Istanbul Day 2

Bosporus from Galata Bridge
Underground Funicular
Pedestrian Street

Istanbul, Day 2

Istanbul, Tuesday, May 21

Today was the first of two days that I am being accompanied by a guide. The guide, Vedat, was recommended to me by Karen Levy. Although I am most interested in the Byzantine and early Ottoman period in Istanbul, I spent a good part of the day on other periods. 

I started the day at Dolmabahace Palace built in the second half of the Nineteenth Century. It has the feel of a Western European palace but overdone as if the Sultan had an inferiority complex. I have been to Buckingham Palace during the summer opening hours. This Istanbul palace is built on a larger scale but it is sort of like having the White House decorated in Boro Park style. Only bigger chandeliers. I keep remembering that there is a Turkish-Hungarian connection. 

From the Palace we took a ninety minute Bosporus cruise. Circle Line, Turkish style.

Knowing that I was tired and wanted to end the day somewhat early, we skipped lunch and had a really good afternoon. We went to St. Savior in Chora ("Chora" meaning country so this is like St. Martin in the Fields.) It was even better than I remembered. Fantastic mosaics  and frescoes from the early 14th Century inside a church that is much older. The mosaics may be the high point of Byzantine art and one can see the beginnings of perspective and their direct influence on early Renaissance Italian paintings. The mosaics primarily portray the life of Mary and the miracles of Jesus. No passion scenes but a fantastic portrait of Jesus reminiscent of the dome of the Baptistry in Florence. 

I made a short visit to the seat of the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate to view the Byzantine icons. The chapel is quite small and puts into perspective the loss of empire to Islam. 

I had a chance to see the Byzantine walls dating from the 4th and 5th centuries that protected the city until the conquest in 1453 when the Ottoman boats were hauled overland to attack the city from the Golden Horn side. I also saw the standing parts of the Valens aqueduct which is a stacked double arch affair.

Finally, I visited Sulemaniye Mosque, the architect Sinan's masterpiece from the 16th Century. Beautiful and beautifully proportioned inside and out.

After a short rest, I went out on my own and did my favorite activity: exploring a city on foot and public transport. I walked across the Galata Bridge which crosses the Golden Horn, took the underground funicular  to the top of the hill. (Said to be second oldest subway in the world; second to Budapest of course.)   I then walked the pedestrian street in the modern part of the city. My impression of Istanbul is quite different than from my earlier visit. I saw no poverty, people are well dressed and from the sheer numbers out on the streets in the early evening, I think they are content and in a good way. I doubt if they still envy the Greek entry into the Euro. 

No lunch or dinner today--just an ice cream and a cheese sandwich. Tomorrow- Haigha Sofia and Topkapi and a good meal, I hope.

Istanbul

Basilica Cistern
Medusa head as column base.
Obelisk
Haghia Sofia

W B Yeats

Sailing to Byzantium
That is no country for old men. The young
In one another’s arms, birds in the trees
– Those dying generations – at their song,
The salmon‐falls, the mackerel‐crowded seas,
Fish, flesh, or fowl, commend all summer long
Whatever is begotten, born, and dies.
Caught in that sensual music all neglect
Monuments of unageing intellect.

An aged man is but a paltry thing,
A tattered coat upon a stick, unless
Soul clap its hands and sing, and louder sing
For every tatter in its mortal dress,
Nor is there singing school but studying
Monuments of its own magnificence;
And therefore I have sailed the seas and come
To the holy city of Byzantium.

O sages standing in God’s holy fire
As in the gold mosaic of a wall,
Come from the holy fire, perne in a gyre,
And be the singing‐masters of my soul.
Consume my heart away; sick with desire
And fastened to a dying animal
It knows not what it is; and gather me
Into the artifice of eternity.

Once out of nature I shall never take
My bodily form from any natural thing,
But such a form as Grecian goldsmiths make
Of hammered gold and gold enamelling
To keep a drowsy Emperor awake;
Or set upon a golden bough to sing
To lords and ladies of Byzantium
Of what is past, or passing, or to come.

Istanbul

Welcome back, dear readers. RoninEgypt is now RoninTurkey (but the blog address remains the same).

Sunday was a new experience for me: I was literally the last person to check in on my Turkish Airlines flight to Istanbul. I arrived at JFK I thought two hours before my flight and found not a soul at the TA check-in desk. I had received an email at 2PM advising me that the 6:50 scheduled departure was delayed by an hour and that was also what the TA web site showed. Apparently this was some sort of rogue email and the departure was proceeding as originally scheduled. A TA ground person had to accompany me to the head of the TSA security line so that I could get to the gate. You all know how much time I usually leave for a flight (see Lisa's hilarious email of a few months ago) so this was like an out-of body experience for me.

The flight actually boarded on time but the plane sat on the ground for two hours. The pilot made several announcements but TA seems to have borrowed the public address system used in NY subway stations; all I could understand was the word "India."  One more thing about the flight: TA's "comfort class" (premium economy) was very good. Not today's business class with flat beds but very much like business class was 10 years ago: lots of leg room, a foot rest, and a comfortable angle of recline. Business class $6,400; comfort class $2,400. I felt virtuous and exonerated. Service was actually very good.

I found my hotel through TripAdvisor which I now swear by after our Senato experience in Rome.

The Hotel (Sultania) is very much like Senato in terms of size, cleanliness and comfort. Of course, it doesn't come close to matching the beauty of the building and there is no terrace over the Pantheon square (nor is there a fresco on the ceiling). My room is spacious with a couch and Ottoman furnishings. The hotel is in Sultanhamet, the oldest part of the City (where I wanted to be). Narrow crowded streets much like our area of Rome all lead to an ancient main thoroughfare which is restricted to pedestrians and the tram (no cars). 

The hotel is a ten minute walk to Haghia Sofia (now known as Ayasofya) which is the 6th Century Byzantine Church of Holy Wisdom, later converted to a Mosque and now a museum. My main interest this trip is to see as much as I can of Byzantine Constantinople. As usual, I have prepared a bit for the trip and think I have the historical perspective necessary to actually appreciate what little is left of pre-Ottoman Constantinople. Haghia Sofia is closed on Monday so my report will have to wait,

I visited the Basilica Cistern, a 6th Century underground reservoir that was fed by the City's two aqueduct systems. The Cistern is a cavernous vault held up by more than 300 columns (mostly Corinthian, some Doric and a couple of idiosyncratic ones including two that have Medusa heads as their base). The cistern is "romantically" lit and the hundreds of columns reminded me of the Terra Cotta Warriors in Xian--forgotten for centuries and suddenly they are here standing 1500 years later (much more in the case of the warriors). 

A ten minute walk from the Cistern brings one to what is left of the Byzantine Hippodrome. All that stands are two obelisks and part of an ancient serpentine column. One obelisk from 1500 BC was brought to Constantinople by Constantine in the 6th Century. It is in perfect shape and the hieroglyphs are beautifully clear. This is in sad contrast to "my" Obelisk in Central Park or to London's. It is red sandstone and more beautiful that the ones in Rome. the serpentine column is from the 5th Century BC (1,000 years before Constantine) and is thought to have come from Delphi. An awful lot of awful things happened in the Hippodrome (besides chariot races) including two horrendous massacres, one by a Byzantine Emperor, the other by a Sultan.  But now the Hippodrome is a peaceful park just outside the Blue Mosque. 

The Mosque takes its name from the many Iznik tiles with which the interior is faced. It was built in the early 17th century to rival Haghia Sofia and, it indeed has a beautiful dome. The Mosque's dome sits on four mammoth columns and doesn't "fly" gracefully on arches as does its more ancient rival. 

Each day since about ten days ago, I re-read William Butler Yeats' "Sailing to Byzantium."  I was never one for poetry, but I think this poem encouraged me to come to Istanbul. It famously begins, "That is no country for old men." I have been trying to really understand his meaning and the structure of the poem. In the end, I know Adele will explain it all to me. Meanwhile it speaks to me. 

Stay Tuned

There may be more

Egypt: Background to the Current Scene

Since my return from Egypt, I came to the conclusion that while seeing and appreciating the  Pharaohnic  world, I saw little and understood less of Egypt itself.  I saw a country that appeared under-resourced and with poor infrastructure that was enduring a massive political upheaval. All of my pre-departure research related to the period that ended with Augustus’ victory over Mark Antony and Cleopatra. I have tried to catch up on more current events in the past two weeks.  In addition to my general reading and obsession with Egyptian news, I read two prescient books that essentially predicted the 2011 Revolution:  Tarek Osman,  “Egypt on the Brink”  (2010) and John R. Bradely, “Inside Egypt” (2008).

The history of Egypt since the late 19^th century has been one of pendulum swings. The heirs of Mohammed Ali who founded the monarchy built a western style cosmopolitan society. Up to and including the reign of King Farouk, a constitutional monarchy was being formed and developed. Cairo and Alexandria were European polyglot cities and “liberal” capitalism was the economic order. Of course, Farouk took hedonism to bizarre levels, capitalism did not trickle down very much and ordinary Egyptians could care less about café society on the Corniche in Alexandria.

Nasser followed Farouk with a nationalist and pan-Arab agenda. Capitalism, cosmopolitan society, western culture and friendship with the West were all discarded. Out went the west and in came the Soviets. The 67 War effectively ended the nationalist/ eastern bloc project. Nasser lived three more years but Nasser’s agenda ended with the War.

The pendulum swung again with Sadat/Mubarak who brought back a tilt toward the West and ended Soviet influence. Egypt became the lynch-pin of American strategy to secure the oil routes and maintain stability in the middle-east and this strategy held for forty years. During this time, however, the Egyptian ruling class failed to obtain legitimacy from the population, developed crony capitalism to a fine art, and ruled through a police state.  Corruption and inefficiency were the key highlights of everyday life for the vast majority of the population. The upper echelon consisting of military related personnel and Mubarak cronies (and relatives) did not allow for political maturity at a time when social and technological changes were rampant.

During the forty years of Sadat/Mubarak, the only effective counter to the government was the Muslim Brotherhood. The pendulum has now swung again. The MB will soon be in charge. There is a broad sense in the west that the military will not give up its power and will work with the MB. I am not convinced that this will have a long run. I think it more likely that, with patience,  the MB will insist on a Turkish style government with the military subservient to  civilian rule.  I think the pendulum will swing away from the West but there will be quite a bit of leeway for expression and diversity (within limits). I do not believe there will be a direct military challenge to Israel but tensions will no  doubt increase. I do not believe the pan-Arab project will be reborn; I think Egypt will focus on its own borders. The liberal 25% will be in opposition and will hope for the failure of the ruling MB. I believe the government will put an end to the anti-Americanism surrounding the NGO mess and will look to reinvigorate foreign direct investment.