Leigh in Azerbaijan

It’s a scary thing to spend the day in a city where you can’t communicate and have to find a ferry to rendezvous with others at 7pm. As I know yiros in Turkish, I had a dürüm (do-room) for lunch and dinner and visited the Blue Mosque, Aya Sofya, The Basilica Cistern and the Grand Bazaar before searching out the ferry (feribot) and my fellow teachers back on the other side of the Bosphorus.

The Blue Mosque is an amazing place. There are rows of taps outside for ritual cleansing before removing shoes and entering for prayer but I didn’t have to wash. Photos are on flickr. Luckily I went there first as the Aya Sofya is even more amazing. This site has great detail photos but you have to scroll down. Flashing my teacher ID they gave me a free ticket and waved me on. Turkey is a place where teachers have high respect. I stood in the place where Roman Emperors had stood, and admired a lofty Islam-like half sphere partly covered in metal framing for workers restoring the surfaces to days of former glory, before Islam plastered over the mosaic icons. Ataturk took over the mosque/church in 1928? and turned it into a museum. Aya Sofya “was built in 5 years and inaugurated by Justinian on 27-12-537, with the words “Praise the Lord who found me worthy to finish this project. Salomon, I have surpassed you.” (from Greek?) This one really is worth seeing! The cat was warming itself by a flood light. I wasn’t sure if it was Christian or Moslem.

After that I accidentally found the Basilica Cistern. “This cathedral-sized cistern is an underground chamber of 143 by 65 metres, capable of holding 80,000 cubic metres of water. The large space is broken up by a forest of 336 marble columns each 9 metres high.” Down below there’s a cafe and a stage for performances of music. No-one, however, asked me to oblige.

Today I was befriended by various Turks who eventually let on that they were inviting me back to their family’s rug shop. I obliged twice, but as I had decided that I wasn’t buying today it was not impossible to escape. They do however, have a well-oiled system for hooking the tourist. I was offered a seat, “Please, sit down. Would you like tea?” When I said that I would rather stand considering that I was cold, they brought the tea anyway and eventually I was sitting down. They are too well-dressed and over-weight to be able to trust them. Beware, friendly Turks may be selling you rugs. They may just want your money. Rugs are certainly a big thing here.
The Grand Bazaar captivated me for 10 or 15 mins but at the end of a cold day (4 degC plus wind chill) I had had enough of slick salesmen asking me what I wanted to pay for things. Other teachers, however, have their favourite trusted shops. Now’s the time to get your orders in.

From the above link: “The Grand Bazaar (Kapalıçarşı in Turkish) in Istanbul is one of the largest covered markets in the world with more than 58 streets and 3000 shops. It is well-known for its jewelry, pottery, spice and carpet shops.”

On walking in vaguely the right direction I didn’t find the tram but found the ferry I needed instead. This time I was befriended by a guy offering advice about a book shop that I was looking at. He turned out to be selling me a shoe shine (with my suede shoes!!) and feigned taking offence when I told him that I wasn’t interested. The 30 minute ride to Asia was sightly worrying as I was concerned that I had the rendezvous time wrong. When I asked a one word question (Kadekoy?) to a guy sitting next to me, he restated my question adding a syllable that was just not in the place name that I asked him about. (Some other guy last week repeated my ‘one’ (bir) by saying birsh - the vagaries of language!) I found the others, on time, although we were cold cold cold. It is still winter after all. This Thursday it’s spring. Ta da. This coming Friday 18 deg C is forecast. Nice!