Istanbul. Filter heart of the city
In the bold bright red, yellow and blue lights bar "Highyam" All choir sing a drinking song: "The evening has come, and we will have fun". Suddenly a woman, and among them there is not one younger than fifty, rush to men and begin to dance. What is the belly dance? Waltz? Tango? In any case, it looks erotic. They dance, shout, laugh, and painted blonde in the center of the hall begins to tell his story.
She was a famous ballerina. But somehow, rushing on a luxurious limousine, I got into an accident and broke my leg. Her grandfather once skened in Siberia. But he escaped, stole a Russian girl and took her to Trabzon. "And my name is Ebru Cheil – Flaming Suffering", – Says blonde. Here they will not find out that in this story the truth, and that the fruit of violent imagination. In Istanbul sometimes come true any fantasy.
Outside, too, boil life. At midnight by "Khayama" There are crowds of people. Brothel Madame Manukyan, which for many years was the largest in the city nalogoplatelschitsey closes. And girls who have recently packed in underwear under the greedy glances of young proletarians, modestly covering headscarves, go home. In the rock cafe on the first floor they sit hippie. And the techno-generation attract bars "Millennium" and "Magma", Where to play House and hip-hop. A completely different style in "Turkic Bar". In the string ensemble, the voice of the SAZA, the floor is staminated by carpets, on the walls of the pictures of peasants, pebbles pests. Baoglu Hill The Heart of the Tith Million Town Lying between Europe and Asia. It overlooks the Bosphorus, and only the Bay of the Golden Horn separates Beioglu from the Old Town: Hippodrome, Palace Topkapi, Ayasofy and Blue Mosque.
Beioglu – the symbol of contradictions of modern Turkey: when televisers want to get interviews "Simple people", They set the cameras here: a variety of opinions is provided. Conservatives consider Bajoglu to the focus of the contagion, whipping the country: "This is a source of crime and immorality. On this sinful swamp you need to drive bulldozers!".
The urban authorities of Istanbul demolished hundreds of buildings in Baoglu, laying the motorway. They tried to close the borders and declared an alcohol war. But Baoglu stood. Open new cafes and bars, and the sale of alcohol in the bottling received the blessing of the authorities in exchange for generous donations.
Century Baoglu turned into a large bourgeoisie area. Street Istiklal built up luxurious buildings in Modern style. Ladies were walking here in hats and umbrellas from the Sun, embassy mansions were erected. V "Feather Palace", With his marble, stucco and forged lattices, Mata Hari, Leo Trotsky, Alexander Vertinsky stopped. Carnival Beioglu was a heart of a multinational city. Choosing the fabrics in local shops, the buyers easily moved from Turkish to French, Greek and Ladino – the language of the people who moved here hundreds of years ago the Jews.
Istanbul was at the crossroads of different peoples who were walking from all the ends of the world, and who just did not settle in the labyrinths of Beioglu! In the XV century – Jews displaced from Spain. After 1848 – crushed Hungarian rebels. On this shore, fleeing from the Bolsheviks, Wranghelevtsy landed. Turkish literator site Faik wrote: "This is a special quarter, where the Turks, Russian, Armenians, Nestorian, Arabs, Tsygan, French, Levantins, Croats, Serbs, Bulgarians, Persians, Afghans, Chinese, Tatars, Jews, Italians, and Maltese". And after the war, Kurds, Yugoslav, Romanians and Africans appeared in the quarter.
Today, the life and pedestrian street of Ostiklal again will be boiled again in Beiol, as before, attracts a walk of all classes and classes. There is enough space for the elegant boutique "Vacco", and for beggar of the Kurds selling stuffed mussels.
It becomes obvious that Istanbul is a polyglot city. And although it can be namalian on the wall: "Love this country or fall" – In Beiol, this cry of the ultra-right party "Gray Volkov" Loses meaning. Who exactly love in this country? Greek Anna in the bar "Highyam", to a quarter of Russian Ebru Chimmeta who fled from Kurdistan the seller Midi Mehmet, Armenian Prosaik Margosyan, who does not let any of the Muslims of Muslims of the pious butcher of Nuri or Transsexual demem?
A prostitute Dememe is one of several thousand local transsexuals and transvestites. In Beiol, she bought an apartment. Sitting under a big portrait of Che Guevara, I listen to her simple story about the famous area. "I am good here. Bayolu is another republic. Here more freedom. More tolerance.
More madness. We are all one whole. Greeks, Jews, Homosexuals, Lesbians, Intellectuals, Revolutionaries". They do not like each other, but recognize the right to live other people: and wrapped up to the very eyes of Muslim, and European girls in tight trico.
In the evening B "Mesopotamian cultural center" Sing Kurdish songs, and in "Shafran" Waiter dancing on the table, followed by a young lady smoke "Havana". In the bar "Jasmine" Full youth. Kurds, Yuppie, | rockers – when the party is over and the sun finally rises above the Bosphorus, they are peacefully sitting in cafes "Blessing Allah", ousted from streets of beardes from some Islamic sect. And if the new year and Ramadan, the month of the big post coincide, then drunk roam the streets of Beiol with drummers, who in the morning twilight resemble believers that you need to have time to eat before daytime.
