chestnut

castanha, kestane, castaño, kastanje, كستناء
kastan, Kastanie, gesztenye, castagna, kastanis,
kasztan, kaštan,

by any other name!

the olive man

I bought a two-and-a-half kilo can of black olives and that large jar of amber-coloured thyme honey from this man, on the side of a winding road between Ayvalık and Troy. His stand was in a string of corrugated metal shacks which offered all sorts of other delights— pomegranate molasses, jams, pickles, and of course, Ayvalık olive oil. I'm a sucker for a smiling face, and it was his grin which made me his customer.

After the briefest of chats in my best Tarzanca (Turkish slang for broken Turkish), he gave me a little pochette of dried thyme.

the entrepreneurs

By now you have probably seen the typical image of the çapulcus in Istanbul, fighting the fight with pride, waving flags and donning both Guy Fawkes and gas masks— but perhaps you haven't seen images of these guys:



In true Turkish spirit, some people have turned a lemon into lemonade— finding opportunity in the chaos (though at the moment things are very calm). Vendors have taken over Istiklal street and the sidewalks around Beşikataş to sell swimming goggles and surgical masks to protect you from the effects of teargas, lemons and milk to help with the burning, Guy Fawkes masks, pictures and T-shirts of Atatürk, and various food items, because protesting can make you hungry. There are cherry vendors and kebab cookers, men with tea kettle carts, the ubiquitous simitçis and watermelon sellers. It is something to behold, and quite a delight. I wonder where they got all those masks and whistles from so quickly?

a monday in eminönü

a day's end

The Kapalı Çarşı and I have had a long relationship— I've been getting lost in its labyrinthine alleys since I was seven years old. I know almost every street, every shop, and yet if someone were to ask me where that shop that sells the marvellous Afghan bracelets is, I would have no clue of how to get there.
I know the façade, I can see it and the faces of the shopkeepers clearly in my mind, but where it is— well, you just have to end up there.


I met Spanish sketcher extraordinaire Javier de Blas at the Bazaar for coffee and a swapping of sketchbooks. Javier is a professor of drawing for designers at the Escuela Superior de Diseño of La Rioja in Spain, and has come to Istanbul with fifty of his talented students to explore and sketch. While we chatted and sketched, the Bazaar slowly dimmed and grew quieter, as shops shut down for the night. Never, in my years of intimacy with this maze of delights, have I ever seen it close. Tourists vanish like vapour, shopkeepers systematically and precisely relocate their wares from outside their shops to in, and the resident pigeons fluff up on their wires.


Outside the Kapalı Çarşı, night falls, and hungry people hurry toward cafés and meyhane.