4. Istanbul

The city of Istanbul has evolved over many generations with its deeply historical past as Byzantium and Constantinople through to its current status as capital of the Republic of Türkiye.

At the intersection of the continental plates of Europe and Asia, its distinctive geography is evident on either side of the Bosphorus waterway that both divides and unites the city.

This and its special atmospheres are most eloquently recognised by Orhan Pamuk in his memories and in growing up in the city.

“If the city speaks of defeat, destruction, deprivation, melancholy and poverty, the Bosphorus sings of life, pleasure and happiness. Istanbul draws its strength from the Bosphorus. But in earlier times no one gave it much importance: they saw the Bosphorus as a waterway, a beauty spot and for the last 200 years, a fine location for summer palaces… As a string of fishing villages… from the 18th century when Ottoman worthies began building their summer homes mostly around Goksu, Kücüksu, Bebek, Kandilli, Rumelihisari and Kanlica, there arose an Ottoman culture that looked towards Istanbul to the exclusion the rest of the world. The ‘yalis’ – the splendid waterside mansions built by great Ottoman families… came to be seen with the advent of the Republic as models of an obsolete identity and architecture… These grand houses with their high, narrow windows, spacious eaves, bay windows and narrow chimneys are mere shadows of this ruined and destroyed culture… (and yet) to travel along the Bosphorus, be it in a ferry, a motor launch or a rowing boat, is to see the city house by house, neighbourhood by neighbourhood, and also from afar as a silhouette, an ever mutating mirage”. *

Such sensation that Pamuk also records is ‘hüzün’, the Turkish word for melancholy.

“It is by seeing ‘hüzün’, by paying our respects to its manifestations in the city’s streets and views and people that we at last come to sense it everywhere: on cold winter mornings, when the sun suddenly falls on the Bosphorus and that faint vapour begins to rise from the surface, the ‘hüzün’ is so dense that you can almost touch it, almost see it spread like a film over its people and its landscapes”. *

The waterway separation of Beyoglu and Besiktas on the European side, from Uskudar on the Asian side, has now been overcome with the three suspension bridges and two tunnels that provide road and rail connection across the Bosphorus.

These major infrastructure links now provide permanent fixed connections across a challenging seismic zone that connect communities and which complement the more scenic ferry crossings.

Shaped by its geographic and maritime coastal geography, this primate city with its dual polar nature, remains a pull for migrating peoples especially on the Asian side.

*Orhan Pamuk – Istanbul, Memories of a City – Faber & Faber, 2005.