Fener and Fatih

We wanted to see the Greek Orthodox neighborhood, Fener, just north of the Grand Bazaar in Istanbul.  Instead, what we saw was a neighborhood once populated by Greeks, complete with a fenced off and magnificent red-bricked cathedral – and now instead see the arrival of conservative Muslims.

At ten am, a flatbed truck wound up the hill, then down again, missing great views of Asia and Thrace.  We jumped onto the narrow sidewalks that tapered off into nothing to avoid the lumbering creature.  The truck carried hills of potatoes and white onions and echoed its wares through a loudspeaker.  Shawled heads popped out of cracked windows, lured by the discombobulated calls for fresh produce.

Whole bodies would pop out of splintered doors two hours later, lured by a similar loudspeaker, this time echoing from the many minarets that encircled the crumbling neighborhood.

We walked along -- quickly finding ourselves outside of Fener once we climbed over hills and inside Fatih, the central neighborhood for Istanbul's burgeoning conservative Muslim residents.  Fatih is the traditional Istanbul that Turkey doesn't show to visitors.  It's the dark step-brother of Sultanhamet – heir to neither the glories of Byzantium Christianity or the opulence of Ottoman Islam.

Here, the women are phantasms behind dirtied windows. They floated by on gray streets in black robes, heads to soles. Here, serious men sipped tea in teahouses next to windows filled out by the crimson carcasses of future doners kepabs -- halal of course. Children, the ones that we saw, ran up hills and fell down them in hide & seek games – where, we wondered, were the schools?

Gathering places were tucked in non-existent corners.  Diners were few and far between -- as were the predictable teahouses and coffee-shops of Istanbul's other neighborhoods.  Shops carried the essentials, canned food and toilet papers, versus the designer jeans and leather bags that populated adjacent environs. 

Instead, barbershops filled in the social vacuums. Runners with plates of teacups darted in and out of these men-only establishments every so often.  The women? Disengaged from the physical, they were left to float on the gray street corners...

Shaved mannequins advertising voluminous robes in ghastly colors.  Naked trees. Laundry lines spiderwebbing across egg yellow and skin yellow apartments. Stained streets.

And, just as we strolled out of Fatih and into the University district, there was a familiar refrain.  The potato-onion truck had rounded the corner and onto the bustling boulevard, took fright, and turned back into the winding streets of cracked cobblestones and floating robes.