The city of the world's desire

Cruising down the Bosphorus with Asia on one side and Europe on the other is quite an experience, especially if the boat trip was organised for the wedding party of a cousin who had just married a lovely Turkish girl called Banu which means Princess. I had long wished to visit this fabulous place called by many throughout its chequered history "the city of the world's desire". Dominated as it is with the two famous mosques, the Blue Mosque and the Aya Sofia, once the Church of the Holy Wisdom and a forest of graceful minarets, the peninsula that runs between the Golden Horn and the Bosphorus Sea ends in Seraglio Point where for centuries sultans, sultanas, concubines, eunuchs and janissaries looked out over the sea as the Ottoman Empire declined into a torpor till it fizzled out in 1922.

Mustafa Kemal, known as Ataturk is the father of modern Turkey, a man who brought an avant-garde secularism to the Turks which, despite the frequent and vociferous calls of the muezzins enables this country to retain its officially non-religious status in a world wherein religious fundamentalism of all kinds is taking the upper hand. Raring to become a member of the European Union, Turkey remains a country of deep contrasts. There is little or no difference between the young partygoers on board the Poseidon and others anywhere else in Europe, apart from the fact that most of them spoke only Turkish which is pretty unintelligible for someone like me who was there for just four very full days. Boogying on the heaving roof as the older set dined downstairs with firework displays vying with each other from two continents was an experience I will not forget in a hurry.

It was Aya Sofia, the Church of the Holy Wisdom that was first on my list as soon as I arrived in Istanbul. Nothing symbolises the history of Byzantium as much as this wonderful 6th Century temple of worship built by the Emperor Justinian. Although most of its spectacular mosaic work was obliterated when Constantinople was conquered by Mehmet II in 1453, some of it can still be seen, notably the symbolic six-winged seraphim in the trapeziums and the Virgin and Child in the main apse. Most of it is still as Mehmet decreed. The former church was turned into a mosque as it was the supreme political symbol in a religious state where the emperor, in direct line from Constantine the Great, was hailed as God's Vice-Gerent on Earth which is definitely one up on the Supreme Pontiff in Rome; a pitiful gutted wreck which since 410AD had been languishing without an emperor. Come Christmas Day of the year 800 when Pope Leo III crowned Charlemagne Holy Roman Emperor, but still, it was the Pope who proposed and disposed. In Constantinople, conversely, it was the emperor who made or unmade patriarchs. This is why not even a day after the Fall of Constantinople Mehmet the Conqueror, immortalised in his later years by Bellini, confirmed the patriarch and, the very next year, authorised the election of a new one, thereby demonstrating to the Greek populace that its church was henceforth subject to Ottoman decrees, and, as long as they did not try to proselytise, Greek Christians could carry on with their lives much as before.

Beautiful as Aya Sofia is, the Blue Mosque with its blue Iznik tiles from where it gets its name and which was built in the 17th century by Sultan Ahmet I is ethereal and dominates the peninsula creating a harmonious balance with The Holy Wisdom. While Aya Sofia is today a museum, the Blue Mosque is still a place of worship, built conveniently next to the Topkapi Palace and gardens and within hailing distance of the Sublime Porte which is where the Grand Vizier received foreign ambassadors. The Topkapi is a fabulous palace built on the most strategic promontory of Istanbul straddling the Bosphorus, the Marmara and the Golden Horn. Its fabulous treasures are epitomised by the Topkapi Diamond the fictional theft of which was immortalised in a film called, unsurprisingly, Topkapi!

Nothing quite prepares you for the sheer exoticism of this palace which by the 18th Century, when anything Turkish had become the latest fashion and Mozart was writing operas all about abductions from seraglios and Frederick The Great built his Turkish Coffee House in the Grounds of Sans Soucis, had, ironically become too "oriental" for the sultans of the day who moved to the newly-built pseudo-European Dolmabahce Palace on the sea. Topkapi though is still the most popular site in the city if only for its unsurpassed views and, of course, its famous treasury; a sultan's ransom!

Above all, what really impressed me most in this whirlwind visit was the friendliness and helpfulness of the people of Istanbul. Although the language is much more of a barrier than I ever imagined I cannot forget little acts of kindness and above all the smile, so unaffected and unforced of most of the people with whom we came into contact. I will be back.

kzt@onvol.net