No. 21 August 2002

Real Istanbul

I’ve just gotten inside the door after a morning spent with my beloved buying a large assortment of antique copper items.  (Why this was necessary can be the subject of another column.)  Of course, even just going somewhere to look at old things is the kind of thing I love doing, but this particular shopping-for-antiques trip proved to be far more than that.

A few years ago, we went to an üsta (expert craftsperson) in a neighborhood close by the old city walls just beyond Unkapaný, to have a set of antique Christoflé sterling silver we’d found restored to its original pristine condition.  It was black when we bought it, and much as I enjoy polishing things, there was no way I was about to try and clean four dozen pieces of time-blackened silver cutlery.  This was one time when do-it-yourself wasn’t going to cut it.  An üsta was needed.  We got a name from a grocer in Kücük Bebek, and set out in search of him one day, eventually finding him hard at work in a tiny atölyer (atelier) within a stone-arched place that may well have been created from out of the foundations of those same city walls.  We haggled over how much the job would be, and satisfied, left the lot with him for a week.  When we went back to retrieve it, we were stunned to see just how beautiful it was.  Today the plan was to find the same üsta.  We had heard that he’d moved from the other place, opened a small shop cum workshop, had some people working for him, repairing and polishing, and was selling old and new metal pieces.  We stopped by several places to ask about his whereabouts, and eventually got directions.  The new place was in Vefa, definitely old Istanbul, and very definitely old, non-touristic Istanbul. (1) By now, I was really becoming interested in how things were going to develop.

The day was hot, so on the way we stopped for a few moments respite in the dim coolness of Number 102 Katip Çelibi Caddesi, the original Vefa Bozacýsý (2) to drink something cold.  I always love going there because it still has that characteristic turn-of-the-century Istanbul flavor.  Established in 1876, it has lots of dark, polished wooden shelves, filled with gleaming antique vinegar bottles, looking like so many jewels lined up, a real tile floor, and small, marble-topped tables for customers to sit on while they sample delicious homemade viþne suyu (sour cherry juice) and limonata (lemonade).  We tried both, and thus refreshed, pressed on, until we came to the street where our üsta, now a proper bakýrcý, was.  We stopped again to ask for directions from a stout, white-bearded shopkeeper, dressed in traditional clothes, who told us “Just ahead,” while doing his best not to appear too obviously disconcerted by me, the purple-haired gâvur (non-Muslim), who shocked him even further by thanking him warmly in surprisingly well-accented Turkish.  (It’s true.  I don’t have much Turkish, but what I do have usually sounds pretty good.) 

Sure enough, there was the atölyer, just up ahead, on the left.  We climbed up from the sidewalk onto a rather high metal stair, perched at a decidedly odd angle, and then stepped onto a wide, concrete platform in the center of which was a low, folding wooden table topped with a magnificently engraved copper tray.  The wall outside was hung with a tantalizing assortment of metal objects.  The moment we stepped inside the shop, the owner, Recep Erol, recognized us and greeted us warmly, showed us into his office to sit down, and offered cigarettes and tea.  Then the shopping began.  While the men talked about what was wanted, what was available, and how much it would be, I was free to wander around, and did.  In one back room there was a man using a huge machine to polish big metal pieces.  He was surrounded by stacks of what appeared to be flowerpots and cooking pots.  Those waiting to be polished were black.  The ones he had finished lay in a resplendent, shining heap.  On one side of the main room, which was lined with shelves full of metal objects, some truly old, others newly made to look truly old, two men sat on small stools, hammering out the dents in various copper objects.  At that moment it occurred to me that people had been performing the same actions, in the same way, for thousands of years, and I experienced an almost overwhelming feeling of real connection with the past.  With some effort, I pulled myself out of the reverie this had induced and focused myself on a practical task.  Since I am still teaching myself how to tell the difference between old and new copper pieces, this was a good chance for me to practice.  (I have to say I’m getting better at this.  The other day, when the owner of a small shop on a side street in Beþiktaþ motioned me to come and look at the piece he was holding in his hand, saying that it was very old and rare, I’m proud to say that I dashed his hopes to the ground, because without missing a beat I said, “O, çok güzel.  Ali Paþa Han mý? meaning, “Oh, that’s very pretty.  Is it from Ali Paþa Han?”  That pretty much finished him, because Ali Paþa Han, in Beyazit, is the place where they make lots of fake antique metal stuff for unsuspecting tourists, and some Istanbulites, oo, for that matter.  I know native Turks who are fooled by these things.) 

After all the items had been chosen, we had a bit of time, because some of them needed to be polished, so we ventured back outside into the neighborhood to find a place to eat.  Recep Bey had recommended a place called Kara Deniz Pide, and so we headed off.  Crossing the street, we opened a gate and went down a few stone steps into the lovely, tree-shaded garden of the Þeyh Ebûlvefa Cami.  The türbe (mausoleum) of Þeyh Ebûlvefa (Þeyh means ‘head religious teacher’) is there.  I learned that he had shut himself off from the world in that place for çile, which is a period of forty days spent fasting and praying.  The mosque is relatively new—built within the last century or so—but the türbe and the walls are original and very beautiful. 

We came out the other side of the garden, turned right, and found our destination.  A very ordinary-looking place, Kara Deniz Pide was immaculate.  We sat down and ordered güveç (beef cooked in an earthenware pot) and lahmâcun (a kind of Turkish pizza) and çoban salata (shepherd’s salad).  First, hot, puffy pide (a slightly leavened flat bread) came, with tulum cheese (a special type of cheese made in a skin) and fresh butter.   When the salad and güveç were brought to the table, we were also given a small plate containing a couple of dozen dabs of butter folded inside tiny triangles of baking paper to put on the sizzling hot güveç.  The headwaiter rushed over to sprinkle some fresh ground kaþar cheese (cheese made from sheep’s milk) on it.  A few minutes later, the lahmâcun arrived, necessitating a second trip for the head waiter who again performed the ritual with the kaþar cheese.  Everything was scrumptious.  That lunch counts as one of the best I have had in this country, and never mind the fact that it wasn’t in some “þýkkýdýþýk” (3) place in Etiler, say.  (I try to avoid such eating establishments anyway.  While I absolutely adore beautiful things and settings, I think pretension spoils them, so for me, humble and real is better than fashionable and fake.)   At the end of the meal, we ordered Turkish coffee, which had to come from outside, and was a bit delayed because it was Friday and the kahveci (coffee maker) had to go to pray, but it did come.  When we had finished, a waiter came over offering us lemon cologne for our hands, and since it was such a hot day, I accepted gratefully. 

Coming outside, the heat was a bit of a shock, but it was bearable because we were full and happy.  We walked slowly back to the atölyer and two boys ran off to find a taxi.  When the taxi arrived we packed it with all our things, and made our way slowly through unbelievably narrow the back streets until we reached Kennedy Caddesi.  As we drove, I was struck by a number of things.  One was that there were still a large number of old wooden houses left, another was that many of them had flowers planted in boxes or pots or sometimes cans on the window sills, a third was that most of those windows were shining clean and hung with pure white curtains, and a fourth was that there were many obviously very poor but very, very beautiful children on those streets.  It really did seem to be another world than Nisantaþý or Levent. 

What’s the point of my recounting this?  I suppose it’s just that I wanted to say that all this is the real Istanbul, not that new, glittering plastic Istanbul everyone seems hell-bent on constructing now.  That day there was an indestructible bridge forged between my heart and this place called Vefa.

 Footnotes:

1) Vefa means fidelity; loyalty; constancy in love; faithfulness. Enough of the original flavor of this neighborhood remains to make it clear to me that it was aptly named. 

2) A bozacý is a seller and maker of boza, a drink made from fermented millet.  I don’t know if Vefa still makes that.   Now, it’s famous for its vinegar, which is sold everywhere.  

3) You won’t find sýkkýdýþýk in the dictionary, but it means snobby, trendy and pretentious.