monkeytravel.org turkey page 8

Another view of the Bosphorus, this time as it begins to widen out into the expanse of the Sea of Marmara. The Monkey felt that the caption for this photo made for a good opportunity to reiterate the strategic importance of these waterways, and why so many lives were lost trying to control them over the centuries (most recently in World War I on the Gallipoli Peninsula, which the Turks held at an incredible cost) The Bosphorus connects the Black Sea to the Sea of Marmara, which opens out to the Aegean and Mediterranean Seas. Thus, the waters of the Bosphorus provide the only sea access to the ports of Bulgaria, Romania, Ukraine, and Georgia, and crucially the only warm-water ports of Russia. As such, aside from the ferries that connect this water-divided city, the waters are often busy with freighters like the one in the photo above.

The Monkey relaxes with a glass of Turkish apple tea at the Pierre Loti Café in Eyüp, Istanbul. Eyüp is one of the holiest pilgrammage places in all Islam, as it contains the tomb of the Prophet Mohammed's Standard Bearer, Eyüp Ensari, who was killed here in the first Arab attempt to take Constantinople. Interestingly, the man who eventually succeeded in conquering the city for the Islamic faith, Mehmet II, is also entombed in Eyüp.

The café commemorates Pierre Loti, a 19th Century French naval officer, traveller, and writer who depicted the life of a Harem girl in his book Aziyade. You can see another photo of Eyüp, where the Golden Horn narrows to little more than a pair of streams, in the Schlepp Travel section. And even better, it's a photo of the Monkey's travelling companion Schlepp!

After living in Bulgaria for a year, the Monkey was keen to visit one of Istanbul's lesser known sights: St. Stephen's Bulgarian Church. If the church looks more Catholic than Orthodox, there's an easy explanation: it was built in Vienna (of iron), sent down the Danube on barges, and bolted together onsite in Istanbul from 1896-1898. The main reason for the special construction was that it would be sturdy on the unstable ground near the waters of the Golden Horn, but the caretaker of the church also reports that there were fears over attacks on the Bulgarian church by local Phanariot Greeks. This fear had its origins in the late 19th Century struggles of Bulgarian nationalists, who agitated for a separate Bulgarian Patriarchate, arguing to the Sultan that the Orthodox Patriarchate favored Greeks over Bulgarians. The Sultan agreed to the creation of a Bulgarian Exarchate, and St. Stephen's served as its cathedral.

Today the church, along with two others, still serves a small community of Bulgarians living in Istanbul. And tension between the Patriarchate and the Exarchate is alive and well. According to Bulgaria's Standart newspaper, disputes over the "meddling" of the Patriarchate in the internal affairs of the Exarchate led to a 1997 Turkish court ruling that banned the use of Greek in Istanbul's three Bulgarian Orthodox churches.

A detail of one of the prefabricated sections of the Bulgarian Church, showing its Viennese maker. A downside to the iron is rust.

The Monkey poses by one of the mammoth gates to the Dolmabahce Palace in Istanbul's Besiktas area. It was here, along the waters of the Bosphorus, that the Sultan Abdul Mecid II moved the imperial court in 1853, abandoning Topkapi Palace 400 years after its founding. At a time when the Porte felt increasingly inferior to the Western Great Powers and was becoming ever more debt-debilitated, Dolmabahce Palace was supposed to suggest the assumption of modern, Western European values. Instead, the gaudy and excessively baroque palace proved itself an ostentatious display of the declining Empire's wasted wealth. It is said that every yellow surface within the palace is real gold, and that the cost of construction amounted to 25 tons of gold, so it is little wonder the place was sort of an Ottoman last hurrah: only five more sultans would occupy the massive complex before the Empire's collapse shortly after World War I. It was also used by Atatürk during visits to Istanbul from Ankara, and he died here in 1938.

The Monkey had to be an early riser to catch the action at the Kumkapi fish market. The fishing boats come in around 4:30 or 5:00 in the morning, and the best catches are already bought by hotels, restaurants, and fishmongers by 6:00 or so. By 8:00 the market is already winding down. The Monkey was pleased to see a patrol of the place by police who appeared to be verifying that no species of fish in short supply were on offer, but he was also a bit upset by the sight of so many fish friends stranded on dry land. In Turkey, like so many places, the debate over fishermen's livelihoods versus fishes' lives is far from resolved.

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