Istanbul: an introduction

Earlier this year, Time Out headquarters in London asked the editors of all local editions to prepare an "ultra-useful" mini-guide to their city – its art, nightlife, restaurants, and sights, along with hot tips and fascinating bits of trivia – that could be used by any of the company's 60 offshoots around the world.

The project editor praised my guide to Istanbul as "fantastic. A gorgeous piece of writing – far and away the best one I've had back so far!"

Following my departure from the magazine, Time Out Istanbul published the piece this month as "Istanbul in short." Have a read and discover what has made Istanbul, despite its many faults, a conqueror of visitors' hearts for hundreds of years and counting.

UPDATE: Time Out Dubai published a shorter version of my city-guide in December under the title "Why you must go to Istanbul."

Art and the city

Every other autumn is eagerly awaited by art-lovers in Istanbul, as it brings (in the odd-numbered years) the return of the Istanbul Biennial. Now in its 13th edition, the biennial itself varies in the quality of its offerings, but reliably brings with it a host of other art exhibitions and events throughout the city – as well as the opportunity to peek into some typically shuttered buildings, from historic Greek schools to crumbling hamams.

This year's biennial curator chose to focus on the public domain, a decision that both dovetailed with and was made problematic by the Gezi Park protests that broke out this summer, increasing both the anticipation and controversy around the international art event.

As editor at Time Out Istanbul, I spearheaded this year's coverage of the Istanbul Biennial, putting together a cover package that previewed the event, looked at parallel exhibitions being organized around town, and delved into some of the local artist residency programs that are helping develop the city's contemporary art scene. My own written contributions to Time Out's "Art Issue" included:

• "Art and the City," the biennial preview (pdf)

• "Things Unseen," on artist Trevor Paglen's new exhibit with Protocinema (pdf)

• "Unearthing Balat," on the "Balat?" exhibit at Plato Sanat (pdf)

A little time at the helm of Time Out

I've just wrapped up a seven-month stint editing Time Out Istanbul, the local English-language edition of the popular international line of arts and entertainment magazines. I spent nine years in the United States as an editor at Sierra, the magazine of the Sierra Club, and this brief return to my roots reminded me of how much I enjoy working with writers and conceptualizing packages – or entire issue's worth – of stories that will work together to provide a rich experience for the reader.

As the head of a very small team, I also did my fair share of writing at Time Out Istanbul. In addition to our Gezi Park protest coverage in the July issue, and our Istanbul Biennial preview in the forthcoming September issue, these are some of the stories I most enjoyed researching and writing:

• “Hidden History” – A stroll through Istanbul’s Byzantine past with Context Travel

• “Resisting Nostalgia” – An interview with Turkish artist Ali Kazma on his fascination with transformation

• “Literature as Travel Guide” – Bored stiff by traditional guidebooks? Find your way in the company of the new 'city-pick Istanbul' anthology

• “Getting Away From Them All” – Four sightseeing itineraries for escaping Istanbul's summer throngs

• “Sharp-Dressed Man” – Meet the 83-year-old Turkish-German tailor who's become a hit in the fashion blogosphere

Gezi on my mind

During the last week of May, I found myself walking through Gezi Park at some point most evenings, drawn to the scruffy, neglected green space near Istanbul's Taksim Square to see how the crowds had multiplied since a few dozen protesters trying to block the bulldozing of trees there as part of a controversial construction plan were teargassed by police.

Each night, there were more and more people in the once largely disused and ignored park, talking, singing, painting signs, picnicking, and pitching tents. And each morning, those who remained at dawn were teargassed once again. After waking up to this news one too many times, I sent off a story pitch about the protests to The Atlantic's CityLab (formerly The Atlantic Cities), which commissioned an article for the next day.

As I reported and wrote, the story changed rapidly; by the time my article about the Gezi Park protests was published, much of Istanbul (and then other cities around Turkey) had erupted into mass demonstrations, with protesters clashing with police late into the night. After a fragile peace was restored in Taksim Square and Gezi Park, I wrote a follow-up piece about the Occupy-style "mini-city" created by protesters, complete with libraries, food tents, and infirmaries.

As the Gezi Park protests drew renewed international attention to Turkey, multiple guest-blogging offers came my way. I wrote two posts for TreeHugger.com, where I previously served as Istanbul correspondent: on how the nationwide demonstrations started with a local effort to defend a park, and on some of the other environmental threats facing Turkey and the risk of a damaging "nature" law being pushed through the Turkish Parliament while all eyes were elsewhere. I also spoke live to CTV News Channel in Toronto about the mood in Istanbul following a promise to put the fate of Gezi Park up to a referendum.

With the protests continuing at full force well into June, there was only one choice for the cover story of the July 2013 issue of Time Out Istanbul, the monthly magazine I was editing at the time. I commissioned stories about the music inspired by the protests, the street art both humorous and biting that was popping up everywhere, the free public library that was created, the role of Istanbul's LGBT community in the demonstrations, and a personal essay by a Turkish author about her time in the Gezi Park community. I also wrote a piece on the "urban transformation" of Istanbul, one of the sparks of the unrest, as well as one on three documentary films that foreshadowed the upheaval. I also co-wrote a piece on the political and social context behind the protests that was eventually pulled amid fears of government retribution.

Living just a few blocks from the protest epicenter, I had some of my own experiences and observations to share too. On my personal blog, The Turkish Life, I wrote about the rapidly changing scene in Taksim Square during the early days of the protests; the spontaneous pedestrianization of the area; and the aftermath of the forceful clearing of Gezi Park. The biggest hit among these posts, though, was my guide to the language of the protests, from "AVM" to "zıpla."

Here is the full list of links to my Gezi Park protest coverage for various local and international outlets:

The Atlantic's CityLab (formerly The Atlantic Cities)

• "Occupy Istanbul? Inside the Growing Mini-City at Gezi Park," June 9, 2013

• "Violence, Tear Gas Greet Protests to Save One of the Last Public Parks in Istanbul," May 31, 2013

Time Out Istanbul

• "Istanbul on its feet," July 2013

• "Istanbul’s changing face," July 2013

• "Foreshadowing frustrations," July 2013

TreeHugger

• "New parks threat looms as Istanbul protests continue," June 4, 2013

• "Park-protection fight In Istanbul sparks nationwide protest movement," June 3, 2013

The Turkish Life

• "Istanbul uprising: Beyoğlu after a grim night," June 16, 2013

• "Istanbul uprising: DIY urban planning," June 9, 2013

• "Istanbul uprising: Turkish vocabulary lesson," June 5, 2013

• "Istanbul uprising: The shifting moods of Taksim Square," June 3, 2013

The following article, written as a primer for foreign residents and visitors about the political and social context behind the summer 2013 protests, was spiked from the final version of Time Out Istanbul magazine:

The roots of unrest

With so many factors at play in the recent unrest, understanding the debates and divisions fueling dissent in Turkey requires a bit of a trip back into history, specifically the mere 90 years that have passed since the forming of the Turkish Republic. Faced with the crumbling remnants of the Ottoman Empire following World War I, first Turkish President Mustafa Kemal Atatürk – still an omnipresent figure memorialized in currency, on statues and through imagery all over Turkey – established his new country on a nationalist, secular foundation. The overarching identity of “Turkishness” is still a strong one today but deep fissures remain – between religious and secular individuals and between Turks and members of the Kurdish ethnic group, to name just two of the most fraught divisions.

Until recently, Turkey’s military played a major role in enforcing Turkish unity and secularism, carrying out four coups d’état in the past 60 years, the last of which, in 1997, led to the forced closure of the Islamist Welfare Party and the banning from politics for five years of its leader, then-Prime Minister Necmettin Erbakan, in what has been dubbed a “postmodern coup.”

Erdoğan, the current prime minister, was a member of Erbakan’s Welfare Party. When the Justice and Development Party (AKP) he later helped found swept to victory in the 2002 elections, it was as a conservative democratic party that advocated a liberal market economy, stronger ties with the West (including Turkish membership in the European Union) and an end to corruption. When AKP won its third national victory in 2011, Erdoğan promised to seek to consensus on major issues and work for the entire population, not just his supporters – something critics now charge that he has glaringly failed to do.

In Turkey’s parliamentary representative democracy, the prime minister holds executive power, and the presidency is considered a largely ceremonial role. A Council of Ministers advises the prime minister, who is the head of the party that wins the most seats in Parliament in a popular vote. What this all means in practice is a system heavily weighted toward top-down control, with few avenues for citizens to communicate their concerns to elected officials. Marches such as those held on İstiklal Caddesi on any given weekend have become a key way to people to try and make their voice heard.

The months leading up to the start of the Gezi Park protests saw an increasingly strong squelching of such demonstrations, in particular with the shutdown of large parts of the city’s transit system to keep workers’ groups and other factions from marching on Taksim Square for this year’s May Day. (This despite Article 34 of the Turkish Constitution, which declares, “Everyone has the right to hold unarmed and peaceful meetings and demonstration marches without prior permission.”)

Anger has also been growing over Erdoğan’s harsh crackdowns on press freedom – Turkey is now the world's worst jailer of journalists, according to research by the international Committee to Protect Journalists – and reprisals against critics in the media and business worlds, as well as what appears to many to be an increasingly Islamist bent.

Erdoğan’s party has removed longstanding restrictions on the wearing of the Islamic headscarf while recently adopting new limits on where, when and how alcoholic beverages can be advertised and sold. The prime minister himself has called repeatedly for Turkish women to have at least three children, decried abortion as “murder” and voiced his wish to raise a “pious generation” in Turkey – all aspects of what are seen by his critics as undue interference in people’s individual lifestyles.

In some ways, too, the AKP has been a victim of its own success – the Turkish youth growing up in the stronger, more prosperous country the party has helped create have higher expectations from government and demand more of a voice.

While the protests have largely been directed toward the government, there have also been waves of discontent expressed against Turkish media networks, which were slow to cover the demonstrations, likely due to the ties many have to the government, and to the way Turkish officials have used financial and political pressure to influence news coverage.

One telling example comes from back in May, before the protests began, when at least 50 people were killed in a car bombing in Reyhanlı, a Turkish town on the Syrian border. Instead of covering this deadly terrorist attack, many Turkish channels broadcast football matches and a popular talent show – in response to an AKP-supported media blackout on all reporting from and about Reyhanlı to “prevent unnecessary psychological damage.”

As the Gezi Park demonstrations have garnered more news coverage both domestically and abroad, Erdoğan has directed much of his ire at the foreign press, specifically targeting the BBC, CNN and Reuters in his accusations, saying, “for days, you fabricated news … This nation is not the one that you misrepresented to the world.”

Editors' picks from Art Basel

As the international art crowd prepared to descend on Hong Kong for the city's edition of Art Basel, Time Out Hong Kong solicited editors' picks of participating galleries from Time Out's international team. My brief writeup of Istanbul gallery CDA-Projects appears in the May issue of Time Out Hong Kong under the title "Art Basel: Time Out international editors' picks":

6. CDA-Projects Gallery (1C23)
Focusing on emerging artists from Turkey, CDA-Projects doesn't shy away from challenging, multimedia work that questions gender and cultural norms. Featured artist Zeren Göktan's interactive installation Counter blends technology and tradition to confront viewers with uncomfortable realities about violence against women.
Jennifer Hattam, editor-in-chief, Time Out Istanbul

A monumental figure

It’s hard to believe now that Istanbul has become a world-famous tourist destination, but when the Turkish architect Ali Saim Ülgen first visited the city’s historic center as a youth in 1930, its many monuments were neglected, and little-known...

Inspired by the awe he felt on this first visit, Ülgen later became the first architectural restoration expert of the Turkish Republic and wrote one of the era's first books on architectural preservation. But though his influence was widespread during his lifetime, Ülgen today is almost as forgotten as Istanbul’s grand monuments might have been without his intervention.

The Istanbul-based cultural institution SALT aims to bring Ülgen's work back to prominence with the exhibit "Modern Turkey’s Discovery of the Ottoman Heritage: The Ali Saim Ülgen Archive." I interviewed associate director of research and programs Lorans Tanatar Baruh for two articles on this fascinating exhibit, one for Beirut-based lifestyle magazine Selections, the other for Time Out Istanbul.

Read my article "Architect for the Ages" in the Spring 2013 issue of Selections: jpg

Read my article "Rediscovering the Past" in the March 2013 issue of Time Out Istanbul.

Into the wilds of northeast Turkey

TRAVEL

Into the wild

The spectacular landscapes around Kars beckon birdwatchers, nature-lovers, and history buffs. Words and photography by Jennifer Hattam

I can feel the small bird trembling as I hold it in my cupped hands and walk outside the weathered metal trailer to release it. Bits of feathers explode off its back as it hurriedly takes flight into the crisp, clean air of remote northeast Turkey.

Inside the trailer, Sedat blows gently on the underside of a penduline tit, ruffling the bird’s feathers back from its belly to reveal a tiny round bulge beneath the skin. ‘It’s going to be a mother,’ he says with a smile.

The area around Kars has a bleak reputation, in part due to Orhan Pamuk’s dark portrayal in his acclaimed novel ‘Snow’. And while winters are indeed harsh, with up to four months of snow and temperatures plummeting as low as -40˚C, the vast landscape of high plateaus and green lowlands vividly comes to life in the spring.

Foals and calves totter on shaky legs in lush mountain meadows where nomadic herders pitch their tents. Delicate purple crocuses and bright red poppies – the colour of the traditional bridal veil that gives them their Turkish name, gelincik – burst from the earth. And thousands of migratory birds stop over at Kuyucuk Lake and the Aras River wetlands, where local environmentalists running field research stations have spotted more than two-thirds of all bird species recorded in Turkey.

Russian and Armenian heritage

Unlike their avian counterparts, few human visitors to Turkey make it as far as Kars. Most who do come to see the haunting ruins of Ani, an important trading stop on the Silk Road and the 10th-century capital of a medieval Armenian kingdom. Unfortunately, there’s no easy way to travel the 42km to Ani without a private car, though a municipality-run shuttle service is scheduled to start this summer. But the trip is well worth the effort or expense.

Imposing basalt walls bring an end to a long, rutted road that passes through tiny villages seemingly little changed since Ani’s heyday. Beyond the massive main gate, stone churches, palaces, mosques, caravanserais and hamams rise up out of the overgrown grass like islands in the sea. Down in a steep canyon, what’s left of an ancient bridge hangs over the Aras River separating Turkey and Armenia, its impassable state reflecting the closed border between the two neighbours.

Despite the ongoing rift, the Caucasus influence remains strong in the region’s cuisine, architecture and culture. Like other Turkish cities, Kars has more than its share of multicoloured concrete blocks, but they are interspersed with stately Russian buildings made of large, finely cut dark stones. The landmark Fethiye Mosque was once a Russian Orthodox church, its onion domes later swapped out for minarets. Both the Kars Castle looming above town and the Sarıkamış ski area some 50km south-west of the city were the scenes of fierce fighting during World War I, claiming many Russian and Turkish lives.

Remnants of an even older Kars reveal themselves on the slope leading up to the castle, where the 10th-century 12 Apostles Church (Kümbet Mosque) has retained its distinctive Armenian architecture despite being converted back and forth to serve both Christian and Muslim worshippers over the years. Crumbling Seljuk and Ottoman hamams cluster around Kars Stream and the 16th-century Taş Köprü (Stone Bridge) at the base of the castle hill, an area now full of laidback tea gardens.

New tourism initiatives

Long reliant on Ani, the castle and skiing at Sarıkamış to attract visitors, Kars is awakening to its full tourism potential. Last year, the house of famous Turkish poet Namık Kemal was converted into a cultural centre devoted to keeping alive the aşık (minstrel) tradition of storytelling through song. New guided tours show the city through the eyes of Pamuk, the Russian author Alexander Pushkin and the Greek-Armenian writer George Gurdjieff, three famous figures who have depicted Kars in their literary works.

With some of the country’s most spectacular and biodiverse landscapes right in Kars’s backyard, nature tourism is also gaining ground as a way to draw more people to the region without spoiling it. Homestays are available in the nearby village of Boğatepe, where a new cheese museum celebrates traditional products such as the hard yellow Kars gravyer and the unusual local cecil, which tastes like a cross between string cheese and blue cheese.

The Kars-based conservation organization KuzeyDoğa is setting up a visitor and environmental education centre near its field station at bucolic Kuyucuk Lake, a birdwatcher’s paradise. This summer the group will run its first nature tour for foreign travellers, featuring wildlife tracking in Sarıkamış – home to bears, wolves and boars – and bird-watching at Kuyucuk. It is also working with Balyolu, a new initiative to train female beekeepers and take visitors on honey-tasting walking tours. With dozens of bee-friendly plant species thriving in the area, it’s quite possible for every village to lay claim to a sweet taste all of its own.

[BOX] Travel basics

Regular flights from Istanbul, Ankara and İzmir land at Kars airport, 10km from the city centre.

An attractive boutique hotel in an old Russian mansion, the Kar’s Otel (www.karsotel.com, 0474 212 16 16) is the pick of the somewhat-limited lodging options. Its newly opened Kar’s Store restaurant offers good local food, wine, live music and folk dancing. The Hotel Temel (Yenipazar Caddesi No. 9, 0474 223 13 76) is a cheaper, more basic alternative.

The women-run Kamer Vakfı Mutfak ve Café (Halit Paşa Caddesi No. 97, 0474 212 89 57) serves excellent homemade specialties such as hengel, a type of mantı (Turkish ravioli); kesme aşı, a green lentil soup with noodles and mint; and warm, almost ginger-bready helva. Goose is another local favourite dish.

The Turkish-language online Kars City Guide (www.karskentrehberi.com) gives a very thorough overview of the area’s history, culture and sightseeing opportunities.

[BOX] How to volunteer

Each spring and fall, the conservation group KuzeyDoğa Society operates bird research stations at two wetland areas near Kars. Some 200 volunteers from 20 different countries have spent two weeks or more helping watch, count and band (ring) birds at the Kuyucuk and Aras stations. Both facilities are located in peaceful, beautiful rural areas, affording opportunities to hike, swim and relax in between checking nets, collecting data and banding birds.

No experience is necessary, though licensed ringers are in high demand. Conditions are basic, meals hearty and the scenery unparalleled. This year’s spring activities run between March 15 and early June. Contact KuzeyDoğa (0474 212 38 84, www.kuzeydoga.org) for details.

This article was originally published in the March 2012 issue of Time Out Istanbul magazine. See if as it appeared in print: jpg | pdf

For more photos, visit my Flickr site.

Hiking amidst history in the Southeast

TRAVEL

Hiking amidst history in the Southeast

This month, explore the abundant natural beauty and archaeological richness of Hasankeyf. Words and photography Jennifer Hattam

‘Here, taste this,’ our guide Hüseyin said, plucking a handful of green stems from the ground and offering them to us. The scent and flavour were sharp and unmistakable – garlic, growing wild in the rugged hills behind the town of Hasankeyf in Southeast Turkey.

We had set out on a hike as the sun rose, climbing past old cave dwellings and into the canyons. Delicate flowers shook off the morning dew and opened to the sky, leaving the green slopes studded with red blossoms in our wake. Birds circled overhead, spiralling down to round holes in the limestone cliffs where they’d built their mud-dark nests alongside the vertiginous staircases and primitive drainpipes carved into the stone.

Rough-hewn footholds in the rock face brought us up to alpine-like plateaus, then down into slippery white canyons where water pooled in the shade. A hoopoe’s call broke the silence, its ‘hüt hüt’ as distinctive as the black-and-white-striped feathers clashing gleefully with its mohawk-like orange crest.

Another sound, stranger still, began to fill the air, growing louder as its source came into view: a cheap black boom box, being toted by one of a half dozen men in faded suits and worn loafers, following the same rocky paths their ancestors have traversed for 10,000 years.

10,000 years of history

One of the oldest continuously inhabited places in the world, Hasankeyf has been swept through and ruled by Assyrians, Romans, Arabs, Artukids, Ayyubids, Mongols – more than 20 cultures in all. Today its dusty streets are home to a dwindling and aging population as likely to greet each other outside the teahouse in the morning with a Kurdish ‘rojbaş’ or an Arabic ‘salaam alaikum’ as a Turkish ‘günaydın’.

The occasional visitor becomes captivated by the town’s charms. A Canadian traveller named Daniel painted the colourful, graffiti-influenced murals inside Nehir Lokantası downtown when not camping out in the area’s caves. But most outsiders who venture this far into the hinterland pull up in tour buses for a photo-op of the massive stone piers in the Tigris River – all that remains of an early-twelfth-century bridge – a quick clamber up to the hilltop castle, and perhaps a cup of tea at one of the rickety restaurants dangling over the water before zooming out again.

The ancient stone citadel, recently reopened to the public after a deadly rockslide last summer, is the town’s main tourist attraction and the source of its name, from the Arabic ‘Hisn Kayfa’, or rock fortress. If current plans for the area proceed as intended, it will be all that is left visible of Hasankeyf.

Controversial dam-construction plans

Perched some 100 metres above the town, the castle would remain on dry ground even if the controversial Ilısu Dam is completed, creating a 313-square-kilometre reservoir that would cover Hasankeyf with more than 60 metres of water. But the area’s 300 other identified medieval monuments – a fraction of what archaeologists believe remains to be unearthed – would be submerged.

For now, visitors who linger when the tour buses leave have the crumbling remains of more than a dozen civilisations all to themselves, save for the storks nesting atop the minaret of the fourteenth-century Ulu Cami (Great Mosque) or the goats grazing near the fifteenth-century Zeynel Bey Tomb, a squat cylinder dotted with rich blue tiles.

In the evening, as an afternoon shower cleared, leaving a rainbow arcing across the sky, we crossed to the other side of the river, where we had been invited to a local home for dinner. Inside the house, the family’s oldest daughter, 17, quickly covered her hair and then spread a laminated floral-printed sheet on the front-room floor. With her curious young siblings creeping in and out of the room, she laid out trays of bulgur topped with fried eggs, bowls of pasta with tomato sauce and mint, slices of cucumbers and tomatoes, and mugs of fresh, thin ayran. A baby in a cradle in the corner of the room slept through it all.

The next morning we again rose early to head into the hills, stopping to gaze out to the horizon, where straight rows of small houses were sprouting in a small patch of green amid the dry, brown foothills – one of the new settlements being built for people displaced by the dam. Turning away from what may very well be Hasankeyf’s future, we looked back into town, where we could see its rich past – its mosques, tombs, cave houses, and cliff staircases – grown small and distant behind us.

[BOX] Travel Basics

Buses run regularly (though not too late in the day) to Hasankeyf from Batman and Diyarbakır, where the two closest airports are located. Accommodations and facilities for travellers are modest but sufficient for a few days’ stay.

Hasankeyf Hasbahçe (www.hasankeyfhasbahce.com; 0488 381 26 74) is the town’s best lodging option, with basic but neat motel-style rooms, a picnic area and a shaded garden. For dinner, order a pan-cooked alabalık (trout) from the hotel’s own pond. Hasankeyf Ögretmenevi (0488 381 27 20), a state-run teacher’s house, accepts non-educators if it has any free rooms.

Fuel up for a hike with a hearty breakfast of fresh-baked bread, eggs, cheese, olives and smoky mercimek (lentil) soup with pungent isot biber (pepper) at Nehir Lokantası, a restaurant on the main road run by a friendly husband-and-wife team.

[BOX] The Ilısu Dam

First proposed in the 1950s, construction on the Ilısu Dam started in spring 2008 but was halted just over a year later when German, Austrian and Swiss funders pulled out of the project, citing environmental and human rights concerns. The Turkish government is now pushing ahead with the project on its own.

If completed, the dam would destroy 400 kilometres of the Tigris River and its tributaries, forcing the relocation of 60,000 people from some 200 settlements in the region and drowning habitat for dozens of endemic species in addition to Hasankeyf’s archaeological treasures. Ongoing protests against the project have been joined by celebrities including Nobel Prize-winning author Orhan Pamuk, acclaimed film director Fatih Akın and pop stars Sezen Aksu and Tarkan.

This article was originally published in the October 2011 issue of Time Out Istanbul magazine. See it as it appeared in print: jpg | pdf

To learn more about this amazing and threatened place, visit the blog Hasankeyf Matters and the website of the Initiative to Keep Hasankeyf Alive. For more photos, see my Flickr site.

Hidden gardens reveal secrets of Istanbul's islands

Green spaces are now hard to come by amid the grey concrete in the metropolis that once inspired 17th-century traveller Robert Withers to write: “Nor indeed doth a Turk at any time show himself to be so truly pleased, and satisfied in his senses as he doth in the summer time, when he is in a pleasant garden.”

But though such opportunities are few and far between – for Turks and foreigners alike – in today’s Istanbul, there is still one place where the senses can be so satisfied, a place where, it was said in Ottoman times, the scent of the blossoms could make a person dizzy...

Read the rest of my article about garden tours on the Princes' Islands, “Hidden Gardens Reveal Secrets of Istanbul's Islands,” as it appeared in the May 2011 issue of Time Out Istanbul: jpg

Close encounters with the wrestling-camel kind

It is apparent when we catch glimpse of a strange parade upon debarking the bus that we are in the right place: A stray dog trots down the street after three boys who are leading a small horse behind a pickup truck. The truck is filled with musicians – one beating a large, flat drum nestled between his legs. Two lumbering camels stride in front of them all; the animals are frothing at the mouth, the bells lashed to their saddles clanking like particularly non-melodic wind chimes.

People are believed to have been pitting camels against each other in wrestling matches since the days of nomadic caravans. Today, the tradition lives on in winter bouts along Turkey’s Aegean coast. The largest tournament of the year is held in Selçuk – near the historic Ephesus ruins – where organizers recently added a Camel Beauty Contest to the day’s events to draw more interest. The dusty field where we end up on this sunny Sunday is in a nondescript suburb of İzmir, the third-largest city in Turkey and self-proclaimed “most modern and cosmopolitan.”

Camels waited patiently around the makeshift ring, back hooves splayed, soft shackles around their front legs that tether them to stakes pounded into the ground. They are draped with colourful ribbons and blankets, spangled scarves, and banners proclaiming their names and hometowns, but seem oblivious to the children and dogs running amongst them; the people coming up to touch their heads and pose for photos with them; and the itinerant horn player blaring his zurna in their ears.

Rules of the game

From a raised platform alongside the ring, the voice of the cazgır (announcer) rings out with a wish, “May our animals be strong,” before introducing the contestants. “Küçük Ahmet from Zeytindağ has entered the field…”

Camels wrestle by pushing against each others’ sides, straining for the leverage that could allow them to trip the other up or press their rival’s long neck to the ground. Hefty animals, they circle surprisingly quickly, their hoof-work as fleet as any boxer’s. Two teams of neon-vested urgancı (ropemen) squat in a line on either side of the beasts, ready to sprint into action to pull the camels apart – a tug-of-war eagerly joined by spectators who leap the flimsy fences around the ring to pitch in.

A match lasts 10 minutes, and is won when one animal falls, screams, or runs away. The latter outcome is by far the most popular among the assembled crowd, which roars its approval before scattering as nearly a ton of ungulate bulk hurdles toward the rickety metal fencing – sending people pushing and squeezing out of the way, only to return to their positions a moment later.

As the animals grapple nearby, a little girl, with a puffy coat matching her cotton candy, steps away slightly. “Are you scared?” we ask her. Stifling a smile, she throws her head back with an emphatic “Tsk!”

The show on the sidelines

Unlike another traditional Turkish sport, oil wrestling, where the mere sight of four female spectators is enough to attract TV cameras, camel wrestling is a family affair. Rotund middle-aged ladies in headscarves and flowery pants spread out their picnic blankets on the patchy grass as young women in chic boots pick their way through the mud. Older men in caps and suit coats smoke and eat sunflower seeds, while younger ones hang eagerly on the fence, lifting children up to kiss their fathers on the field with their candy-apple-sticky lips. Some spectators sit on flattened cardboard boxes or newspaper-covered rocks; others with ringside tables tucked into meals served on ceramic plates.

Musicians wend their way through the crowd, their songs rising above the din, as they try to entice some of the men drinking rakı around small white plastic tables to get up and dance. One stretches out his arms and does a few steps in front of his camel before nuzzling the beast’s head.

Smoke rises from mangal (barbeque) and nargile (water pipes) set up on the sidelines, where one man is cooking chicken in a pan of oil over a gas canister; a worn piece of plastic is tied on it forming a shield. Others grilled up slices of camel sausage, pressing small loaves of bread into the frying grease before filling them with meat and wrapping them in newspaper.

As the day progresses, trainers begin to pull the unsuccessful camels from the ring. Some load their animals into large trucks while others lead them home on foot, down through the winding streets lined with graceless concrete-block buildings; without even a carpet prize tied to their saddle to show for the day’s exertions.

[BOX]

Camel-wrestling fun facts

• Turkey has around 500 wrestling camels, all male and of the special tülü breed. Most come from Iran, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan.

• Wrestling season lasts from December to March, the animals’ mating period.

• Camels perform better in cold weather.

• The carpets, saddlebags and other felt and cloth items worn by the camels are traditional crafts of the nomadic Yörük people.

• The tournament in Selçuk was held in the Ephesus theatre until the late 1990s, when it was moved due to concerns about damaging the ancient site.

• A wrestling camel can cost as much as 160,000 Turkish Liras (approximately 80,000 Euros) and eat up to 5,000 Turkish Liras’ (approximately 2,500 Euros) worth of food a year.

[BOX]

A jaunt to İzmir

The last two camel-wrestling tournaments of the season are in İzmir’s Haydarlı district (March 6) and the nearby city of Manisa’s Gökkaya district (March 20). With regular flights and overnight bus service from Istanbul to İzmir, it’s easy to take a quick trip to catch this unique event.

STAY: The hotels in İzmir aren’t cheap, but the attractive Park Hotel İzmir (150 Turkish Liras/75 Euros per night) and the homey Güzel İzmir Oteli (100 Turkish Liras/50 Euros) both offer good value. Park Hotel İzmir, (0232) 425 33 33. 1366 Sokak, No. 6, Çankaya. Güzel İzmir Oteli, (0232) 483 50 69. 1368 Sokak, No. 8, Basmane.

EAT: Kırçiçeği is a firm favourite for kebab and pide in the restaurant-rich Alsancak district. Kırçiçeği, (0232) 464 30 90. 1443 Sokak, No. 83, Alsancak.

EXPLORE: Hop on a minibus for a daytrip to the less-visited ruins of Sardis, the ancient capital of the Lydian Kingdom, or the beach towns of the Çeşme peninsula, blissfully sleepy this time of year.

This article was originally published in the March 2011 issue of Time Out Istanbul (view jpg version).