Where Europe Kisses Asia

Istanbul – Kabakca, Türkiye 

I guess the first order of business is to reassure everyone that all is good with us. It is.

I think sometimes there’s a sense that all Muslim countries are kind of aligned. Attack one of them, and they’re all mad. Of course, that’s not true. No more so than throwing all the Catholic countries together in one category.

And it’s definitely not true with Türkiye and Iran. So far, not a single person here has mentioned the bombing, or, really, Iran at all. Iran is a pretty radical Muslim country. Türkiye is secular – with a formal division between church and state. Maybe there are people who are sympathetic to Iran, or who distrust America, but, so far, we have not encountered many of them. 

Okay, with that out of the way, let me give you an update on the Great Mediterranean Baklava Competition. You’ve never heard of it? That’s okay – it’s kind of in the building phase right now. The basic premise is that we buy baklava wherever we go, and then we decide who makes the best baklava according to our 100% objective scale – sometimes called the Munger Meter. 

To start, Croatia, Bosnia & Herzegovina, and Montenegro were all disqualified for failure to even submit an entry. Sad.

Now, Albania was, I must say, kind of a dark horse at the beginning. But, so far, it’s really not even close. The two big pieces of baklava we bought in Albania were, by far, the best on the trip so far. Buttery. Lots of walnuts. Amazing filo dough, with butter and honey layered in so it wasn’t just a big thick wad of layers without much flavor. And generous portions. 

Greece was pretty disappointing, really. I was really expecting so much more. After all, they kind of market themselves as the inventors of all this stuff. But I’m not sure we had a good piece of baklava in Greece at all.

Turkiye. They are still in the running for sure. There was some pretty good stuff in Istanbul. Special stores that don’t do anything else. Like ten different kinds of baklava. Some with pistachios – which is supposed to be better. Some with more butter. Honestly, I didn’t really understand the other differences – but there were a bunch of other varieties. 

Sadly, Türkiye kind of blew its big opportunity last night. We go into a store that only has baklava and Turkish Delight. The sales guy gives us a big talk about more honey in this one, pistachios in that one. We end up getting two pieces of three different kinds – six total. And not the big Albanian pieces, either. Little postage stamp tourist pieces. 

The guy does a whole Mr. Bean routine, putting the pieces into a gift box, carefully taping the box shut, then a plastic bag, then another bag . . . Finally, he weighs the whole thing. When I ask how much it’s going to be, he says 800 Turkish Lire – or about $20. 

$20 for six tiny pieces of baklava?!? Are you kidding? I think it cost $1.50 for the two big pieces in Albania – either one of which was bigger than all six of these combined . . .

We walked out of the store. 

Upshot is that Turkiye had this big opportunity – and blew it. Got too greedy . . .

There’s still one or, maybe two, days left for redemption. But I kind of doubt it’s going to happen. You need to be pretty lucky to happen on great baklava in the more rural areas…

It’s too bad. Because, otherwise, Turkiye is a pretty great country . . .

A little piece of evidence on that . . . Turkish melons. We’ve been seeing them for miles now – all stacked up along the road. But Bill M sent the encouragement we needed. Not sure what the one we bought is called – but it’s kind of tiger-orange on the outside, and honeydew green on the inside. And it’s sweet and yummy. A country with this many great melons can’t be all bad . . .

Istanbul. 

I guess you’ve been waiting to hear about the city formerly known as Constantinople. 

Pretty amazing place. 16 Million people. 4,000 mosques. Literally spans two continents – with the south half in Asia and the north in Europe. Surrounded by three seas – the Marmara, the Black Sea, and the Bosphorous – which connects the Marmara and the Black Seas. Plus, it was the capital of the two longest-lasting empires in history: the Roman and the Ottoman Empires. 

Here’s some quick history on the city . . .

Was settled by the Greeks – led by some guy named Byzus or something – which is why the place was originally named Byzantium. Eventually the Romans took over, and made Byzantium the capital of the eastern half of their empire. Then, one of the emperors, Constantine, made the eastern empire officially Christian – after which the city was renamed as Constantinople. The Romans hung out in Constantinople a long time. Eventually, the Turks came along – I think they were nomads from Central Asia. Interestingly, the Romans mostly spoke Greek – but at some point I guess Turkish became the dominant language.

The Romans fell in 1453, when these other guys – the Ottomans, who were also Turkish – took over.

The Ottomans ruled for over 500 years – finally falling from power when they suffered military defeats during World War I. After the war, the allies – I think primarily the British and French – were going to split up the remains of the empire, but a guy named Ataturk led and won an independence movement against them.

Ataturk was quite a guy – huge national hero here. Kind of like George Washington and Abraham Lincoln combined. He made Turkiye a secular republic. He gave women the right to vote. He moved the capital to Ancara. He made primary school free and compulsory. He even invented Türkiye’s alphabet. Before that the Turks tried to use some derivation of Arabic for their written language, but nobody understood it, and the literacy rate was literally 3%. 

Today’s perspective . . .

We had the privilege of taking a walking tour with an amazing young woman. Pinar. Perfect English. Great presence. She has a way of speaking that really draws you in. She emphasizes odd parts of words. She tells lots of jokes, but she never cracks a smile – so you’re never quite sure if she’s serious or not . . .

Anyway, she shared a bunch of historical knowledge with us, but what was most interesting was her perspective on Turkiye itself. 

Religion and clothing and such. 

Basically, a completely modern point of view. Pretty much identical to our twenty-something American daughters. She shared that some people are more religious than others. Some women wear head scarves. Some wear burkas. Some, like her, dress like their American counterparts. There is no judgement. Everyone just does whatever they are comfortable with and everyone is happy. 

A little tidbit that we thought was interesting though . . . I guess the call to prayer that happens five times each day happens in Arabic. It’s like the Catholic Church performing mass in Latin. Pinar says that basically there are no Turks who can understand any of the words in the Call to Prayer. And, as far as we can tell, there aren’t a lot of people paying much attention anyway . . .

Politics. 

She is very proud of Turkiye for resisting the colonial powers a hundred years ago. She is very proud of Turkiye for being one of the first countries to give women the right to vote. She is very proud of the secular republic that Turkiye became. 

But she is very disturbed by the current president and the direction that he seems to be taking the country. She pointed out that the Turkish Constitution only allows the president to serve for two terms – but that Erdogan is in his third term. She intimated that she could get in trouble for even discussing these problems. And she blames Erdogan and his policies for growing inflation and economic malaise in Turkiye today. Who, she asked, would invest in Turkiye when it’s democratic institutions seem to be under such assault? 

(Interruption . . .

Tonight we’re staying at an interesting campground. Probably thirty chickens, including at least three big roosters, have been prowling around our campsite and tent for hours – squawking, and pooping, and squabbling.

Several cats have been begging from us all evening. And there are kids and families running all over the place having a great time.

Anyway, our camp host, Arzu, just brought us a plate of dinner.

We already ate – so I’m not sure what I’m going to do with all this – but just one more in the long string of incredibly nice gestures by the Turks.)

Back to Pinar. She told us that Turkiye will forever be on the EU waiting list – because of Erdogan and his anti-democratic policies. 

If that’s true, it’s really too bad. Because from my perspective it would be a great thing for the world if Turkiye were in the EU. I just think that secular countries like Turkiye are the way to go. As Pinar said, it would be great if we all just respected everyone else’s right to practice whatever religion they want. 

My sense is that if Turkiye were to join the EU it would further cement its secular republic. But, I’m sure, there are more radical religious forces that would love to see Turkiye go in another direction . . . 

Now, Turkiye is by no means perfect. We don’t have a great sense for how they treat things like gay rights. But, based on an encounter we had yesterday, we’re thinking it’s not very good. We were going to go to Taksim Square – but on the way there we started running into all these police officers. Huge presence. 

We eventually figured out that there was an LGBTQ protest scheduled for the Square. They wouldn’t let us through. But we noticed that they were letting a few people past the barricades, and we realized that they couldn’t keep people out if they were staying at hotels near the Square. Diana looked up a place, and we started telling the guards that we were staying at the Taksim Hill Hotel. Worked for a few checkpoints, but then, as we got closer, they asked to see our reservation. Diana, of course, being more of the New York rule breaker of our team, kept pushing the issue. But I didn’t want to end up in some Turkish prison, so we eventually gave up . . .

I guess what we gleaned from all this is that: a) there is at least some type of LGBTQ community in Turkiye, and b) Turkiye seems to be kind of embarrassed about it. Otherwise, what’s with all the police presence and barricades? 

One other thing I wanted to comment on regarding Turkiye more generally. There are wind turbines everywhere. And I guess they get something like 58% of their electricity from renewable sources. I think the U.S. is at something like 19%. I hope we can get our act together soon. We should not be so far behind a developing country like Turkiye . . . Sad.

I should also note that we managed to connect with our friend John M. We arrived in Istanbul Friday evening – and we managed to converge at our Airbnb at the same time. Not often you are able to meet up with a good friend for dinner thousands of miles from either of our homes. Great to see John – but, sadly, his wife, Kang, and the kids couldn’t make it; they were in the middle of a huge day of travel from Tanzania, and their 4 and 6 year olds probably would have imploded . . .

We’re heading on toward Bulgaria now. Hoping to enjoy a little bit of the Black Sea. Anyone have any Bulgaria or Romania advice? 

I’ll say this – for the first time in my life I actually regret not paying more attention in Russian class in high school. No one told me that Russian would be useful in other places – like all of the Balkans, Bulgaria, Poland, etc. I used to know the Cyrillic alphabet. Would be useful to know now . . .