Turkey’s first female Olympic competitor, archaeologist and patriot Halet Cambel (Çambel in Turkish) was the first female Turkish athlete ever to compete in the Olympic Games. This remarkable woman represented Turkey in fencing, helped decipher Hittite hieroglyphics and founded Turkey’s first open-air museum. Halet Cambel was born in Berlin in 1916. Her father Ibrahim Hakkı…
Kurban Bayram, known as Eid el-Adha in Arabic, is the most important Islamic festival of the year in the Muslim world. It falls about seventy days after Ramazan and the start dates for each are determined by the Muslim calendar, thus changing every year. Traditionally, all Muslims are expected to mark this occasion by sacrificing…
On a clear sunny winter’s day in Istanbul I paid a visit to the Yahya Efendi tomb, located halfway up a really steep hill in Besiktas. Born in Trabzon in 1495, Yahya Efendi was a famous scholar of the 16th century. His year of birth coincided with that of Kanuni Sultan Süleyman, whose mother also…
Almost as soon as Kim set foot on Turkish soil he started taking photos, and he’s been doing so ever since. On his very first trip to Göreme in Cappadocia, central Turkey he took more than 200 photos in a week. In these days of digital that might not seem a lot, but back then…
In many countries around the world it’s traditional to give a key as a present when someone turns 21. It’s a sign they’ve reached maturity and are now an adult. Famous people like sportsmen, film stars and successful residents are sometimes also given the ‘keys to the city’ to acknowledge their contributions to a particular…
On the 12th of March, 2021, Turkey’s national anthem the Istiklal March – the Independence March – turned one hundred years old. The Istiklal March is performed frequently in Turkey, at state and military events, on assorted national holidays and in all Turkish schools. If you’ve spent any time here at all you’ll have no…
In her latest novel, Blood Business, Nadel tackles the topic of illegal organ trafficking within the context of the enormous movement of displaced people around the world. Turkey currently hosts four million refugees and asylum seekers, the vast majority of them from Syria and the largest number living in Istanbul. Blood Business begins with a…
Turkey has a long and rich history easily seen in thousands of mosques, fountains, palaces and graveyards throughout the country. Library shelves groan under the weight of academic studies and research papers while internet sites and tourist guides abound, providing large swathes of information explaining important events and grand occasions. However within those places and…
Once upon a time, before the advent of television and cinema, Karagoz and Hacivat were superstars of the Turkish entertainment industry. If you’re an aficionado of Turkish miniseries I know you’re imaging handsome moustachioed men with dark flashing eyes strutting their stuff on screen. However Karagoz and Hacivat are puppets, and are the main players…
The name Mustafa Kemal Ataturk is known the length and breadth of Turkey and beyond. There are statues, memorials and monuments in his honour all over the place and even a street named after him in Tunis, the capital of Tunisia. One of the first places I ever visited related to Ataturk was the huge…