The Bosphorus

TREASURES OF TURKEY

HILTON

INTERNATIONAL

ISTANBUL

TABLE OF CONTENTS

ECONOMIC SECTION__________________________ 7

TURKEY

'

18

THE BOSPHORUS

20

THOSE FABULOUS TAXIS OF ISTANBUL

22

by Edward Evans

THE HEART OF A CITY

26

by Elizabeth Doran

PLEASURE BARGES OF THE SULTANS

28

by Charles E. Adelsen

THE DRUMS GO BANG

31

by Marcus S. Brooke

SIGHTSEEING IN THE SOUTH

32

by Alfred Friendly

MOON SCAPE ON EARTH

34

by Marcus S. Brooke

PAMUKKALE

36

by Gülseren Ramazanoğlu

TO BE WITH THE GODS

38

by Marcus S. Brooke

THE VAN GOGH SPIRIT

42

by Ahmet A. Ramazanoğlu

FİKRET MUALLA

45

TURKISH TILES

48

YUNUS EMRE

50

MINSTREL VEYSEL

52

SANTA CLAUS

55

TURBANS and TULIPS

56

by Jon Mandaville

THE BIRD THAT TIME FORGOT

by Robert Arndt

AEGEAN and MEDITERRANEAN

64

SEA-FOOD

by Yalçın Gürkan

A LETTER FROM THE EDITOR

The Hilton Magazine takes pride in publishing

the third volume of its “TREASURES OF

TURKEY” series. Turkey possesses a wealth of

archaeological sites, historical monuments, museums

and works of art representative of the treasures of

Anatolian civilization. The richness and variety of

natural beauty all over the country goes without

saying.

In this issue, we give a glimpse of some of these

riches-the Bosphorus and the exciting street life of

Istanbul in particular. The spectacular Turquoise

Coast is also featured, together with the unusual

sites of Göreme, Pamukkale and Nemrud.

In the fields of arts, articles focus on music,

painting, tiles and handicraft of Turkish artists.

The articles on Turkish humanist poet Yunus

Emre, and the Minstrel Veysel, the last great master

of the Turkish troubadour tradition, reflect the

humanist philosophy and the voice of Anatolia.

Tulips originated in Turkey. Our story on tulips

gives the background of tulips as a cultural motif

in Turkish arts. The article on the bald ibis now

nestling in only one place in the world, a tiny

eastern Turkish town called Birecik is of special

interest to naturalists. How many people know that

Santa Claus lived, died and was buried in Turkey ?

Last but not least an article on seafood of the

Aegean and Mediterranean region gives an idea of

the wide selection of fish available in Turkey.

In the economic section, we give exposure to

Turkey’s leading exporters in order to introduce

them to visiting foreign businessmen.

Yayınlayan (Publisher) RAMAZANOĞLU PUBLISHING COMPANY - Sahibi ve yazı İşleri müdürü (Owner-editor) GÜL­

SEREN RAMAZANOĞLU - Grafik desen, İllüstrasyon (Graphic design. Illustration) AYDIN ERKMEN - Basıldığı yer

(Printed by) APA OFSET BASIMEVİ, İstanbul, Turkey - Fotoğraflar (Photographic credits) TEKNİKA LABORATORIES, SAMİ GÜNER, EDWARD EVANS, AYDIN ERKMEN, MARCUS S. BROOKE, ROBERT ARNDT, ARCHIVES OF THE

MINISTRY OF CULTURE AND TOURISM, HENRY ANGELO CASTRILLON - Yazarlar (Editorial contributions) ROBERT

L. SAMMONS, CHARLES E. ADELSEN, EDWARD EVANS, ELIZABETH DORAN, ALFRED FRIENDLY, MARCUS S. BROOKE, GÜLSEREN RAMAZANOĞLU, AHMET A. RAMAZANOĞLU, TAHA TOROS, TALAT SAİT HALMAN, JON

MANDAVILLE, ROBERT ARNDT, YALCIN GÜRKAN - Makaleler yazarın ve magazinin ismi ile başka yerde yayınla­

nabilir. Articles may be reproduced by crediting the author and the Hilton International Istanbul Magazine - Üc­ retsiz (Free of charge) - Dergi üç aylıktır (The Magazine is quarterly) - İlanların sorumluluğu ilan veren müessese- ye aittir (Responsibility for advertisements lie solely with their advertisers).

COVER : b y A y d tn E rk m e n

(a rtis t'8 impression of arts by various Anatolian civilizations)

As long ago as the days of classical myth, the Bosphorus, flowing swiftly between the green hills of the conti­ nents of Europe and Asia, was the water highway to realms of excitement and adventure...

Especially on holidays— and Turkey is a land blessed with a multitude of holi­ days— the little steamers will be crow­ ded with Turkish families and with “ guests of God," too, as Turks call visitors from afar, lining the rails and crowding the top decks for a look at the Topkapi Palace of the Sultans off to starboard, the original Crimean War Hospital used by Florence Nightingale over on the hills of Asia, and the Ge­ noese Tower of Galata in European Is­ tanbul. With a wild hooting of its whistle, the little steamer sails out of the café au lait waters of the Golden Horn and into midstream Bosphorus. Fishing smacks, yachts, intercontinen­ tal car ferries and outgoing cruise liners or American freighters are the normal busy traffic around you.

Several white-jacketed waiters are an inevitable and necessary part of the crew of any Bosphorus steamer. They trot back and forth on deck with their birdcage trays that somehow never a thing and go up and down lad- servants to the unquenchable

taste of Turks for piping-hot and strong Black Sea-grown tea. Sipping their tea from doll-proportioned tulip­ shaped glasses, stirring their tea with equally tiny spoons, the passengers gaze now into the sea— it is the sea of course, despite so much land all around.

The steamer is out of the criss-crossing wakes now of other steamers leaving the Golden Horn and up against the full tide of the Bosphorus. This is deep water. As much as 66 fathoms can lie under the keel. Neither the speed of the current nor the depth of the Straits discourage swimmers who, like Lord Byron traversing the Dardanelles, think nothing at all of paddling from conti­ nent to continent.

There is always a wind on the Bospho­ rus. When it blows from the north, from the Black Sea, it is the Poyraz, the Turkish way of saying Boreas, the North Wind of the ancients. If the wind is out of the south, it is called the

Lodos, the Notus of classical times.

The Poyraz means cool weather if it blows in the summertime, the natural air-conditioning of this sprawling city of more than 2,000,000. Of the Lodos, the Ottoman Turks of another day would say, "In the eyes of the Lodos there are tears," meaning rain. Sho­

the

BOSPHORUS

by Charles £ . Adelsen

wers, in the summer, are about as rare in Istanbul as they are in California in the same season.

Now the ports of call of the Bosphorus begin to appear. Üsküdar (otherwise called by the Italianate "S cutari") is best reached by one of the interconti­ nental car ferries leaving the Kabataş docks in European Istanbul, but its photogenic qualities are apparent enough from the regular Bosphorus steamer: great imperial mosques and hillsides of white houses or walnut- colored Otoman mansions, their mil­ lions of windows aflash like fire if the sun is going down in the west. A me­ lody — half pitifully sentimental, a little mad— is the song of Üsküdar. The love music of an Ottoman lady of high caste and her gentleman secretary, it was popular in America some years ago, and has been a favorite with Turks for years, so much so that it is the "sig­ nal,, that precedes a day of Istanbul broadcasting.

The loveliest of the imperial mosques of Üsküdar is that built in the six­ teenth century by the fabulously beau­ tiful daughter of Süleyman the Magni­ ficent, the Sultana Mihrimah. A glance off the port bow reveals Beşiktaş conspicuous as the terminal of the great Barbaros Boulevard sweeping down from the hills of Europe to the sea's edge. A t Beşiktaş the Turks have enshrined the famed Conqueror of A l­ giers, and the greatest of Turkish sea rovers, Barbaros, the greatest of Sü-

leyman's admirals and possessor of the

finest, fullest red beard in all the Me­ diterranean, a sea that he came very close to turning into a Turkish lake. Admiral Red Beard rests now in a cere­ monial türbe on the shores of the Bos­ phorus, where the jewel-like stained glass windows— sapphire and darkest green— make the mausoleum seem like a sea god's cave hidden in the deep. Just across the square from where old Red Beard rests is the official Museum of the Turkish Navy, an exciting and wonderfully salty reliquary of cutlass and wooden figurehead, cannon (lots of these!) and gold and silk battle flags.

Now the main attraction is off to star­ board again, the dream Palace of Bey­

lerbeyi— meaning "Lord of Lords"—

built in 1865 by 'the gigantic (close to 300 pounds in his velvet bedroom slip­ pers) but handsome "Wrestling Sul­ tan" Abdülaziz. An exterior of garden mazes, of planted groves grown to romantic wilderness, and an interior of marble dolphin fountain, gilded mirrors big as walls, and mysterious stairca­ ses, the Palace of Beylerbeyi just might have been the scene, in 1869, of one of history's most improbable royal ro­ mances, for a story that will not die insists that the huge but sensitive Sul­ tan Abdulaziz found himself head-over­ heels enamored of the tiny Spanish- born Marie Eugenie, Empress of the French, during her state visit to Bey­

lerbeyi. If, as they say, there are ghosts

Continued on page 25

THE BOSPHORUS

Continued from page 21

that sigh at Beylerbeyi, they might well be those of the Wrestling Sultan and of the petite royal lady from Paris... Two high and lead-sheathed conical towers dominating a massive monas- tery-like structure sitting just at wa­ ter's edge on the Asian side of the Straits mark the famous national mili­ tary high school of Kuleli, a name deri­ ved from words meaning "Tower Gar­ den." In the gardens a tree, centuries old, is carved all over its gigantic trunk with the countless names of genera­ tions of Turkish cadets, some of whom have gone on to be generals in the armies of the Turks...

Bebek is the anchorage by the Eu­

ropean shore of the yachts and humb­ ler pleasure craft of Istanbul's latter- day equivalent of the class of pashas of other times. The palace of the Khe­

dive Mother is still there, but since

there are no more Khedives it is dark most of the time...

On summer evenings, the gigantic Ottoman castle of Rumelihisarı— the Castle of the Roman land— is all awash in a magnificent flood of orange light­ ing. Built in 1452, in the almost incre­ dible time of just four months by com­ mand of young Sultan Mehmet II, the Conqueror, the fortress, wandering all over the Bosphorus hills, is the sum­ mer scene of Shakespearean or Otto­ man Turkish theatre that would have gladdened the heart of old Mr. DeMille if he could have but seen it! No ordi - nary Macbeth, no plain and simple Julius Caesar for Rumelihisar produc­ tions!

That lesser castle just across the Bos­ phorus from Rumelihisar is the Castle of Anatolia, or Anadoluhisari, built in 1393 by Sultan Beyazit I, otherwise called by his people "The Thunderbolt." Of more pacific memory than Thun­ derbolt's castle is the tiny Palace of Little Water (Küçüksu) built by Sultan

Mahmut I in 1740. The meadows skirt­

ing the stream of Little W ater were once called the Sweet Waters of Asia, the resort of aristocracy in Ottoman times and of those aspiring to its ranks. Only the palace is left of those gilded days and nights, the palace and an especially lovely, if huge, marble foun­ tain that slakes the thirst of today's traveler as generously as it once did that of the Padişah and his imperial

ladies. Close to both the Castle of

Anatolia and the Palace of KUpUksu is the bathing beach of Kuguksu, where safe bathing in the Bosphorus may be had and one of the amusements is waiting for the waves to touch shore as the unending procession of Black Sea tankers goes up or down the Straits. Sunset flaring over the ram­ parts of Rumelihisar, as viewed from these Asian shores, can be a special delight for photographers at Ku^uksu... The village suburb of Emirgan is the tea-drinking capital of a tea-drinking people, and the true Istanbullu, man, woman or child, with the first hint of warm weather, when the purple judas trees are in bloom and the nightengales sing by the hundreds on the Bospho­ rus, rides out to Emirgan and orders a samovar brought to a table under the plain trees or by the very edge of the Bosphorus where the tea-drinking ritual goes on from day into night...

The push-cart vendors of Emirgan cater to the peculiar tastes of the plain- tree sitters and the tea drinkers and proffer them balloons in all shapes, toy dogs covered in rabbit fur, pinwheels and always helva, a plate-sized, wheel­ shaped wafer tasting of sweetest honey...

Emirgan Gardens are the scene of a yearly Tulip Festival, a festi­ val recalling the all-to-little known fact that the tulip is, after all, a Turkish flower discovered here by Europeans, taken to Europe, improved upon, and returned to its native shores. In proof, the visitor's Turkish hosts will point out that the word tulip is derived from the Turkish word Tulbend, or turban, from the fancied resemblance of the flower in bloom to the headdress of the old Ottoman Turks...

Tarabya, further up the Bosphorus and

still on the European shore, owes its name, which in the ancient form of "Therapia" meant "cure," to another of those legends stemming out of the tale of the Argonauts, for the sorceress Medea is said to have thrown poison ashore here .

Istanbul yachtsmen, and not a few foreign boat owners, find the sheltered cove of Tarabya's harbor every bit as snug as did Argonauts of another time. Bosphorus visitors with a little extra time on their hands might want to go

aboard the car ferry leaving port at

Istinye, between Emirgan and Tarabya,

and visit the showrooms of the historic

Pa§abahpe Glass Works, on the Asian

shore of the Straits. A t Pa§abahpe, artisans employing ancient methods of glass-blowing still fashion by hand and by lung power some of the most beau­ tiful and delicate glassware of the Turks. In a rooftop studio, young girls take hours to paint the most intricate of Turkish designs upon the deservedly famous Pa§abahpe glass plates, while others apply designs to fragile Turkish vases. Pa§abahpe makes and sells at its factory retail shop a variety of those tiny tulip glasses you have been drinking tea from ever since you set foot on Bosphorus shores.

Far up the European shore is one of those Moslem shrines whose traditions are as old as Istanbul itself. Above the Bosphorus is the tomb of the sainted

Tellibaba, «Tinsel Father». You enter

the little shrine where the holy man rests and find his sarcophogus heaped high with thousands of strands of bright silver tinsel. The tiny chapel mosque adjacent to the tomb, is al­ ways inhabited with young women oc­ cupied with their devotions. Maidens wishing husbands, young matrons wishing babies, place a strand of tinsel on the sparkling pile and silently pray that their dreams come true.

The shrine, like the Bosphorus itself, is the spirit of gentle, undangereus mystery.

Courtesy of TRAVEL Magazine

CHARLES E. ADELSEN for 24 years has w ritte n about the tourism, culture and history of Turkey for The New York Times, The Christian Science Monitor, Kansas City Star; Mankind, Opera News, Ebony, Geographical of London, and other magazines.

Kişisel Arşivlerde Istanbul Belleği Tah a T o ros Arşivi