Turkey

Turkey!! My oh my, what a country!

Less than 3 hours from Cairo, we moved from Egypt's ancient history and efforts to move into the 20^th century into a booming 21^st century economy.

The Marriott is in the old city, in Asia, they suggested the Renaissance Polat, instead. So we're in Europe, a mile from the airport, on the 20^th floor, overlooking the Sea of Marmara, with the Bosphorus on the left, and Asia less than 10 kilometers across the water.

As I walked from the hotel, I immediately saw 6 cars that cost $100K+, and another 30 cars one notch down. 20- and 30-somethings were playing with their kids, or walking Cocker Spaniels and Golden Retrievers in the park. Like Egypt, Turkey is 99% (Sunni) Muslim, but here it’s far more secular. I only saw a few women, all over 60, wearing headscarves, every other woman was in western dress, and many women were driving cars.

From high above, we can see that this neighborhood has about 200 houses, the mosque is at the corner. We don't see single-family homes, instead, it is all five-story buildings, each with about 20 large apartments. From the street, the first-floor apartments look like they were decorated by Fifth Avenue decorators. Two houses had nothing but gorgeous stained glass windows on the first floor. Parking on the street is as difficult as in New York.

There is wonderful history and beauty in Istanbul. 17 million people, as busy and active as one might expect.  3,000 mosques. The Blue Mosque is one of the largest mosques in the world, very beautiful, but only one of several large mosques in the city. 

The Hagia Sophia church has existed as both a church and a mosque, has remnants of both religions, only some things damaged by the other.
 

The Topkaki Palace was built by the Ottoman Turks in the first decade after they conquered the city in the 15th century. The Harem where the Sultan maintained his 4 wives and some 300 other consorts is still there, as are the kitchens where 1,200 cooks fed both the palace occupants and many of the city's other residents. It commands magnificent views of the surrounding city, and its exhibit areas still display priceless artifacts from his reign and from conquered areas throughout Europe and the Middle East.  

Like Rome, the city is built on seven hills; unlike any other city, it spans two continents. The new business center is on the European side, as are our hotel and the airport. We found a viewpoint at the top of a hill, and gazed around the city, and across the Bosphorus to the Asian side. There is a business center there, also, and a similar dense, old city.

There are also forts and palaces from dynasties long past. The Bosphorus (31 km long, ~ 19 miles) is the passageway from the Black Sea, especially Georgia and Armenia, through Turkey, to the Sea of Marmara, then the Dardanelles, and on to the Aegean Sea, the Mediterranean Sea, and Greece and beyond. The city has long been supported by taxes collected on passing ships. And there are a LOT of ships – passage is closed at dark (each ship must use a local pilot as they pass through the straight, and there must surely be a finite number of pilots), and when the sun rose each morning, there was a huge fleet (at least one hundred ships) waiting to pass through during the day.

The Grand Bazaar grew from goods traded from ships passing to and from all parts of the world. It was perhaps the world's first shopping mall, and is still a bustling, fabulous, well-organized place, with many tourist and souvenir goods, and a few astoundingly beautiful original goods. We found an artist (with pictures with world leaders from across the globe) who does exquisitely detailed miniature paintings on leaves from houseplants. 

We traveled to Cappadoccia, in the center of the country, to see strange and exotic churches and communities that early Christians carved into solid rock towers, and where they lived to escape persecution from Roman soldiers.


This was the time of the Apostle Paul, and he developed small groups of Christians, who made their lives in these small canyons.

Amazingly, some of these cave homes were still occupied late into the 20^th century, until the government finally declared them unsafe, helped residents move to newer, more modern housing, then renovated and preserved the caves.

We stopped at several other rock formations, including one extraordinary community built entirely underground. They estimate 15,000 people lived there about 4,000 years ago. There are countless rooms on nine floors, down to more than 85 meters underground, with tunnels and rooms, and churches, extending a distance of more than 9 kilometers (5.5 miles!) underground. It is staggeringly huge, and sophisticated, with its own wells, food-storage, living and cooking spaces, and other features.  

We attended an evening show of Whirling Dervishes, a prayer performance in which the male dancers slowly begin whirling to reach a higher plane of spirituality; they continued for about 30 minutes while the musicians played and intoned prayers. Unusual and very interesting.

Cappadoccia is also the home of Turkish ceramics, and we visited the studio of a master potter and ceramics-maker. We will enjoy serving wine from one of his hand-made wine carafes!

While in Cappadoccia we stayed at Sacred House in Ürgüp.  This small boutique hotel is a fabulous reconstruction to resemble local rock scenery. Each room is individually decorated; they serve excellent (and attractive) food. The hotel is run entirely by women (they have one male support employee), everything is spotless, there is always music playing throughout the hotel, there are many thoughtful touches, good location in town (3 minute walk to the village square), and it was absolutely fabulous.

Like Egypt, Turkey is 99% Muslim, almost entirely Sunni. But what a difference! Women are much more liberated in Turkey. Only a small percentage of women cover their hair, and most wear western clothes. Our tour guide is an extremely capable single woman, who was so busy in 2009 that she had to decline the invitation to be the personal guide for President Obama when he visited Istanbul! Many women hold very responsible jobs in the community, many own and drive their own cars, and they make an extraordinary, and very public, contribution to the society.

As in every city and country, some people are well-off, and some people are poor. But there is no recession here. The economy is booming. The banks are solid. The middle class is growing. Tourists from all over the world are pouring into Turkey this summer. Some people are making lots of money. From what we saw, it is no surprise that my Turkish investment fund is up 100% in the last year. I think I'm going to put a lot more money into it.