Looking out the window of the plane as it flew over the Sea of Marmara on the final approach to Ataturk International, I caught my first glimpse of the bustle of Istanbul. It wasn't, however, the intense street-level activity I was to experience over the next few days- the plane was still far too high up to see that and heck, we weren't even going to be over land until the final few seconds before landing. Rather, from my little airplane porthole view of the world, I could see many large tanker ships busy criss-crossing the waters and jockeying for position both going into and coming out of the Bosporus. If a city is that busy on the water, I thought, what's the rest of going to be like?
After the rumbling jolt that passes for a smooth landing these days, I started to get a bit more of an idea. In this evening of early September, the sun was setting and bringing down a beautiful day with it, leaving the fading light to glow through a low-lying layer of smog . As the plane taxied off the runway, I saw silhouetted through this haze the first several of what were to be the countless mosque minarets of Istanbul, protruding as they were from the dense urban settlements jutting right up against the airport fence. I was certainly a half-world away from the landscape of London, arriving as I was on the very fringes of Europe.
My distance from the Anglo-Saxon world was further confirmed upon my arrival at customs and immigration, where I payed for my 'visa' (read: entrance fee) and cleared immigration without even so much as a question; this, I believe, is pretty much unheard of in the great lands of the West these days. Within minutes I had collected my bag and emerged from the arrival gate to greeted by my girlfriend and her father, mustering that quiet smile most appropriate when politeness is needed while simultaneously not having much idea of what is going on. Before I had much of a chance to get my bearings, I was in the father's car as it emerged from the parking garage and into the fading day, speeding up to join the crowd of vehicles already vying for space in a free-for-all expressway entrance.
At first, things felt comfortably European. The style of the roadway, the signage and infrastructure, the car models; these linked the scene unfolding before me, however tenuously, to the cultural sphere I had just left behind. And yet the more I stared quietly out the window, the more I realized something else awaited me. In the fumes of the heavy traffic, we passed alongside dusty buses carrying what I imagined t0 be manual labourers. Vehicles slowly but surely floated back and forth across the roadway, the concept of lanes barely an afterthought. And the scene that lay beyond the expressway consisted of a haphazardly constructed urban density like I’d never seen.
After my time spent navigating the monumentality of urban China, I certainly thought I had experienced the gamut of overwhelming urban vistas. But this was something completely different from anything I had previously seen. Before me spread absolute mountains of city. Heaps of city. Absolutely nothing but city. Waves of urbanity undulated across the landscape to the extent that I could rarely make out any space not occupied or crowded over by low-rise tenements, shacks, warehouses, satellite dishes, rumbling highways, and tangled power lines. Junk-strewn lots seem to be the rare and sole respite from this urban crush. Needless to say that, lover and avid student of cities I am, I was both overwhelmed and awestruck. And I'm fairly certain my girlfriend's father thought I was a mute.
Zoning wasn't overwhelmingly popular in this great urban sprawl. Four-to-five floor buildings looked to be built beneath, on top, beside and through each other, windows facing off in haphazard directions. After some time navigating the rumbling expressways and crowded scenery, our vehicle emerged to follow huge and ancient city walls which suddenly sprung up beside the roadway. Before long we were snaking along the shores of the Bosporus, allowing me a sudden rush of the central city and its famous waterways. I couldn't quite believe it: before me lay a scene that met all the stereotypes of exoticism head on and easily surpassed them. Here, for once, was a pulsating, 'modern' metropolis that actually delivered the scenery its postcards promise.
As darkness settled in, so did the density of traffic. The relative space of the expressways gave way to a gridlock of vehicles and pedestrians trying to navigate an urban space formed long before the automobile was even a dream. As we approached a bridge over the Golden Horn, a woman danced wildly asking for change in the midst of traffic, being ignored by the belching buses as they rumbled around and past her. Before I could come to my senses or get my bearings, or even unpack my bag, I found myself in the midst of a family birthday dinner, sampling raki and delicious food all while trying to follow animated conversation in a language I couldn't understand. I could barely catch my breath. Welcome to Istanbul.
Istanbul turned out to be all the worlds I had known, only crashing into each other and emerging as one massive urban experience. The city was overwhelming, sprawling, bustling, chaotic, noisy and dirty, but also beautiful, stunning and impeccably clean where you'd least expect it to be. I would do a disservice to the cultural wealth of the city if I even attempted to describe it here: pick your major Islamic-Judeo-Christian religion, historical kingdom or Eurasian cultural group, and chances are you will find a material ode to it somewhere in the cacophony of architecture. Istanbul has a European cafe culture vibrancy hopelessly tangled in Asian traffic sensibilities; a world-savvy middle-class swerving their way around the less fortunate; wild bazaars and winding, quiet leafy streets. The infrastructure was as shiny and new as it was overwhelmed and crumbling. But like any city worth the trouble, it was the sheer life of Istanbul that stood out above all. One evening, as the sun set itself down behind the Golden Horn and silhouetting the mosque minarets, I watched the bridges pulsating with glistening traffic and pedestrians, the water below rushing with ferries, and just soaked it all up. It was the sort of moment I live for.
Of course I wasted little time joining in on this life. With my girlfriend- an Istanbul native and veteran to its delights- as a guide, we wandered through neighbourhoods, relaxed around Turkish coffee, took ferries across the Bosporus, chatted around tea, visited astounding historical relics, enjoyed coffee on a rooftop terrace overlooking a bustling pedestrian street. Needless to say that caffeine was a permanent fixture of my Istanbul experience. The call to prayer was equally omnipresent; emitted from a number of mosques probably in the thousands, it had the tendency to make itself heard.
We even took a decrepit motorboat ‘ferry’ taxi across the Golden Horn, on which the operator encouraged me to stand up and take pictures of the surrounding sights. I quietly wondered to myself if he charged for fishing foreigners out of the water, because given the rocking of the boat that is surely where I would have ended up had I followed his advice. I just couldn't do it, having been raised in one of those societies where safety is paramount and innocent fun is often sucked out of everything through tedious over-regulation.
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My impressions of Istanbul were, I admit, certainly coloured by the brilliant, smog-free blue sky and sunshine that accompanied me throughout my stay. Its rather amazing how even a small amount of clean air and nice weather allows a city to shine; and shine through this massive city did, coming across as bright, cheery, exuberant and rather clean considering the chaos visiting its streets on a daily basis. I was particularly impressed by the scenery of the Bosporus on a beautiful afternoon, taken in from the deck of a boat with my feet up on the railing. I was told the waterway has been significantly cleaned up in the past few years, and the results were certainly tangible. Floating along quite literally between Europe and Asia, the crisp bright beauty of the scenery was enough to put most so-called 'developed' world cities to shame. Here was the very heart of a city of untold millions in a ‘developing’ country managing, for the most part, not to live in its own filth. I know more than a few places that could benefit from this approach.
Of course, I recognize that my perspective on Istanbul was one of both an outsider and a tourist. I’m not so naive as to imagine it is an exotic utopia. I'm sure that for millions of its inhabitants, this enormous city offers its fair share of drawbacks, dangers and frustrations, and that for many the life limitations of poverty are harsh realities. I was offered a rather privileged perspective on the city and I recognize this; like almost any self-respecting superficial tourist, I never ventured into the dense landscape of poor settlements that help make Istanbul the massive urban world it is. But a few minutes staring beyond the edges of the expressway were certainly enough to tell me they exist en masse.
So why am I so unabashedly exuberant about Istanbul? Why did it have such an effect on me, as opposed to the many other cities of untold millions I've visited? I will dare to say that I found the city fundamentally refreshing. Yes, refreshing. Sure, it has at least twenty times the volume of traffic than would be sane. Sure, it has its share of ugly highrises and gaudy shopping malls. Obviously, like any self-respecting 'poor' city, Istanbul is in the throes of the usual 'modernization'- whatever that really means -as it tries to build itself out of perceived backwardness to rather interesting results. For example, there is a nice sleek, state-of-art tram system literally plunked down in the middle of major roads, leaving those wishing to use it the sole option of dashing across wild and heavy traffic. I guess someone forgot to worry about how pedestrians would actually get to and from the nice shiny tramway without getting killed.
And yes, it has Starbucks. Someone call the anti-globalization police.
Yet ultimately, I found the place refreshing because unlike so many others, I think it dares to be a bit different. As a lover of cities, it was a delight to experience a place in which the perseverance of a unique urban form results from a conscious celebration of cultural heritage rather than poverty. I found it to be a place that didn't need to completely destroy its urban fabric to project 'modernity' , cosmopolitanism or class: its people and vibrant life more than take care of that- and with style. But above all, the city restored in my cynicism-hardened mind a little magic, a bit of faith that cities aren't all going to end up as horrible hybrids of Los Angeles and Las Vegas. Standing on a bridge over the Golden Horn facing the minarets and domes of Sultanamet at dusk, I found it very difficult not to feel that, after all, the world can still be a pretty wondrous place. Teşekkürler, Istanbul.
Patrick Bennett can still remember those sunsets over the city.
