There is a definite mystique associated with living by the Bosphorus and those who live in the villages along these waters refer to themselves as “Boğaz çoçukllar,†meaning children of the Bosphorus. They have a real sense of lived connection with this ever-changing body of water. As a long-time resident of the Bosphorus, I have managed to learn some of what the natives know. For one thing, here, Nature is regarded as a kind of school par excellence. On any given day, for example, I have only to look at my window at the sea and the sky to learn what the weather will be. In the summer, I can usually tell in the morning whether there will be thundershowers that day. In winter, I know when a big storm is coming, not only by the color of the waters, which change from one or another shade of blue to dark gray, or even black, and not only by the clouds gathering, but by the direction of the wind. The general name for wind is rüzgar; in archaic Turkish it was duval, but each particular wind has a different name. Samiel is a hot, dry wind. Then there is the wind from the southwest, the lodos, and this wind can be especially enervating. Yıldız is the name given to the north wind. Winter storms come on the wind from the northwest, the karayel and on the wind from the northeast, poyraz.
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