Barbara Nadel's İstanbul Tangled Web Author Profile(Photo by Paul's Studio)
First British Edition Headline (2002)
When
I was first approached to write a contribution to this website, I must admit
that I didn’t know quite what to do. I don’t like talking about myself and
although I could probably witter on about my characters and their lives and
motivations pretty much ad nauseam, I don’t feel that’s very fair. Okay,
they came out of my head but I’m sure, at least I hope, that readers have their
own ideas, theories etc., about what makes İkmen and company tick (observations
on a postcard?).
It
was in fact the impending holiday season that finally came to my rescue. Aha!
I thought, if I go on about İstanbul and its delights for a bit perhaps
they’ll all go there and I’ll get some sort of accolade from the Tourist Office.
What follows therefore is just a short piece about some of the places I,
personally, enjoy most in İstanbul. In typical ‘me’ fashion however, I
will leave out the great and well known attractions. They’re fantastic, but if
you are going, have a look at these locations too.
The
little streets around the Spice Bazaar (Mısır
Çarşışı) in Eminönü are fantastic. Tiny and choked, they
epitomise İstanbul both on a local and on an international level. As well
as the street traders who sell everything from winter coats to fresh garlic,
these ancient streets are lined with the most fascinating shops. Some of them
sell just one type of product, like the cigarette lighter shop or the button
shop (every type of button you can imagine and some that you can’t). The stock
held by ladies’ lingerie shops may give you pause too. As well as all the usual
fripperies women everywhere know so well, even if we don’t ever really wear
them, these shops stock full-on flesh-coloured, lace-up corsets. Indeed these
are placed in very prominent positions in these windows. In other shops you can
buy extremely sophisticated electrical goods like Video-CD players and
luxurious American style fridges – such is the eclectic, but decidedly un-tourist
trammelled, nature of this area. It was indeed in this very precinct that I had
my filthy winter shoes cleaned last January by a very cheerful elderly man who
also offered to get my varicose veins down by applying some of his leeches. I
smiled, but I declined. This particular area, by the way, features in my third
book ‘Arabesk’.
Yıldız
Park, which features heavily in the book I am writing at the moment, is always
a must for me. Fronted by the Bosphorus and nestling behind the Çirağan
Palace Hotel on Çirağan Caddesi, Yıldız is a huge, wooded space
that contains numerous ornate 19th century buildings that once made
up what was then Yıldız Palace. Constructed, for the most part, by
the last autocratic Sultan of Turkey, Abdul Hamid II (1876–1909), it even now
evokes feelings about the man and his strange and vexed times. Although
believing that he ruled by divine right, Abdul Hamid’s administration was at
odds with the burgeoning democratic movement in his country. Paranoid with
regard to his own security this unhappy monarch virtually bricked himself up in
‘Fortress’ Yıldız. Stories about his fixations and fears still
abound. That he was a crack shot with a pistol and once killed one of his own
gardeners by accident; that he placed a wax model of himself in the corner of
his harem so that his women would think they were always being watched; that he
had a double who used to attend some state occasions when he was too fearful to
go. My own personal favourite however, is the story about the supposed secret
tunnels he had built under the palace complex, tunnels that would allow him to
escape should an assassin actually enter any of the buildings. Not that Abdul
Hamid was assassinated, he was deposed in a very civilised and respectful
manner in 1909 and died in his bed in 1918. Some people even now see him as a
monster, but I must admit that, for all his faults and cruelties, I possess a
soft spot for this tortured man. Nobody wants to be incarcerated with their own
fears, it is in effect a form of death on earth. Look at Yıldız and
spare a moment, as I do, for poor Abdul Hamid.
Finally,
well for this time anyway, take a boat trip up the Golden Horn (Halıç).
Everybody, and quite rightly too, traverses the Bosphorus, but not many travel
the Horn and it’s a shame. Okay, the ferries are smaller and in winter they are
colder than the Bosphorus ferries but there’s so much to see it hardly matters.
Along the Horn one can see ancient and fascinating districts such as Balat,
Fener and Eyüp. The latter area is home to one of the most holy shrines of
Islam, the Mosque of Eyüp complex, where the standard bearer of the Prophet
Mohammed, Eyüp Ensari, is buried.
I
do hope that the above has been of interest. I do hope that you enjoy
İstanbul as much as I do. Barbara
Nadel
Tangled Web Author Profile
(Photo by Paul's Studio)
First British Edition Headline (2002)
