia Sofia to a height of 180 feet, the same height as the Statue of Liberty’s torch. They completed its massive dome in only five years. The building measures 230 by 246 feet and its dome spans 102 feet. Its interior is full of handcrafted mosaics dating back as far as the eighth century. Other inside surfaces are made of green, white and purple marble.

In 1204 Latin Crusaders offended by Eastern Orthodox beliefs sacked the Hagia Sofia, stealing many of its precious relics. After the Muslim conquest in 1453, the Hagia Sofia was turned into a mosque. Kemal Ataturk, founder of the modern Turkish Republic, proclaimed it a museum in 1934.

Nowadays the largest structures in the world are factories, office buildings and shopping malls. But even now, the Hagia Sofia is the fourth largest church in the world. It receives about three million visitors each year.

I cannot fully imagine the how a person of the sixth century, accustomed to squat, dimly-lit structures, would have felt standing in such an enormous, enclosed building.  The fact that it stood at all must have seemed like a miracle, proof of the immense power of God.

Today’s mega-churches are built to serve large congregations, and most are not architecturally distinctive. I tend to view these buildings as expressions of overweening pride, ignorance of Jesus’ message of simplicity. But I find it difficult to think that way about a building that has stood for 1500 years. Any venality or baser motives on the part of the Hagia Sofia’s creators has been lost to the ages. Endurance trumps vanity. Brilliant architecture trumps mediocrity. I realize that my sentiments lack consistency.

Let me show you some photos of the church, visible from almost every part of Istanbul’s Old City. The lovely structure is different each time I see it, so I find myself continually photographing it.

Viewed from a ferryboat on the Golden Horn. Minarets were added during its mosque years.

Closer view — note orange stucco facade

Angled view — note buttresses, added in the ninth or tenth centuries

The interior of the church is vast, impossible to capture in one photograph. Here are some attempts.

View toward front. Medallions in Arabic commemorate Muslim prophets. Note how small visitors appear.

The building’s interior glows with tones of gold, burgundy and gray-green.

Fresco of Mary and Jesus on side of dome

People come from all over the world to see the Hagia Sofia.

The other amazing aspect of the Hagia Sofia is its mosaic panels. To see some of them, you have to trudge up a long, dank, medieval ramp. I love how the otherwise obsessively clean Turks have kept this ramp as is, with the dirt of ages ground into the floor. At the top, around a corner is a dazzling surprise.

The expression on this mosaic panel moves many visitors to tears.

Mary and Jesus with Emperor Johannes Comnenus II and Empress Eirene

Gold mosaic detail

I love the Hagia Sofia.

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