Last week, I flew to Istanbul. I stayed at a spa where my wife had Turkish massages while I walked over 25,000 steps a day to see what was left of Constantinople.
My first stop was Hagia Sofia. This massive cathedral is a repository of Greek icons. You go up a colossal stone entryway until you reach the upper floor. It features mosaics of Constantine, Justinian, Theodora, and local potentates that you can see on the high walls and ceilings. Immensity of history and space float above the mosque below (the lower half was declared a mosque a few years ago by President Erdogan, though it functioned as one off and on since 1453). The distance from the floor to the domed ceiling is 175 feet.
To the north of the city, the old wall still stands, which protected the peninsula from invasion. The wall is fifteen feet thick and thirty feet high. It is in disrepair, but I walked along it for several hours past milling cats and tea houses. I came to Chora, the one intact church from the time of Constantinople. The museum part of Chora (the Greek side) is free to visit for now. It opened in May 2024 after years in an uncertain state.
Next door is Chora Café where I drew the church while demolishing a Greek omelet.
The Ottomans had eyed Constantinople, according to historian Judith Herrin, for centuries. Now the city is covered in mosques. They are as prevalent as mushrooms after a torrential rain. Weirdly, they all resemble Hagia Sofia with its domed roof.
Boat trips on the Bosphorus allude to the past. Whirling dervishes compete with harem style belly dancers with fake boobs, and there are fish dinners and Turkish coffee.
On the Asian side of Istanbul, young people shop at Boss and Armani outlets and bookstores line the student quarters. Fancy drinks such as matcha ice latte and fruit shakes can be had, but one can also buy pristine towels with arabesque patterns that allude to the Blue Mosque.
In the Grand Bazaar, a rabbit warren of bookstores clogs the zigzagging arteries. I met a blond Turkish woman of 54 years, who sold me books by Orhan Pamuk: his myth is greatly exaggerated, she says wryly, and she prefers Burke, Thomas Jefferson, and Wittgenstein. I ask her to explain the Armenian genocide of 1915 that purportedly killed about 1.5 million Armenians.
She said, “They were always provoking and wouldn’t be quiet and then they teamed up with Russia and killed Turks. They got what they deserved”.
She then asked an equally impolitic question.
“Why do Americans need arsenals of guns in their homes?”
“Jefferson said we needed them to kill rotten politicians”, I responded.
“People should respect government”, she said.
“Government should respect the People, according to Jefferson”, I replied.
She lit a cigarette. Turks smoke and they think it’s normal, but it gives me a headache.
“We smoke tobacco from Jefferson’s Virginia”, she said, while putting out the cigarette upon noting my horror.
I went back to the sleepy hotel. The concierge, a 23-year old, looked bored. He had been up with me all night before talking about everything.
“What about the Armenian genocide?” I asked.
“It’s just that airhead Kim Kardashian”, he said. “She lies. We never hurt any Armenians. All our history books agree”.
On the city's fantastic metro the following day, I sat next to a Polish scholar who lives in Istanbul. He said I shouldn’t ask about Armenians, but I already had.
He said, “It wasn’t like Auschwitz. The Armenians were rich and tried to topple the government. The Turks drove them into the desert and left them there without jobs or water and they died in massive numbers”.
A few Christian churches remain, but I couldn’t find any Christian clergy to talk with at the churches I visited. In 1900, 20% of Turkey was Christian. After the Armenians and the Assyrians and Greek Orthodox were eliminated or “exchanged”, the net amount of Christians in Turkey is now .02%.
