Tag: Istanbul Grand Bazaar

The Grand Bazaar

Posted in Arts in Turkey, Culture, Exploring Turkey, Istanbul, Turkey2 Comments

Today’s tale begins with a quest – my friend Karen wished to purchase a few lamps. My friend Michele knew someone (Mandy) who knew a lamp guy. Enter: a trip to Istanbul’s Grand Bazaar. We decided to make an afternoon of it and it turned into quite an adventure. Hard to put into words but I’ll try…

The Grand Bazaar (Turkish: Kapalıçarşı, meaning ‘Covered Market’; also Büyük Çarşı, meaning ‘Grand Market’) in Istanbul is one of the largest and oldest covered markets in the world, with 61 covered streets and over 4,000 shops on a total area of 30,700 m2, attracting between 250,000 and 400,000 visitors daily. In 2014, it was listed No.1 among the world’s most-visited tourist attractions with 91,250,000 annual visitors. (Wikipedia) The Bazaar opened during the winter of 1455/56, shortly after the Ottoman conquest of Constantinople.

Quite simply, this maze of alleyways and covered corridors is intimidating. Thankfully, we had Mandy, who knows everyone. A septuagenarian who has entertained a multitude of entrepreneurial endeavors over her decade in Istanbul, Mandy knows everyone. Vendors shouted out her name in greeting as we passed. They ushered us into their stores, plying us with leather jackets and hilarious complements. She asked about their mothers, their nephews, and their personal health. It was quite an sight to behold.

Mandy and Michele deftly led us through the Bazaar, eventually through an alleyway which opened into a courtyard where men sat on stools sipping chai below a leafy green arbor. A cat slept under the shade of a grape leaf while a textile artist shaved a rug up on the roof, seemingly light years above from the hustle and bustle of the Bazaar.

We were ushered into a shop filled floor-to-ceiling with Uzbek fabrics of every pattern and color imaginable. The shopkeepers immediately offered us tea (“chai”), coffee, or water (“su”), as is customary. It was so bloody hot that we gladly accepted a cool drink. Owing to their faith in Mandy’s choice of company (as well as, no doubt, our foreign change purses), we were left alone to make the store our personal closet.

We tried on coats of technocolors rivaling Joseph’s own. Mandy and Michele searched for pillow fabric (front, back, and piping). I helped Karen choose three suitable lampshade fabrics to suit her new apartment with great views on the Bosphorus.

Near the door, I spotted a unique tapestry featuring squares of fabric sewn in diamond formation (above right). It reminded me of something that might hang over a doorframe and, in fact, it was. Over 80 years old, an antique from Uzbekistan. Frayed at the edges and in need of a little TLC, the colors were beautiful and I knew they would do perfectly over my headboard. You see, in the land of the moving fault lines, you don’t hang framed artwork above your bed. The tapestry was too good to pass up.

Everyone made their purchases, with a bit of a comedy ensuing. Each of us checking our Turkish bank accounts to sell dollars for lira, using credit cards from New Zealand and Australia, or a fresh $100USD from the States. Quality goods do not come cheap! Even in Istanbul. We walked out a couple hours later, our pockets a little lighter, but each with treasures to cherish.

In the steamy August heat, we were in need of another cool drink. Strolling the Bazaar, Michele spotted a favorite cafe (Çinili Cafe) and we scored a corner table. Over an iced chocolate and sweet pastries, we relished our purchases and the kindness of the shopkeepers who had taken good care.

We got to talking with our waiter, who turned out to be the cafe owner’s son. Mandy asked a question about a Muslim sect and the young man replied that he didn’t know, his family was Christian. So unusual! In this land of Islamic faith, only 0.2% of the population is Christian. I taught a few cousins last year from Mardin, an ancient town in eastern Turkey which was founded in the 11th century BC. They were passionately proud of their Assyrian Christian heritage.

Turns out Mandy, too, knows a family of Christians from this area, who turned out to be good family friends of the cafe owner. The world really seemed a little smaller in that moment. Catching up on their mutual friends (someone got married last year), the cafe owner also shared that he has worked in the Grand Bazaar for 54 years.

A fascinating and intimate subculture lives within the passageways and alleyways of the Bazaar, one I only caught a brief glimpse of that day. I look forward to going back in the future and bringing guests to Mandy and Michele’s favorite haunts. It does not seem quite so intimidating anymore, instead more of a new city to explore. With a quarter to half a million visitors per day, this concept tracks.

Back at home, I made quick work of hanging the tapestry. I was quite pleased that it looked exactly as I had hoped, pulling all the colors in the room together. A memory of our day at the Grand Bazaar, a seminal experience I will surely never forget.

Grand Bazaar vendors:

Nurem (Uzbek textiles, lampshades, clothing, and pillows)

Sermon Almaz (wooden handicraft, board games)

Adnan & Hasan (carpets, kilims)

Gian Mori (leather goods)

Çinili Cafe (cold chocolate, apple pie, treats)

How Bazaar

Posted in Culture, Exploring Turkey, Istanbul, Turkey10 Comments

Forgive the pun – as a teacher with two weeks left of school, my sanity is hanging by a thread! It’s hard to believe but 2022 is rapidly drawing to a close. Holiday parties abound and the weather here has shifted to grey skies with a near constant mist of rain. Reminds me of the fall I spent in Oregon. I’m excited to be headed back to Massachusetts very soon to see family and friends. My first fall in Turkey is nearly in the books.

Heading back to the States is always exciting. Spending time with loved ones, hiking familiar trails, and cozying up to watch the Pats all sound pretty great right about now. It’s also a great excuse to share treasures from my travels with the folks back home. And when you live in Turkey, there’s only one place to shop for literally anything you could ever dream of – Istanbul’s Grand Bazaar.

My friend Michele offered to show me around the marketplace this past Saturday morning. She’s lived here for ten years and knows the Bazaar like the back of her hand. I could not recreate our route if I tried! That’s Michele leading the way into the Eminönü marketplace in her yellow jacket. I’m sure you’d never guess that she, too, is an art teacher 😉 Birds of a feather.

The skies threatened as made our way through the continually narrowing streets. Turkish delights beckoned at every stall with each vendor selling their special mix of options. Piles of spices lined the aisles as well. Keep in mind, we’re not in the actual Grand Bazaar nor the Spice Bazaar – this is the stuff on the outside, ripe for the picking.

Small shops hawked everything you could possibly think of. There was the guy sharpening knives behind his little pushcart and a man attempting to carry bags and bags of rice on his shoulders down the cobblestone alleyways. Vendors called out cheerfully in English, easily identifying me as an American (I was with an Aussie and a Kiwi, odd man out). Must have been my Eddie Bauer raincoat (lol).

Multiple shops were overflowing with Christmas gear. Considering that 99% of Turkish people consider themselves to be Muslim, this was a bit unexpected. But we happily snapped up some glasses for the photo booth at the holiday party next weekend.

Possibly my favorite corner in the market contained all the paper goods and handmade paper stores one could ever need. I had a lot of fun picking out souvenirs for folks back home and it brought back good memories of shopping hanji in Namdaemun.

There were entire stores filled with only boxes, twine, and wrapping materials. Michele really took our tour to the next level when she brought us to the jewelry market. 6+ floors of shops dedicated to glass pieces, silver pendents, and strings-on-strings of beads.

This was peak sensory overload, as you might imagine. Michele adopted mosaics as her COVID handicraft and, with options like these, I can certainly see why.

There is an entire floor dedicated to yarn, probably a dozen shops in total. Macrame materials, cotton yarn, wool, organic yarn. If you name it, it exists on the upper level of the marketplace.

As Jenn knows, I’m not a huge fan of shopping as a past time so I tried to take this all in as sightseeing. It became harder to do as the morning wore on and the streets began to fill with people. Below is a moment of respite I found above the crowds, the landscape echoing the dusty rose palette of nearly everything here in Istanbul. There is beauty in the breakdown.

Please keep in mind that at no time did we actually enter the Grand Bazaar itself. That adventure will have to wait for another day. But this overload of color, texture, and noise was enough to brighten up this grey December morning which began with this view of the Bosphorus.

Some of you have asked, is life in Istanbul really as wonderful as it seems? The answer is not so black and white. Excursions like this one to the bazaar are not my everyday life, but they are within reach with the help of others. It would be possible to filter this blog like any other type of social media – often with rose-colored glasses. Be assured – I do see red when frustrations appear and they certainly do appear, just as they would in daily life anywhere. It’s an experiment in extremes at times. Expat life isn’t always easy and seemingly simple tasks can prove wildly challenging in a foreign language. But there’s a lot of beauty in this life, too. As someone recently reflected, you can let these things get to you or let them pass. Truly depends on the day but that’s my task as I begin to settle in to my home-for-now.

Thank you for following along with my journey! I hope to welcome many of you in person to this wild and wacky place in the coming years. As you can see, Moloko has launched a visitor campaign of her own, modeling the comfort and snuggle opportunities afforded by the guest room, now open for business.

As 2023 approaches, I want to wish you the best, wherever this holiday season may find you. Whether with relatives or chosen family or both, I hope this December brings you all the blessings of the season and, perhaps, renewed hope for the year to come. Please take care and I’ll catch you on the flip side!