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It’s Tulip Time in Istanbul
ŞİMDİ İSTANBUL´DA LALE ZAMANI
ISTANBUL - Hürriyet Daily News
Currently, Istanbul’s gardens and outdoor venues are full of tulips thanks to the Tulip Festival. It is possible to see colorful tulips all around Istanbul’s Emirgan Korusu, the Blue Mosque, the Hidiv Kasrı and at Çamlıca.
Even though many people think of the tulip as a flower from the Netherlands, the tulip was originally brought to Anatolia from Central Asia by Turks migrating westward, and eventually to Istanbul when Turks took the city. Turks were cultivating tulips a thousand years ago in Central Asia. The tulips currently, once again, become the sign of spring months. In the history it is also associated with spring.
However, there are some controversies in the history of tulips. Even if Turks loved this flower so long ago, we have it today via Persia. It could be argued that the Turks brought the idea of cultivating tulips when they migrated through Persia to Anatolia, after all, tulips would travel easily as bulbs. For whatever reason, the Turks seem to have adopted the tulip as their favorite flower while the Persians chose the rose.
Early tulips and its history in Ottoman Empire times
Early tulips wouldn’t have quite resembled today’s tulips. They would have had more delicate, spiked petals in a limited number of colors. Today it is possible to find these older varieties in gardens and available through florists thanks to the work of botanists and horticulturists.
Not only the “looks” of early tulips but its meaning was also different in the past. In the Ottoman Empire, the period from 1718 to the rebellion of Patrona Halil in 1730 is known as the Tulip period.
This period saw developments in arts, culture and architecture. Generally the style of architecture and decoration became more elaborate, being influenced by the Baroque period in movement. A classic example is the Fountain of Ahmed III in front of Topkapı Palace in Istanbul. The architectural style is a fusion of classical Islamic elements with baroque European ones, making it into distinct Ottoman architecture of the 18th century.
The tulip was also praised in poetry and motifs used in paintings. One of the most celebrated Ottoman poets, Nedim achieved his greatest fame during the Tulip Era.
To this day in modern Turkey the tulip is still considered the embodiment of perfection and beauty.
Tulip causes economic crisis
A tulip bulb crisis that took place in 1637 is ranked in the 10 largest economic crises in history.
Tulip mania, sometimes called tulipomania, was a period in the Dutch Golden Age during which contract prices for bulbs of the recently introduced tulip reached extraordinarily high levels and then suddenly collapsed. At the peak of tulip mania, in February 1637, some single tulip bulbs sold for more than 10 times the annual income of a skilled craftsman. It is generally considered the first recorded speculative bubble, although some researchers have noted that the Kipper- und Wipperzeit episode in 1619–22, a Europe-wide chain of debasement of the metal content of coins to fund warfare, featured mania-like similarities to a bubble. The term "tulip mania" is now often used metaphorically to refer to any large economic bubble that leads to asset prices deviating from intrinsic values
NOTE : Such a beauty..
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