Top spots in Kadıköy

Artsy, eclectic Istanbullus are flocking to the city’s once-sleepy Asian side and its lively cafes, galleries, bars, shops, and eateries. For visitors staying near the historic sights of Sultanahmet, a short and scenically stunning ferry ride across continents is all it takes to join them....

I've been contracted by Lonely Planet to help update their online coverage of Istanbul over the next few months, an assignment I kicked off by writing a short guide to Kadıköy, a neighborhood that seems more vibrant every time I hop across the Bosphorus to visit it.

Read the rest of my travel guide, "10 places to soak up the vibe of Istanbul’s Kadıköy neighbourhood," on the Lonely Planet website.

A thank-you letter to my fundraising supporters

Dear friends,

Thank you so much for your support for my fundraising campaign last month! I know everyone has many, many good causes competing for their attention and funds so I really appreciate your devoting some of yours to mine.

Children should be playing and learning, not working!

Thanks to your generosity, I concluded my campaign with a total of 6,454 Turkish Lira ($1,833 US) — more than twice my original fundraising goal! I also surpassed my goal of successfully reaching out to more than 40 individual donors. And I'm quite pleased to report that among the 70 runners raising money for the Turkish NGO Hayata Destek Derneği (Support to Life Association), I raised the 2nd-highest total number of donations, and brought in the 3rd-highest number of individual donors :)

Your donations will provide more than 25 migrant farmworker children with school supplies, educational materials, and the hygiene items they need in their tent homes. Overall, 324 children will be assisted by Hayata Destek's fundraising campaign!

In a country where neither running nor individual charitable giving are common pursuits, I'm also proud to be among nearly 5,000 runners who raised more than 6.7 million Turkish Lira for 29 worthy NGOs by running the 10k, 15k, or full 42k race in the Istanbul Marathon and fundraising through the wonderful organization Adım Adım ('Step by Step').

Running on the Galata Bridge, crossing the finish line, showing
off my finisher's medal, and enjoying a post-race beer.

Last but not least, I had a fantastic race too :) It was my fourth time running the 15k in Istanbul, and I smashed my previous personal best by nearly seven minutes, completing the course in 1:32:58 (one hour, 32 minutes and 58 seconds). Despite rain overnight and a tumultuous sky in the early morning, we ended up with a gorgeous day for running. After finishing my 15k, I met up with runner friends to cheer on the marathoners at the finish line and then enjoy a couple of well-deserved beers by the water.

This year, I've overcome my intimidation about running with other people thanks to an excellent small group of runner pals who challenge and encourage me on early Sunday morning trail runs in and around the Belgrad Forest north of the city. I know pushing myself with them was a big factor in my success at the race — as was knowing you were all cheering me on from near and far!

I encourage you all to learn more about the excellent work of Hayata Destek and their ongoing efforts to combat child labor in Turkey and help provide relief aid and psycho-social support to some of the more than 3 million refugees now in this country. You can read more about them in English at http://www.hayatadestek.org/en/ and follow along (mostly in Turkish, but also with photos!) at https://www.facebook.com/HayataDestek/?fref=ts.

Thank you again so much for your support!

With love and solidarity,

Jen

America voted. Now what?

Eight years ago this month, I took a nap late in the evening and then awoke again in the wee hours, packed up some bottles of champagne and walked through Istanbul's for-once quiet streets to a fellow expat's house. There a group of Americans and their friends held a vigil through the night, drinking, eating, and goofing around, but mostly glued to the TV and our laptop screens as we watched the election results roll in back home. We got to pop those champagne corks around sunrise, which seemed utterly fitting, and as I made my sleepy but thrilled way back home, it felt like the world outside shone just a bit brighter.

There was a little déjà vu, if a lot more anxiety, Tuesday evening in heading out around midnight, already sleepy but determined to watch this year's returns until the bitter end. And bitter it was. There's already so much armchair analysis and so many emotional outpourings online, I don't really feel like opining further here. But if you, like me, believe in progressive ideals and are concerned about the effect the U.S. presidential election might have in terms of racial/gender/LGBTQ equality, the environment, human rights, global peace, and much more, you might, like me, need a little shot in the arm and some ideas about what to do next.

So I'm starting (and will keep updating) a list here of other people's writing that I feel provides one or both of these things; if you have more suggestions, send 'em my way. (Admittedly, this is an American-centric list, and post, but many of the issues we face are global ones, and I'd love it if this inspires anyone to take like-minded action in their own countries.)

Get fired up:

• Inspiring Down-Ballot Wins That Defy Racism, Sexism -- Short profiles of the nine women of color elected to the U.S. House and Senate this week, including my new California senator, Kamala Harris. (Another article has more on female firsts in this election, including the first Somali-American woman to be elected to public office in the United States.)


• Don't Mourn, Fight Like Hell -- "Trump appealed to America's worst impulses. Now it's on the rest of us to show, to prove, that this is not all that America is. This is a time when we're called on to do things we may not have done before. To face down bigotry and hate, and to reach beyond our Facebook feeds in trying to do so."


• Here's what progressives need to do to stop Trump’s insane agenda -- "We need to take back Congress in 2018 like our lives depended on it because they do."


• Forget Canada. Stay and Fight for American Democracy -- "Fighting for democracy is part of America's heritage, from abolitionists to suffragettes to the progressive reformers. Maybe you thought that fight was confined to history. It will go on."


• Autocracy: Rules for Survival -- "Believe the autocrat. Do not be taken in by small signs of normality. Institutions will not save you. Be outraged. Don’t make compromises. Remember the future."


• The Morning After -- "Let’s get off the floor and get busy." The brilliant Samantha Bee's call to action. Need further convincing that the 2018 midterm election can matter? Watch her trenchant piece from earlier in this campaign season about the 2010 midterm -- you know, the one that only 40.9% of eligible voters bothered to cast a ballot in -- and then read about some of the voter-suppression laws enacted by people that apathy allowed to sweep into office.


• We Have To Create A Culture That Won't Vote For Trump -- "We’re going to need every single one of you. Because what we need to do is hard. Very hard. We have to create a culture that won’t vote for Trump, that won’t vote for anyone like Trump ever again. And in order to do that we have to shift our focus from our politicians, our electoral college, our TV pundits—and we have to start focusing on our communities. Because Trump did not elect himself."


• Citizens, United -- "Despair is a counterproductive response. So is denial — an easy temptation in the wake of the inevitable postelection pleasantries and displays of respect needed to maintain the peaceful transfer of power. The proper response is steely resolve to wage the fight of our lives."


• Trump changed everything. Now everything counts -- "With due respect for the colored ribbons we’ve worn for various solidarities, our next step is to wear something on our sleeve that takes actual courage: our hearts... There’s safety in numbers, but only if we count ourselves out loud."

Get active:

• A List of Pro-Women, Pro-Immigrant, Pro-Earth, Anti-Bigotry Organizations That Need Your Support -- Put your money where your mouth is and donate to the ACLU, EarthJustice, the NAACP, Planned Parenthood, the Sierra Club, and other groups fighting for the rights of vulnerable people. Many of these organizations need volunteers too. (And here's a local list of progressive advocacy groups in the San Francisco Bay Area for my people back home.)


• Volunteer with the International Rescue Committee -- What better way to fight back against the nasty anti-immigration rhetoric of this president-elect's campaign than to help assist newly arrived refugees in the U.S. with mentoring and job-seeking assistance?


• After Trump's Victory, Stand With Your Community -- "If you have any privilege at all, this is a time to put it on the line, beginning where you live. Even if you don’t, this is a time to reach out."


• If You're Overwhelmed By The Election, Here's What You Can Do Now -- Volunteer. Donate. Be good to each other.


• What Can I Do? -- 10 things you can do to make the world a better place, and how you can connect to social movements that matter.


• 10 Ways to Resist Donald Trump -- From offering your skills to diversifying your media, activists share concrete actions you can take right now.


• Report Hate -- Witnessed or experienced a hate crime, harassment, or bullying in the aftermath of the election? Report what you're seeing and hearing to help create a national database and map.


• Speak Up: Responding to Everyday Bigotry -- Advice and scripts for addressing sexist and racism remarks and policies at home, in the workplace, and on the street.


• Post-Election: 10 Things You Can Do -- From educating yourself about injustice to advocating for inclusive policies to stopping acts of hatred.


• The Hope-Filled Messages Parents Are Sharing With Their Kids Post-Election -- Anyone with children in their lives can help reinforce lessons of tolerance and equality. These additional ideas are targeted at teachers but many can be adapted by anyone who wants to advance dialogue.


• The project redirecting US election cash toward long-term progress -- The Movement 2016 platform was working before this election to encourage people to give directly to grassroots organizations rather than presidential campaigns, and plans to keep doing the same in the run-up to the crucial 2018 mid-terms.


• A Guide For What To Do When You See Islamophobia -- This bystander's guide works for addressing any kind of harassment in a public space.


• A small way to show solidarity after Donald Trump’s presidential win, inspired by Brexit -- Wear a safety pin on your clothes to show your neighbors that you will stand up for them if they face post-election attacks or harassment. (Essential: You have to actually do that, or it's an empty gesture.)


• My Commitment: 25 Percent to Advance Women and Girls -- A great idea worth emulating from a writer friend of mine: "Starting right now, and through 2017, I will reduce the cost of my communications services by 25 percent for any organization that is advancing opportunities for women and girls. And if a client pays me my full rate, I'll donate 25 percent of that income to a group that stands up for women and girls."

Running so kids can be kids -- not farmworkers

Runners are often advised to rekindle their love for their sport in tough or unmotivating times by remembering the joy and freedom they felt running as a child. But not all children have the freedom to run and play. In Turkey, at least 1 million young people under the age of 18, including both Turkish children and Syrian and other refugee children, are spending their childhoods working — at least 400,000 of them in grueling seasonal migrant agricultural labor — instead of learning and playing.

Helping some of these children get back to school is the reason why I’m running the 15k race in the Istanbul Marathon on 13 November for Hayata Destek, a Turkish NGO that provides social support to vulnerable communities, and its "This Work is Not Child's Play!" campaign.

For each 250 TL I raise (that’s just $80, €72, or £65), Hayata Destek will be able to provide one migrant farmworker child with school supplies, educational materials, and the hygiene items they need in their tent home.

> DONATE NOW: 

Jennifer Hattam's campaign page

I know there are many, many organizations and causes in need of funding right now. I've chosen this one not only because of the good work they do, but also to help support Turkish civil society, which is both increasingly embattled and woefully underfunded. The group through which I'm carrying out my funding drive, Adım Adım, has done amazing work over the past eight years promoting two things that were once very foreign in Turkey: running and individual charitable giving. I trust their vetting of the organizations they choose to partner with; the founders have even started a new project, Açık Açık ("Openly") to promote transparency among Turkish charities.

Unfortunately, the Adım Adım donation pages are only in Turkish, so if you need a little help navigating them, here's a quick translation:

"We're running so children working in seasonal
agriculture can be children,
because this work is not child's play"

At the top of my campaign page, you'll see my information, including the campaign I've chosen to support and how I'm doing at meeting my goal. Scroll down below the "Neden Koşuyorum" (Why I'm Running) section and underneath "Kampanyamı Destekle" (Support My Campaign"), click on the orange button labeled "Online Bağış Yap" (Make An Online Donation).

From there, type in the amount you want to donate ("Bağış Miktarı") *in Turkish Lira* (Xe.com is a good currency converter); your credit card number ("Kredi Kartı Numarası"), expiration date (“Ay” is month, “Yıl” is year), and card security code ("CVV"); your name (“Adın Soyadın”); and your email address (“E-Posta Adresin”). Then click on the red button marked “Bağışla” to make your donation! 100% of all funds raised go to my selected charity, Hayata Destek.

If you have a Turkish bank account and want to donate via electronic funds transfer, click on “Havale/EFT yapmak istiyorum” to see the recipient bank name (Finansbank / İstanbul Maçka Şubesi), account name (Hayata Destek Derneği / STL), and IBAN numbers for Turkish Lira, US Dollar, and Euro donations. Don’t forget to write the code “CC10138” in the explanation section ("açıklama") so that the donation gets registered to my campaign.

If you have any questions or difficulties making a donation, please PM me. If you have trouble donating from abroad, I'd be happy to accept donations to my personal PayPal account and then send them through to Hayata Destek myself.

Please help me meet my fundraising goal of 3000 TL ($961 / €865 / £779), which will support 12 children in going back to school. All it takes to meet that goal is for 40 of you to donate 75 TL ($24 / 22 Euro / 19 GBP) each! Thank you for your support!

UPDATE: Thanks to the generosity of my supporters, I concluded my campaign with a total of 6,454 Turkish Lira ($1,833 US) — more than twice my original fundraising goal! These donations will provide more than 25 migrant farmworker children with school supplies, educational materials, and the hygiene items they need in their tent homes. Overall, 324 children will be assisted by Hayata Destek's fundraising campaign. Read more in my thank-you letter to my fundraising supporters.

An urban island nocturne

As modern urban dwellers, we're generally out of touch with the world's natural rhythms, waking to alarm clocks instead of the sunrise and going to sleep under the glow of streetlights that obscure our view of the stars. A friend confessed

Ready to hike through the night.
Photo by Nick Hobbs/Hiking Istanbul.

recently that while newly living in an Istanbul apartment with a Bosphorus view, there were some nights that the water was so brightly illuminated she thought there must be floodlights on at a nearby stadium or construction site. "And then," she said with a laugh, "I realized it was the full moon!"

An urge to overcome that sense of disconnection is part of what drove two dozen nature-starved Istanbul residents to do something a bit mad on a recent Friday night.

The 9 p.m. ferry from Eminönü to Büyükada, the largest of the Princes' Islands off the city's coast, was mostly empty. During the hour-and-a-half ride, those of us traveling alone with backpacks and walking shoes eyed each other curiously, finally working up the nerve to ask, "Are you going on the hike?"

Taking in the view.
Photo by Nick Hobbs/Hiking Istanbul.

After disembarking and assembling as a group around 10:30 p.m., we reviewed the plan: to walk through the night under the full moon around the quiet country roads and sparsely wooded paths encircling the island.

The glow of streetlights dogged us for longer than expected, but once we'd escaped their intrusive glare, it was just us and the night. We strode forward surprisingly assuredly under moonlight strong enough to cast shadows of tree branches as distinct as any you'd see in the daytime. The only sounds at times were crickets chirping, a murmur of wind, and the ground crunching underfoot. (Those moments, unfortunately, were few and far between thanks to the loud and banal chatter of a handful of hikers who ignored repeated requests, first politely and then not-so, to allow others to enjoy a quiet walking meditation.)

The empty streets of Büyükada.

From the top of the island, rocky outcroppings glowed white in the moonlight as the lights of the city sparkled far beyond. Though the islands are far from its heaving crowds and densely packed development, Istanbul in some ways never seems so massive as when viewed from this remote vantage point, its buildings upon buildings sprawling out along the distant horizon as far as the eye can see. Beneath us, the rolling slopes of the islands themselves spilled down to the dark sea. Vain attempts to capture the scene photographically only served to show to how much more the eye can see than an iPhone.

As the night wore on, our feet started to move forward almost mechanically as a dreamlike state began to cloud our tired minds. Creating an 18.5 kilometer hike on this small island meant looping back to some of the same points and starting out anew on a different trail, adding to the disorientation as we wondered amongst ourselves, "Have we been here before or I am just imagining things?"

First light from the ferry.

Notions of a middle-of-the-night swim were thwarted by the high walls erected around the island's privatized beaches, and we ended up finishing our route earlier than expected, with nothing to do but plop down on the sidewalk on the outskirts of town and stare at the sea until the first ferry back to the mainland departed at 5:50 a.m. As we walked to the dock, the streets of Büyükada were still shrouded in darkness and had something of the feel of an abandoned movie set. Scattered lights shone from only a bakery or two, the smell of fresh bread emanating from within.

Back to the city.

The first glimmers of dawn only began to appear in the sky as the ferry made its languid way around the smaller islands, picking up a scant few passengers on each one. Unable any longer to resist the embrace of sleep, we stretched out on the vinyl-covered benches and fell into deep slumbers, rousing periodically to watch and photograph the progress of the sun into the sky until the familiar minarets and skyscrapers and apartment blocks were again in view, all bathed in a warm, welcoming glow.

Farewell to a favorite Istanbul restaurant

Influenced by the organic, locally grown California cuisine of Alice Waters, young chef Didem Şenol brought a fresh approach to Turkish cooking when she opened Lokanta Maya in 2010, eschewing rigid food combinations and letting high-quality ingredients shine.

Since writing up my first meal at Lokanta Maya in a restaurant review for Istanbul Eats, I'd enjoyed many delicious evenings there with friends, celebrating birthdays, entertaining out-of-town guests, or simply treating ourselves to top-notch food and good Turkish wine in a pleasing setting.

Sadly, the troubles that have enveloped Turkey this year have not been good for business, and at the end of July, Maya joined the growing list of places in Istanbul closing their doors. A small silver lining was the chance to speak with the ever-gracious and thoughtful Şenol about her decision to close the restaurant, her culinary philosophy, and the changing urban fabric around us.

>> Read my interview with Didem Şenol, "Farewell Lokanta Maya: Istanbul and Local Culinary Pioneer Hit Hard Times," on Culinary Backstreets (the successor site to Istanbul Eats).

A view from Istanbul during the #TurkeyCoupAttempt

Glancing at the to-do list on my desk that I’d scribbled just hours before, the scrap of paper seemed to have appeared from some alternate universe too banal to be believed.

My story featured on the CityLab homepage.

Set alarm for 6 a.m. Take out the trash when I go out for an early-morning run. Bring some money to buy fruit for breakfast on the way home.

Cowering on the entryway floor at 3 a.m. as jets roared past, their sonic booms shaking the building and threatening to break the windows, hadn’t been part of the plan....

As shots rang out outside my window and concerned messages pinged in from friends and family around the world, my editor at CityLab, The Atlantic's website on urban issues, asked me if I'd like to write something about my personal experience of being in Istanbul during what turned out to be a failed military coup.

Read the rest of that essay, "Istanbul, the Day After," on CityLab.

For more on the politics of the coup attempt, its aftermath, and its possible ramifications, here are some news, analysis, and commentary pieces I think are worth a read:

• "The night Erdoğan almost lost Turkey," Noah Blaser, Foreign Policy, 15 July 2016
• "The tragedy of Turkey's attempted coup," Jenny White, CNN, 16 July 2016
• "Turkey's failed coup gives its president a chance to seize more power," Piotr Zalewski, The Economist, 16 July 2016
• "Turkey's last coup: What I saw in Ankara," Selim Koru, War on the Rocks, 16 July 2016
• "Erdoğan’s Pyrrhic victory," Hugh Pope and Nigar Göksel, Politico, 17 July 2016
• "Erdoğan promised to bring true democracy to Turkey. Instead, he’s held it hostage," Elmira Bayrasli, Quartz, 17 July 2016
• "No ordinary weekend: personal reflections on a failed coup," Başak Çalı, Medium, 17 July 2016
• "Turkish president foiled coup with luck, tech savvy," Dion Nissenbaum, Adam Entous, and Emre Peker, The Wall Street Journal, 17 July 2016
• "Brutality of Turkey's failed coup caught on phones, social media," Ayla Jean Yackley, Reuters, 18 July 2016
• "How the internet saved Turkey’s internet-hating president," Zeynep Tüfekçi, The New York Times, 18 July 2016
• "Vast purge in Turkey as thousands are detained in post-coup backlash," Tim Arango, Ceylan Yeginsu, and Ben Hubbard, The New York Times, 18 July 2016
• "The view from Taksim Square," William Armstrong, The Times Literary Supplement, 19 July 2016

As it happened: CNN Türk page for "news related to the 
15 July 2016 coup". The main headline reads: "Group of
soldiers in the TRT building have issued a statement."

Fear, flux, and forgetting

When suicide bombers staged a deadly attack on check-in counters at Brussels Airport in March, I wasn’t the only person to breathe a small sigh of relief over my local hub being Istanbul’s Atatürk Airport, where all passengers and bags are screened at the curbside entrances to the terminals. Taking my laptop out of my carry-on and stripping off my belt and boots twice per trip suddenly seemed not a hassle but a boon.

But on June 28, that extra layer of security itself became a target for suicide attackers, who killed at least 45 passengers, visitors, and staff at Europe’s third-busiest airport. It’s not the first time Istanbul has been hit by terrorism in recent months, and it likely won’t be the last. But in this ancient, ever-dynamic metropolis, fear and forgetting are vying for supremacy – and both are changing the city in discomfiting ways.

I first passed through Atatürk Airport in spring 2001, arriving alone from the U.S. to visit an American friend who had recently relocated to Turkey. September 11 was still five months in the future and my passport, now bulging with extra pages, was nearly blank. My 15-year relationship with Istanbul that began on that trip has since gone through all the stages of a difficult love affair: infatuation at first sight, longing from afar, thrill of discovery, arguments, disappointments, rejection, new hope, repeated heartbreak, determination to try again. (Of course, since this is a city we’re talking about, these are all one-sided emotions, but, well, some relationships are like that, değil mi?)

Over the same period, trips to what was once a strange and unfamiliar airport – the first I’d ever visited alone in a country where I didn’t speak the language, its halls filled with an eye-popping array of the world’s people, carrying out their sad farewells, joyous reunions, and anxious or excited waits in a multitude of attires and tongues – had become grindingly rote. The travelers I know in Istanbul gripe about the long lines at passport control, the regular delays, the mediocre dining and drinking options (unless you have the golden ticket to the THY executive lounge), the high likelihood of having to be shuttled out onto the tarmac to board your plane, and the overcrowded gate areas, where holiday-makers and Hajj pilgrims alike spill out of the seats and onto the ground, turning aisles into obstacle courses of suitcases and sprawling bodies. Atatürk’s chronic overcrowding has been cited by the Turkish government as a reason for building a massive (and controversial) third airport on Istanbul’s remote Black Sea coast.

In recent months, though, a resurgence of political violence in the country’s Southeast and a handful of previous terror attacks in Ankara and Istanbul – including one on the bustling pedestrian thoroughfare İstiklal Caddesi, close to my home – had done what once seemed unthinkable: left Atatürk Airport at times feeling almost like a ghost town. The dramatic drop in tourism to Turkey has been as palpable at the airport as it has on İstiklal and in Istanbul’s central Taksim Square, all places I love to hate for their chaotic crowds and crumbling, inadequate infrastructure.

But like misfortune befalling an annoying friend or relative you might complain about in private but never truly wish ill, seeing these places so subdued has been a burden rather than a relief. I can hardly enjoy the relative peace and quiet of an airport, a street, or a square when I know that the reasons for the unfamiliar calm are anything but peaceful, that the sheer excitement I once felt as a tourist to Istanbul must now be shot through with trepidation for anyone who still dares to visit our battered and beleaguered city.

Our city of chaos and endless construction

Within 12 hours of last week’s attacks, Atatürk Airport was back up and running, a fact that seemed to shock many who commented on social media about how strange it was to see passengers going about their travels amid bullet holes and debris. Others noted throughout the day how quickly the cleanup was proceeding, and how the city lacked a memorial like the public messages of grief and solidarity that quickly appeared in the Belgian capital after the Brussels attack.

After eight years living in Istanbul, none of this really came as a surprise to me. Ours is a city in constant flux, one being endlessly torn down and rebuilt. We swim in Bosporus bays in the shadow of bridge construction, dine on sidewalks next to torn-up streets, shop in grocery stores and underground arcades with exposed wires hanging from the ceiling. We cross construction sites on our daily commutes, squeeze past cement mixers, walk under rickety scaffolding, and go to art exhibits in crumbling buildings awaiting renovation. We search in vain for beloved bars and cafes swept away by the tide of redevelopment, and stand perplexedly in front of new neon signage, wondering how we could have already forgotten what so recently occupied the space where this brand-new shop now stands.

In short, we live with chaos and we live with erasure. And these days we -- like so many others the world 'round -- live with terrorism too.

Bittersweet bayram

With smiling children in colorful costumes dancing, playing, and waving balloons around Turkish rock icon Barış Manço as he sings "Bu Gün Bayram" ("Today is bayram"), the video for this cheery-sounding song makes it at first seem the picture of a nostalgic remembrance of holiday festivals past, when life was simpler and nothing more exciting than to wake up to a day off school, with sweets to eat and new clothes to wear.

But listening to the lyrics of "Bu Gün Bayram" after coming across it on Twitter today, the first day of Şeker Bayramı in Turkey (known as Eid al-Fitr elsewhere in the Muslim world), it quickly became clear that this is a melancholy song, tinged with loss. Reading up about it on Turkey's famous crowd-sourced "dictionary" Ekşi Sözlük, I learned that it figures in many young Turks' early holiday memories -- and that it is interpreted as being about a widower taking his children to visit the grave of their mother on the first morning of bayram.

All the more fitting for the start of this year's holiday, which follows a week in which terrorist attacks have killed at least 44 people in Istanbul, 222 in Baghdad, 20 in Dhaka, and 4 in Medina. People in each of these cities are celebrating the end of the fasting month of Ramadan. Now for many, those celebrations co-mingle with mourning. A grieving parent may well be acting out the very words to this song right now. Hepinizin başı sağolsun.

Since you went
Inside me there’s such a hurt that
Only you understand
You are now far away
With the angels in heaven
You dream about us and cry

Today is bayram
The children are up early
Dressed in their best clothes
Wildflowers in their hands
Don’t cry today, mommy

You, in the summer nights
Sometimes through the stars
You winked at us
You, in the cold days
My memory of you warmed my heart most

Today is bayram
The children are up early
Dressed in their best clothes
Wildflowers in their hands
Don’t cry today, mommy

Today is bayram
Hurry, children
Mommy is waiting for us
The angels lamenting on bayram
These flowers please them

(All translation errors and awkwardness are mine alone)

What's going to save Turkish tourism this week?

War across the border and conflict and terrorist bombings at home have sent Turkey's tourism industry into a tailspin. The downing of a Russian jet didn't help matters. Neither, probably, did attacks on Asian visitors. The situation is so dire that the headline of a satirical news story was echoed by hotel owners' actual complaints to a real news outlet after the most recent bomb in Istanbul: that there are no reservations left to be cancelled.

With 8 percent of the country's entire workforce employed directly in tourism and the downturn showing no signs of abating, this is no laughing matter. But the seemingly endless list of attempts to save the industry is by turns sad, hilarious, head-scratching, and appalling (and ever-so-occasionally pragmatic). So what's going to save Turkish tourism this week? Is it...

1) Shooing away those unsightly refugees?

2) Giving school kids an extra two weeks of vacation?

3) Organizing a Justin Bieber concert?

4) Taxing Turks who travel abroad?

5) Building Chinatowns in major Turkish cities?

6) Promoting halal holidays?

7) Offering submarine tours of the Mediterranean?

8) Sinking an airplane into the ocean?

9) Filming a new soap opera?

10) Subsidizing charter flights?

11) Building the world's largest duty-free shop?

12) Praying?

Seems your (and my) guess is as good as anyone else's, so what would you propose to save Turkish tourism? I considered suggesting that Turkey steal an idea from its neighbor Georgia and welcome foreign travelers with complimentary wine, but a free bottle of Turkish plonk might scare even more visitors away.

UPDATE (13 July 2016): With fences mended with Russia, and domestic travel boosted to record levels by the declaration of a nine-day holiday following the fasting month of Ramadan, things may be looking up for the tourism industry. But Turkey is taking no chances: The Black Sea city of Samsun recently announced that construction is almost complete on the world's first golf course on an artificial island. 

2016: An Ikamet Odyssey

Tales of pell-mell races across the Eminyet courtyard and sharp-elbowed scuffles at the residence-permit application counter were swapped over Efes like war stories among expats when I initially arrived in Turkey. By the time I made my own first application, things had settled into some manner of organized confusion. But, like the course of true love, bureaucratic progress did never did run smooth. One particularly bad year, a friend had to queue in front of the Emniyet in the middle of night, where she reported people were selling places in line. When the process was decentralized to local police stations, crowded waiting rooms were replaced by bored young officers flirtatiously or sadistically (it was sometimes hard to tell which) quizzing female applicants on American sports teams or the capital cities of random English-speaking countries.

This past year, the mass influx of Syrians and other refugees led Turkey to set up an entire new bureaucracy for processing foreign residents, the Göç İdaresi (Migration Administration). Those of us who'd already been in the country for a while were promised efficient new electronic renewals, under which "the foreigners shall be informed through their e-mail addresses" of any missing documents, and receive an SMS when the permit is ready to be delivered. And there the odyssey began:

✔ Gather necessary paperwork, get ID photos taken, fill in online application. So easy! 

✔ Go to tax office in Eminönü, pay required fees for the renewal. A little elbowing required at the cashier's counter, but not too bad. 

✔ Bring receipts home to scan them, along with the rest of the application documents (you never know what might get lost in the mail). 

✔ Package up original documents and receipts and take them to the post office to send them to the Göç İdaresi by registered mail. 

✔ Track the letter online and see that it's reached its destination two days later. So far, so good! 

✔ Wait.

✔ Wait. 

✔ Wait some more.

✔  Decide after two and a half months that maybe it would be a good idea to check on things. Call the mobile number you've been given of someone at the Göç İdaresi in Fatih. He tells you to come in (wait, what happened to letting applicants know by phone or email? never mind, don't ask...) so they can see if your paperwork is in order. Uh-oh. 

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Cheap-beer chic

A few years ago, I wrote a blog post entitled "Better things to do with a can (or bottle) of Efes than drinking it." If I were writing it now, the list would most certainly be topped (no pun intended) by this bottle-cap purse hand-crocheted by the wonderful craftswomen of Çöp(m)adam.

Founded by longtime American expat Tara Hopkins, who I previously profiled for MORE magazine, this social-entrepreneurship business (the name is a play on words that means "garbage ladies") is based in the Turkish Aegean town of Ayvalık. Hopkins hires women who have never worked for pay before to create playful, beautiful handicrafts out of recycled materials -- bags, aprons, stuffed animals, wallets, frames, tea towels, cushion covers, keychain decorations, and more.

Their bottle-cap bags come in various sizes, from shoulder bags to clutches to wallets, and are made with an assortment of colorful soda and beer bottle caps. After eight years of loving to hate Turkey's most famous beer, however, I just had to special-order an all-Efes version.

If you want one all of your own, you'd better hurry -- rumor has it that Efes will be switching over to pull-off bottle caps in the near future. The mediocre taste of the beer inside will surely remain the same, but the good crafting materials will become in short supply.

Check out the full catalogue of products, and inquire about your own special orders, over at the Çöp(m)adam website.

Top 10 reasons I dread shopping for running shoes in Istanbul

If anything can be more challenging (and aggravating) than running in Istanbul, it's buying running shoes in Istanbul. Admittedly, I like shopping about as much as going to the dentist even under the best of circumstances, but my experiences across the gamut here -- at specialist local running shops, outlets of international brands, and general sporting-goods stores -- would be funny if they weren't so frustrating. Here's just 10 of the ways salespeople have left me reconsidering the possibility of inner-city barefoot running, cement, broken glass, and general detritus be damned.

1. Not stocking women's shoes larger than size 39 or 40, then balking at the idea of letting me try on men's sizes.


2. Telling me I don't actually have wide feet (you'd think I might have noticed in 40 years of buying shoes) then passive-aggressively recommending a model that a quick Google search reveals typically runs narrow.





Photo courtesy kovats

3. Not stocking any wide widths at the shop of a international brand known for offering the majority of its shoes in multiple widths, then telling me it's because "everyone in Turkey's feet are standart."


4. Telling me that too-small shoes couldn't possibly have caused my feet to start to fall asleep while running, "there must be something wrong with your nerves."


5. Asking me if I "run long distances, like 5 kilometers?"


6. Snickering when I try to explain that my left foot is larger than my right (which is not uncommon, okay?) then continuing to insist on only giving me the right-foot shoe to try on first.


7. Gesturing at a long wall of shoes and asking with a shrug, "So what do you want to try on?"


8. Not bothering to measure my feet or bring out the same pair of shoes in multiple sizes, just moving straight on to totally different models when the first one is a bit snug.


9. Explaining, when I say that one pair of shoes fits a bit better than the last one, that it's because they're "very professional."


10. Offering up, in response to a request for trail running shoes, a strangely stiff pair that turn out to be (when consulting the manufacturer's website later) "approach shoes" meant for technical hiking/rock-climbing.


11. Telling me my foot's shape "is not very nice."

Oh wait, never mind that last one. That wasn't a shoe salesperson, that was a physical therapist.

They paved paradise...

There's a long-running joke in the United States that suburban housing developments -- places with monikers like Fair Oaks, Orange Grove, or Willow Springs -- are named after whatever was torn out to make room for the construction of the new homes and roads.

A similar logic seems like it may have been at work in Istanbul's far-flung outskirts, where, as I traveled 40 kilometers on the metrobus to carry out a frankly preposterous bureaucratic errand (more on that later), I passed places with names like Cevizlibağ (“Vineyard with walnuts”), İncirli (“With figs”), Bahçelievler (“Houses with gardens”), Şirinevler (“Charming houses”), Sefaköy (“Delight village”) Cennet Mahallesi (“Paradise neighborhood”), Saadetdere (“Happiness creek”), and Güzelyurt (“Beautiful homeland”).

They pretty much all looked like this:

Nowruz mubarak / Newroz pîroz be

Happy Nowruz, Novruz, Newrozê, Navrūz, Nevruz…

This new year’s celebration has become politically fraught and often associated with violence and repression in Turkey, eclipsing the message that an Iranian friend so beautifully describes:

"That's what Persian New Year is all about, to leave the dark behind and celebrate the light; to not chose the evil (which are dark thoughts) but the good (again, our good thoughts). In Zoroastrianism, we believe it's the human choices that make 'Evil' or 'Good' exist. So let's chose life and celebrate it."

A faravahar in Yazd, Iran. The different elements of this symbol
represent different aspects of Zoroastrian beliefs.

Vibrant, vexing, and all too vulnerable İstiklal

On my very first visit to Turkey, 15 years ago, my traveling companions and I spent a couple of nights in a charmingly shabby hotel overlooking İstiklal Caddesi, an incredibly busy pedestrian street in the heart of Istanbul. We were young then, staying out late each night drinking cheap beer in crummy bars, and I don't recall being bothered by the noise. But I vividly remember the excitement of standing on our small balcony, raptly watching the throngs of people passing by below until the wee hours of the night. I'd never been anywhere that felt so alive.

For better or for worse, İstiklal is a melting pot, though that seems too gentle of a term for a place that sends all different kinds of people colliding into each other, often literally (look where you're going, will ya?!): camera-toting tourists, scarf-waving football fanatics, street vendors hawking everything from stuffed mussels to glow-in-the-dark devil horns, rambunctious teenagers, chanting protesters, armor-clad riot police, busking street musicians, bag-laden shoppers, over-persistent charity solicitors, bar- and gallery-hoppers, scammers, gropers, lovebirds, drunks, and many more. As dynamic as the crowds are the storefronts themselves, which change so rapidly as malls and chain stores push out beloved local institutions that even after just a few days away, you can barely recall what used to be where that shiny new kebab shop is now, a phenomenon my friends and I have come to think of as "Istanbul amnesia."

In the eight years I've now lived here in Istanbul, I've walked down İstiklal an uncountable number of times, at every hour of the day and in every season, from the scorching heat of summer when pedestrians cling to the shadows cast by the buildings lining either side of the avenue to cold winter nights when snowball fights break out among people slip-sliding their way down the icy street. Familiarity breeds a bit of contempt, though, and for the local resident, İstiklal is more often annoying than it is enthralling. The noise, the tacky shops, the crumbling pavement, the strong possibility of getting teargassed, the crowds, oh, the crowds. But a place so woven into the fabric of our daily lives can't fail to hold cherished memories as well: the thrill of being caught up amidst an exuberant, defiant post-Gezi crowd of Gay Pride parade revelers; of venturing into dilapidated hans for dinner and dancing at raucous Greek and Laz meyhanes; of tipsily weaving through the crowd hand-in-hand with someone you're simply crazy about.

This morning, I was at the gym just off Taksim Square, one of İstiklal's endpoints, when a news ticker on the TV caught my eye: "İstanbul İstiklal Caddesinde patlama meydana geldi." An explosion has occurred on Istanbul's İskiklal Avenue.

After multiple bomb attacks in Ankara, and amid a heightened threat of terrorism not only in Turkey but in many places around the world, I thought I had braced myself for this news, but my heart was still in my throat as I waited for the ticker to cycle through seemingly endless lines of entertainment, sports, and business news before eventually updating. Two dead, six wounded.

I exited the gym to find the building surrounded by riot police, lined up in front of yellow caution tape blocking off the entry to Taksim, and milling about amidst the small crowd of people who all looked as shocked, confused, and uncertain about what to do next as I felt. I walked home under the loud thrumming of helicopters overhead, anxious to be in front of my computer where I could watch the "I'm safe" messages roll in online from friends, breathing a sigh of relief with each one.

The night before the bombing, I'd been out on İstiklal yet again, albeit a bit warily. Renewed security warnings had noticeably reduced the usual crush of people, leaving typically packed bars and restaurants with many empty tables. There was some jovial bravado amongst those who'd ventured out, and jokes at the expense of someone whose fearful wife had forbidden him to leave home. It all seemed rather cavalier the next morning, with at least four (plus the suicide bomber) dead just around the corner from where we'd been cracking open beers. After the bombing, İstiklal was closed off for many hours; by the time it reopened, I was getting ready to head across the Bosphorus on a nearly empty ferry, encountering the same eerily vacant streets people had been photographing all over the city. Always-frenetic Istanbul was quieter even than on the biggest annual holidays, with an inescapable somberness.

I saw online that İstiklal shopkeepers had laid red carnations and small candles at the site of the attack, carrying signs that read "We are here, we are not afraid." These commemorative tokens may last a day or two, the consciousness of passing a place of tragedy a bit longer. But soon, I am sure, Istanbul amnesia will set in once more, and the street that we love, hate, and love to hate will again be filled with throngs of people, not out of defiance but because life somehow just always goes on.

Uncertain future for one of world's oldest urban farms

Driving into Istanbul from Atatürk Airport, the crumbling fortifications along the Marmara Sea demarcate where the historic, pre-sprawl city begins. But though they may evoke oohs and ahhs out the window, few visitors venture back to explore the 1,500-year-old city walls on foot.

My first time walking the 6.5-kilometer length of the walls was full of surprises: homing pigeons for sale in a parking lot, spectacular (if precarious) views, a livestock market for Kurban Bayramı (Eid al-Adha) sacrifice animals. Most striking of all were the gardens: lush plots of fruits and vegetables squeezed between the walls and the modern highway that now loops outside it. Years later, urban redevelopment has transformed or rendered inaccessible many areas along the walls, but some of the market gardens (called bostan in Turkish) remain, a last vestige of an ancient urban agricultural tradition.

I've written previously about the Yedikule bostan by the city walls for The Atlantic's City Lab, and about other examples of urban agriculture in Istanbul for Culinary Backstreets and Zester Daily. A new threat to the Yedikule bostan early this year prompted me to take a deeper look at the gardens' past, present, and future.

>> Read my new article, "In Istanbul's Ancient Gardens, A Battle for Future Harvests," in Yale Environment 360

Turkey's 'hidden' coast: The Black Sea

My first hints that there was something different going on in Turkey's Black Sea region came in Istanbul — watching environmental films that depicted the rugged beauty of its remote mountains and their hardy, sometimes eccentric inhabitants, and reveling in a wealth of unfamiliar flavors at the (sadly now shuttered) "Laz meyhane" Mohti, where hamsi popped up in everything from corn bread to omelets served in the raucous music- and smoke-filled restaurant.

Visiting the region for the first time last spring, I spent a week reporting on environmental threats from dams, mines, and other development, meanwhile picking up intriguing tidbits — the distinctive regional architecture, the melting pot of languages and cultures — that left me wanting to return.

The two travel lists I wrote for Matador Network this month offer just a taste of what the region has to offer — if its natural beauty and rich cultural diversity can be preserved:

• 9 Historic Places in Turkey Where You’ll Feel Like You’ve Stepped Back in Time

• 11 Things People in Turkey's Black Sea Region Always Have to Explain to Visitors