Carpetblogger

O Silent* Ramazan Night!

*If by silent, we mean "drums and drum-set car alarms at 3am." This post is a total lie.

The first year in Turkey, it was a charming cultural tradition to be appreciated and embraced. The second year, it was an annoyance to be avoided. The third year, it has become a target for open hostility.  (Some day we'll do a post comparing and contrasting Ramazan in all the countries we've had the good fortune to visit during the Holy Month, particularly the Qat-fueled all night parties in Sana'a we saw last year. It's all fun for a couple of days. A month is too much).

Astute readers know that Ramazan, the Muslim holy month of daylight fasting which starts today, begins about two weeks earlier every year. This has practical implications for everyone, believers and infidels alike.

For example, it's much easier to fast in December when days are very short and cool than it is to fast in July and August, when days are very long and hot. Ramadan is going to be a summer holiday for the next few years. It also means that the drummers, an old Ottoman tradition in which guys with drums troll neighborhoods waking people pre-dawn for sahur (pre-dawn meal), start earlier and earlier. This year, drumming would probably start around 3 am. Every day. For 30 days. Also, it being August, people like to sleep with their windows open, even if their bedroom overlooks the Sokak. Our Sokak seems to be home to some heavy sleepers and drummers like to pay special attention to it. After a month of this, even the most ardent cultural relativist begins to fantasize about beebee guns and water balloons.

Recognizing that most people own modern conveniences such as "alarm clocks," that some drummers are opportunists who accept tips to not drum on certain streets and that some harass residents at the end of Ramazan for tips, some municipalities have banned drumming. We applaud those municipalities, but until now, ours has not been one of them. 

As the Turkish Life has noted, "I'm just waiting for some mayor to say 'Globalization has given us McDonald's and TV dinners. You can easily eat throughout the year without killing a big cow at Kurban Bayramı. And if you want to show off to the neighbors, well, that's what fancy cars and iPhones are for.'"

But! TL has issued a late report that drumming in Beyoğlu has been banned this year. Despite heavy skepticism in Yabancı Köy about any ban not involving YouTube actually being observed in Turkey, it appears to be the case. No drumming last night! It may be a peaceful month after all, inşallah.

Open Letter to Zafer Isik, Yabanci Subesi Resolution Manager

Sayın Zafer Bey!

Back in January, we posted about our experience obtaining our residence permit at the Yabancı Şubesi (Foreigner Office) in the İstanbul Emniyet (Police Headquarters), an experience we compare unfavorably to visiting a Central Asian gynecologist. We commended your operation for gradually imposing order by requiring folks to take a number and reducing the number of windows one has to visit and the number of stamps necessary to just one. We took this as a sign that, over the three years we have been obtaining residence permits, Turkey is, yavaş yavaş, becoming more civilized.

Well! After that post, you kindly left a comment, which we ignored at the time, because, just like the gynecologist, we avoid thinking about the Yabancı Şubesi except the one day a year when we have to go there, asking us to provide some constructive criticism*. Little did we know that you already had some improvements in mind for the operation that closely track the kind we might have suggested.  You should have run them past us! We would like credit for them (Your original comment along with a hasty translation are below).

Recent reports from the Correspondent Formerly of Kathmandu and Beirut and Now of Istanbul indicate that the changes made since January, are in a word, awesome. If you follow her work, you know she specializes in reporting on Epic Failures for Carpetblog. Based on her experience at the Yabancı Şubesi, one might conclude its management has been turned over to a pack of wild dogs. But we think that's unfair.

Gone was that experiment with internet-based appointments (did anyone really think that would work?). On her first visit, she was told that in order to get a number to turn in the documents for her permit, she would have to get in line across the street from the Emniyet, starting at 2 am. She did this and was relieved to see an orderly and friendly group already formed. She took the 18th place in line and made friends.

When 8:30am rolled around and numbers were handed out, she was discouraged to receive number 74. How did this happen? Comrades-in-line deduced that the first 50 numbers had been sold by an "entrepreneur" who, after "picking a fight" with other line-standers, was "detained" by the police with a show of force so convincing observers concluded the entrepreneur could only be another police officer. The ability to pretend you're not doing what you're doing is what separates Turkish police and waiters from all those yahoos in FSU. We admire that. Those people are savages.

After navigating the YS's signless maze (you might consider posting directional signs in Turkish, though definitely not in any other language), CFKBNI finally coughed up more than 770 YTL for a document that confers few meaningful benefits. We paid less than 600 YTL three years ago. Inflation! You have it! Play that card if it's your hand. Carpetblog approves, as long as you don't use the extra fees to improve the Yabancı Şubesi customer service.

We here at Carpetblog were becoming worried that Turkey was losing that developing world "edge" that foreigners always appreciate, especially when it comes to dealing with police and bureaucracies. We are relieved our fears were misplaced! If CFKBNI's experience this week was any indication, the Istanbul Emniyet has become concerned, too, and opted to rely on its old skool habits for dealing with "visitors."

*Just FYI, our contract with the "Constructive" Division of the Criticism Department expired long ago.

Original Post:
26 Ocak 2009'daki Yabancılar Şube ziyaretiniz ve yaşadıklarınıza ait
deneyimlerinize yer verdiğiniz yazınızı okudum.

Önerilerinizin yapıcı olacağı ve daha faydalı olacağına inandığınız
düşünceşerinizi, bizimle paylaşmanız.. saat 03.37 olmasına rağmen iyi niyetli yaklaşımlara her zaman açık olan emniyet teşkilatını memnun edici motivasyona taşıyacaktır. Yazınızdaki tutum ötesinde, gözlemlerinizin sizde olması gereken çözüm
önerisi nedir? konusundaki fikirlerinizide oraya taşımış olmanız bizleri mutlu ederdi.

Yanıtınızı bekler, iyi niyetli ve yapıcı olacak önerileriniz için şimdiden teşekür ederim.

Zafer Işık
İst. Em. Md.lüğü Yabancılar Şube Çözüm Ortağı
Yönetici

Translation:
I read your writing regarding your visit to the Yabancilar Subesi on 26 January 2009 and your experience.

With the belief that you intend your proposals to be constructive and more beneficial share with us ... Despite the fact that the hour is 3:37 a.m., the police staff, which is always open to good-intentioned approaches, that carry a motivation that will please the police staff.

Besides/beyond the manner of your writing, had you included in that writing your ideas on proposals for solutions, which your observations surely must have given you, that would have made us happy.

I am awaiting your response, I thank you in advance for your suggestions that will be good intentioned and constructive.

Zafer Isik, Istanbul Police Department's Yabancilar Sube's manager of
resolution partner

"Don't Say 'Nothing Will Happen to Me,' OK?"

Sometimes you come across an ad campaign that's so fucking brilliant that every time it comes on TV, you roll on the floor laughing, even though you don't understand every word of the copy.

A Turkish brand of condoms called "Okey" is running a broadcast and outdoor campaign called "'Bana bir şey olmaz deme' okey, mi?" This translates to: "Don't say 'Nothing will happen to me,' OK?"

We first noticed this campaign when an ad featuring four guys installing a klima ran a thousand times a night. In it, one guys climbs a ladder, another guy hangs out the window upside down installing the kilma, a the third guy holds the second guy's legs and the fourth "assists." Astute readers know that something very similar happened on our sokak! (Trust me, you don't need to understand Turkish to find these ads funny).

Then, the second ad in the campaign appeared. It showed a guy carrying at least 12 damacan (water bottles) strapped to the back of his scooter. Have you ever ordered  multiple bottles at a time?  Then you know that no matter how many you order, the sucu will deliver them all at once.

The third one -- and my personal favorite -- has 15 dudes holding up a truck while another guy welds its undercarriage. In need of a tea break, they prop it up with 2x4s. Malaasef, we can't find it anywhere online.

Do we really need to explain why these ads are funny? They are funny because every scene happens all the time here! This agency, whoever they are (and there's reason to believe there's a yabancı behind the creative because Turks are typically unwilling to make fun of themselves to this degree), made an entire ad campaign featuring Turknology!  If we were a creative director, we would make an ad of an usta sticking a screwdriver in an electrical socket to determine if it's working. Nothing is funnier than Turknology. 

There are other ads from an earlier campaign -- someone sticking a fork in a toaster, a guy talking on a cell phone during a flight, a guy adjusting a TV antennae during a lighting storm -- but they just don't convey the same sense of abject Turkishness as the ones running now (although, if you're in Turkey, your inability to watch these ads on YouTube meets and exceeds your daily recommended allowance of Turkishness).

We don't know if these ads effectively sell condoms to Turks. We may not be the target demographic, but if we needed condoms, we would totally buy "Okey."

Carpetblog Recommends: Istanbul Personal Shopper

Are planning a visit to Istanbul and worry that you will enter the Grand Bazaar and not see anything but fake leather fur-lined jackets marketed to the devushka demographic?

Do you fear you enter the Bazaar and never find your way out?

Do you hate bargaining?

Are you an Istanbul expat and concerned that your guests will deduct a bottle of duty free wine every time they suspect you are making up answers to their touristic-related questions?

Are you an Istanbul expat who hates the Grand Bazaar with the white hot passion of a thousand suns and would pay any sum to never have to set foot in there again?

Do you fall into any of these categories? If so, we cannot more highly recommend our friend, Istanbul Personal Shopper! ISP recently took the Outlaws on a day-long tour of the GB and they returned with tales of having lunch at a lokanta on the roof, finding excellent bargains on cool stuff and confidently walking away from shopkeepers who wouldn't bargain. They also had the experience of walking around Sultanahmet with someone who knows why the Blue Mosque has six minarets and other, even more obscure facts about this historic city.

ISP is an American expat who is ordinary in every way except she loves the Grand Bazaar.  She is not a member of Istanbul's professional tout class and knows all the parts of the bazaar that aren't completely tacky and annoying. She knows her textiles, too, and will adapt your tour to fit any obscure interest you might have. Check out her website to learn more. The Washington Post loves her too!

Call her next time you have visitors in town/you visit Istanbul and tell her Carpetblog sent you. Her prices are reasonable, your guests will be thrilled and you won't have to go the the GB. Everyone wins!

Kebabingo

We would never dream of stepping on the toes of the increasingly awesome Istanbul Eats but until they develop a franchise called Gaziantep Eats or Urfa Eats, we feel  confident that we can weigh in on dining options in these Eastern paradises without stealing their thunder. We're also not likely to be as nice as they are.

There's an increasingly common meme around Istanbul that is most easily summarized as "Gaziantep has awesome food." We take mild issue with this assessment. It is true that this provincial city of 2 million about 100 kms from the Syrian border has surprisingly tasty food, given where it's located (the baklava is, without question, awesome). And compared to, say, the food in Urfa, it is pretty good (but truthfully, most things compare favorably if Urfa sets the baseline).

 Gaziantep cuisine is heavily meat-based and by meat we mean "sheep." You can make a kebab better by adding cracked wheat and sprinkling pistachios on it, but it still won't be good. It will always be poor quality meat cut without any apparent skill and cooked within an inch of its life. If you go to Gaziantep, you will eat a lot of kebab and some of it will be better than kebab you have had elsewhere. The rest of it will taste and look exactly the same. We didn't come across any particularly interesting vegetable dishes or anything we hadn't already tried in Istanbul. Lahmacun (a Turkish pizza), the other specialty of Gaziantep, is pretty much the same no matter where you go. Given the buzz, we expected something more, something different.

What Gaziantep does have is an aggressive civic boosterism project that's promoting the "Gaziantep has awesome food" meme. We admire the ballsiness of this effort, even if we disagree a bit with the premise. In fact, there's a Gaziantep Cuisine Museum which is located in a traditional stone house and is well worth a visit if you happen to be in town. There is also reputedly a woman who is promoting Gaziantep cuisine but unfortunately we were unable to track her or her restaurant down.

If you are looking for a decent meal and you have all of Eastern Anatolia at your  disposal, go to Mardin. Mardin perches on a rocky hillside, overlooking the vast Syrian plain. It's got an interesting mix of Turks, Kurds (oops sorry, Mountain Turks), Syriac Christians and Arabs. This, in our estimation, is more promising recipe for a surprising meal than a handful of extra pistachios. Accordingly, it has a gem of a restaurant, Cercis Murat.

 We had tried Cercis Murat's branch in the wealthy Asian Istanbul suburb of Bostancı a few months back. It was memorable mostly because we took a boat to get there and it seemed like we traveled practically to Beijing for dinner, but also because they stuck a bunch of stuff we didn't order on the bill (seriously, how many yabancı women order beet juice with dinner? Did they think we wouldn't notice?). The very fact we've considered going back is a testament to the quality of the food. Surprisingly, when Carpetblog's Paris Correspondent wrote about it here, she didn't mention we were with her.

Mardinese (we made that word up ourselves so please credit accordingly) food seems to be influenced as much by Arabs as by Turks but the whole is better than the sum of the parts. The mezze at Cercis Murat reminds us a great deal of those at Çiya, which is an Istanbul favorite. Made with pomegranates, dried tomatoes, walnuts, capers and whole green lentils and served in copper ayran spoons, they are genuinely different from typical Turkish food. For that, we bestow praise. If you're still hungry after the mezze sampler plate, order Dobo (lamb shoulder stuffed with garlic on rice), but temper your expectations, especially if you've ever had plov.

Van in Northeastern Turkey gets a lot of praise for its breakfasts (even here!) and there are Van Kahvaltı Sofrasılar all over town. Why has no one ever mentioned the awesomeness of Diyarbakır kahvaltı? Is it because people, rightfully, hesitate to use the word "awesome" and "Diyarbakır" in the same sentence? Well, in the old Han across from the Ulu Camii in D'bak there are half a dozen breakfast places and they rock. We had fresh yogurt with fruit and fruit syrup, bal kaymak (honey with clotted creme) with pistachio, fresh butter with walnuts and honey, a delicious tomato and eggplant ezme (sort of like a salsa) and white cheese that was genuinely complex and tasty. That, and the carpet shop across the street, make D'bak famous for more than just Kurdish separatism and 40% unemployment in our book.

Oh, did we forget to mention Urfa? Seriously, there is nothing more boring than an Urfa kebab, no matter what anyone from the Urfa booster club tells you. It's simply a blander, greasier version of an Adana kebab.

*Kebabingo is what you say when you have already eaten every single kebab offered on the standard Lokanta menu in Eastern Turkey.

Mesopotamia Rocks!

Great News! Carpetblogger has found inspiration in Eastern Turkey!

We've stood/fallen into both the Tigris and the Euphrates. We've fallen in love with  Anatolian kilims all over again (though we may just start calling them what they are -- Kurdish kilims). We've won multiple cards of Kababingo. We've seen seven year old girls with mustaches. We've searched the bazaars for the best weapon to raise the stakes in the arms race on our Sokak back at home. We've tasted watermelons grown in pools of pigeon shit. We drove up to the Syria/Iraq/Turkey border and resisted the urge to drop off the Producer who forgot to bring any form of ID with him on that particular day trip. We've heard the jingle of racing pigeons wearing bracelets and earrings (srsly!). We appealed to the authorities to hurry up and flood Hasankeyf already, the place is a shithole.

We report. You decide.

Open Letter to Turkish Airlines

 Sayın THY!

We think that flying planes must be a really hard job. There are so many things to keep track of and gauges and dials to watch and procedures to follow. And, to think, you might be expected to do all this with only a few tea breaks on a two-hour flight. Exhausting!

To us, one of the hardest part of flying planes must be knowing where the airport is. You're expected to accurately land your plane on a little strip of tarmac, in between mountains and buildings and other obstacles, sometimes even in the dark, every single time! If only there were some modern technologies available that could tell you the precise coordinates of the Tbilisi airport instead of, just as an example we're going to pull out of our ass,  a military airstrip 20 kms from the Tbilisi airport.

Normally, we might let a "WTF?" incident like this pass unremarked upon, but Carpetblog's Kathmandu Correspondent happened to be on the flight and provided illuminating details. We felt this story needed to be told from the perspective of someone who had her photo taken by uniformed Georgian soldiers with camera phones as she deplaned, 20 kms from her actual destination. "The flight crew refused to believe me when I told them we  weren't actually at the Tbilisi airport and responded, 'of course this is Tbilisi.  We have very professional pilots. How could we not be in Tbilisi?'" She also notes, "when the pilot realized the mistake, he turned the plane around and tried to take off again but was stopped by military vehicles screaming down the runway."  Also? Apparently, there were actual sheep on the runway. You can't pay for illumination like that, can you?

We here at Carpetblog can hardly blame the THY crew. For all they know, all 737 passenger jets landing in Tbilisi are met by tanks. Those Caucasians are unpredictable and hotheaded. And it's super easy to get a pock-marked military runway recently bombed by the Russians mixed up with the runway of the Tbilisi international airport, which was designed and built by Turks.

But, then again, we're just a blogger, not a pilot. No one has ever asked us to land a plane  at the correct airport. If they did, they would have to expect a bit of trial and a lot of error. Fortunately, though, if our current gig as an incisive social commentator doesn't pan out, Turkish Airlines is hiring pilots! We're filling out our application STAT! We know exactly where the Tbilisi airport is, although our skills with the A320 flight panel are, admittedly, a bit rusty.

So, THY, should you be paying attention, Carpetblog's Kathmandu Correspondent is seeking redress. We are here to broker the deal, subject to the usual agency fees (upgrades work!). If you don't believe the impact of a Carpetblog open letter to an airline, google AeroSvit. We hope you get your plane back. Call us!

Hugs,

Carpetblogger

Carpetblogger's Mixed Feelings About Turkish Airlines

We don't care much for plane crashes around here, particularly by airlines on which we are of practically elite status (translation: we enjoy benefits woefully disproportionate to the effort expended to achieve those benefits, such as traveling to Saudi Arabia and Pakistan). We especially don't like them when people die, despite  Captain Sully-esque efforts to prevent greater loss of life.

For us, Turkish Airlines has always been an island of competence in a sea of Turknology. The planes are new and clean, we never have to get to the airport more than 90 minutes before a flight because the lines move quickly, delays are rare, the food and service are acceptable, we can be home 50 minutes after landing, (memo to American air travelers: it doesn't have to be that way!), there are never people vomiting in the aisles and we have never once heard of drunk pilots (memo to FSU air travelers: it doesn't have to be that way!).

Most importantly, the red and white Turkish Airlines logo at an airport in some post-Soviet shithole always communicates an important and reassuring message to us: "You can get out here with a minimum of hassle and likelihood of death or dismemberment."  This inspires a degree of brand loyalty that we don't bestow on many products, particularly airlines. Crashes tend to undermine this perception, however. We're pretty sure that Turkish Airlines didn't take our brand image into consideration when it developed its current marketing campaign "Feel Like a Star" featuring Kevin Costner, since none of the ads' shots are from airports that look like concrete refugee camps.

So to see a Turkish 737 lying in pieces in a muddy Dutch field makes us sad and question whether perhaps our loyalty is misplaced. Alternatively, it also makes us think "at least it didn't happen in Bishkek."

Word of the Day: Buzcu

Our favorite construction in the Turkish language (other than the brilliant "miş" tense, which allows one to disassociate oneself from the information one is relaying) is designating an occupation by adding the suffix -ci/-cu/-cı/-cü to a noun. By using this construction, you create a new word that means "guy who does X" or "X guy" (and it is always a guy, though the word itself is gender neutral).

There is no occupation too small or insignificant to warrant a "-cu" ending. For example, our new favorite word is "buzcu" (booze-joo) or "ice guy."  In fact, we just discovered the existence of buzcular, which doesn't make a lot of sense. If there are yağcilar (olive oil guys), karpuzcular (watermelon guys), turşucular (pickle guys), hurdacılar (junk guys), tavukcılar (chicken guys), balıkcılar (fish guys), a davulcusu (Ramazan drummer guy) of course there will be buzcular.  Turks are logical like that.

In Istanbul, you can't just go to your local market guy (your bakkalcı) or even the Carrefour for a bag of ice for a party. They don't sell it. You have to go to Buzcu Sokak Now, there is no such alley, as far as we know, called Buzcu Sokak*, so don't go asking around for it (and we're sure it's probably accusative too, but, seriously, we've stopped even trying). But since Turks also tend to name alleys after the types of businesses and the -cis clustered there and we don't know the actual name of the street, it's become known as Buzcu Sokak in the parlance of the day.

That doesn't mean there's not some mystery associated with the buzcular. Most of the buzcular on Buzcu Sokak are also çamaşırhanes (full service laundromats. Someday we might explore how putting the ending -hane to a noun means "place."). We cannot explain why the çamaşırhanes and the buzcular are the same enterprises, but it makes them easy to find. We're also not at all sure why all the buzcular we've seen are also çamaşırhanes but not all çamaşırhanes are buzcular. We're pretty confident that someone will explain this all to us.

*Buzcu Sokak runs parallel and in between Tarlabaşı Bulvarı and Nevizade/Balık Bazaar, if you need ice this weekend.

Dustup At Davos

Turkish Prime Minister Tayyıp Erdoğan returned to a hero's welcome in Istanbul last  night after delivering a righteous bitchslap to a yammering Shimon Peres at Davos. The organizers of this increasingly irrelevant schmoozefest must have been thrilled, since the event has attracted the creme of the second string crop and produced absolutely nothing newsworthy. Astute choice of venue, Tayyıp.

While we will always applaud a dramatic piece of political theater, wethinks the Dustup at Davos deserves a bit of context. Could mobilizing the base for upcoming local elections have had anything to do with it? Or could it serve as a distraction from increasing criticism about the way AKP has handled the Ergenekon investigation?  And, since when did he have a problem with leaders who kill people? This move was purely for domestic consumption.

 A Turk gesturing on behalf of oppressed Palestinians is about as politically courageous as an American advocating for a "democratic transition" in Belarus: There's absolutely  nothing at stake and everyone gets to feel good about themselves. Turkey has no aggrieved Palestinians occupying valuable political real estate. There's no chance of instability on its borders. And, it has a population (definitely not a tribe) that needs no excuse to wave flags and express outrage at perceived slights. We don't see any downsides to Erdoğan's outburst except, oh, perhaps a missed opportunity for Turkey to serve as a levelheaded mediator in the conflict, something that could actually help the Palestinians! Maalasef.

Prior to this event, we had planned to give this whole topic a pass. But have a look at the photos of AKP's district HQ/tea garden/smoke filled room, festooned with Palestinian flags. There have been more posters of dead babies around the 'hood than at a protest outside a Topeka Planned Parenthood. Banners and booths on Istiklal promote fundraising efforts on behalf of the Muslim brothers, the proceeds of which will almost certainly reach the poor Gazans, minus the necessary administration fees, of course.

Keep those crocodile tears flowing, Ankara.