Some of us can overcome certain obstacles and exercise tolerance, nothing is perfect in life, hey, why not go with the flow, I also had to get used to the squat toilets in Turkey.

Squat toilets can be a shock to people who are used to a sit-down type toilet, and may be difficult to use for the unwary, especially if on trains or ships.

The many battles for Turkey’s soul
Turkey’s elections this summer have put both presidency and government into the hands of the post-Islamist AKP. The secularist old guard fears this unprecedented concentration of power and the idea that the AKP, which has handled economic difficulties gallantly, has become the natural party of government.

http://mondediplo.com/2007/09/04turkey

The vast majority of visitors to İstanbul pay little heed to the city's most extensive Byzantine remains -- the land walls. These formidable fortifications were built in the fifth century A.D. to protect Constantinople, the booming capital of the mighty Byzantine Empire, from attack by armies approaching from the west.

The walls did their job -- and were only breached twice: once by the Crusaders in the 13th century and then by Mehmet the Conqueror in 1453. Today's invaders, tourists, pass through at will. Most may idly glance at the walls as they make their way into the city from Atatürk Airport by metro, tram, bus or taxi. But very few, besotted as they are by the wonders of Sultanahmet or the fleshpots of Beyoğlu, see the walls again until they are whisked through them on their way back to the airport. This is a great shame. Stretching for around six kilometers from the Sea of Marmara in the south to the Golden Horn in the north, 13 meters high and five meters thick, pierced by 10 major gateways and surmounted by numerous watchtowers, they are a superb example of Byzantine defensive architecture.

The best way to appreciate the walls is on foot. Those of you who are good at math will have already worked out that at an average walking speed of three kilometers per hour it will only take a couple of hours to walk their six-kilometer length. Think again! To get the most out of the experience, it's best to allow a whole day. There is much to be seen en route -- and a great lunch stop. The easiest way to get to the start point is by suburban train from Sirkeci or Cankurtan stations to Yedikule. From the station, cross the busy coast road to the Marble Tower, situated right on the Sea of Marmara. This 30-meter high structure, its base clad with marble, is thought to have been a seaside retreat for Byzantine emperors. Now head north and inland, passing the Gate of Jesus, so-called because the letters "XP," inscribed in the stonework above the entrance, form the first two letters of Christ's name. Then re-cross the coastal highway and railway line and continue north towards Yedikule.

http://www.sundayszaman.com/sunday/detaylar.do?load=detay&link=3518

A major earthquake is likely to strike Istanbul over the next 30 years, killing thousands of people and collapsing as many as 50,000 buildings because of vulnerable construction, according to a team of engineers and scientists who recommend immediate action to protect the city.
"Based on recent seismic activity and the history of the North Anatolian fault south of Istanbul, there is definitely a very high probability that the city will be hit with a major earthquake over the next three decades," said Mete Sozen, Purdue's Kettelhut Distinguished Professor of Civil Engineering. "Istanbul is the economic and cultural center of Turkey, and there must be an organized effort to protect the city and its people."

Ersin Arioglu, a member of the Turkish parliament and an engineer; Polat Gulkan, an engineer and faculty member at Middle East Technical University; and Sozen provided recommendations to the Turkish government during their November presentation.

Upgrading buildings, bridges and other elements of the city's infrastructure would cost billions of dollars, and the Turkish government has begun preliminary steps to earmark funds for the project, Sozen said.

"We were gratified by the prime minister's understanding of the threat and his immediate call for effective action," he said.

Istanbul's population has grown from around 2 million in the mid-1960s to more than 12 million today. Many of the city's approximately 1 million structures do not conform to modern building standards. Multistory buildings stand side-by-side like an uneven patchwork, and floors often do not line up from one building to another, a flaw that increases the susceptibility of collapse during an earthquake. Builders often add stories to buildings that were not originally designed for the additional floors, also heightening the potential for collapse, said Sozen, an expert in designing reinforced-concrete structures to resist earthquakes.

About 12 percent of the city's buildings are "commercial mixed," meaning the ground floor is commercial and the upper floors are residential.

"These types of buildings are especially vulnerable to collapse because they have few walls on the ground floor to resist earthquakes," Sozen said.

City streets also should be widened because many are too narrow and would be obstructed with debris during a major quake, making emergency response difficult, if not impossible, he said.

The team of a dozen engineers and earth scientists reviewed seismic data and historical information during a five-day series of meetings in June, a gathering funded by the National Science Foundation and the Japan International Cooperation Agency. The group concluded that an earthquake with a magnitude of 6.8 to 7.5 is likely to strike the city within the next three decades.

"We think such an event could result in the collapse of approximately 50,000 buildings and the deaths of thousands of people," said Santiago Pujol, an assistant professor of civil engineering at Purdue.

The team recommended that Turkey create a central earthquake authority to oversee efforts to safeguard the city.

Buildings in earthquake-prone parts of the world should be constructed to endure the lateral forces exerted by the ground motion caused by temblors, Sozen said, and the likelihood of earthquakes makes Istanbul a poor location for certain kinds of construction.

A common flaw seen in buildings is referred to as "captive columns," where a wall is attached to a column but does not extend as high as the column, leaving a portion of the column unsupported.

"As a result, the unsupported portion of the column is very rigid and brittle so that earthquake forces concentrate too much on the column, causing it to break," Sozen said.

After one column breaks, the weight of the building is then concentrated on the remaining columns, causing them to break in succession and resulting in collapse.

Fifteen major earthquakes have hit Istanbul since the fourth century, with the last major quake in 1894. Two earthquakes struck about 80 kilometers (or 48 miles) east of the city in 1999, killing about 20,000 people in areas less populated than Istanbul and having similar types of buildings.

The North Anatolian fault is about 1,000 kilometers (600 miles) long and is located about 15 kilometers (9 miles) south of Istanbul at its closest proximity.

"It's like California's San Andreas fault, but it has been more active in the 20th century," said Ayhan Irfanoglu, an assistant professor of civil engineering at Purdue.

About two-thirds of the city's buildings are closest to the fault line in the southern part of Istanbul.

Protecting the city would require identifying the most vulnerable buildings and elements of the city's infrastructure, such as bridges and water-delivery systems, and upgrading all critical structures, such as schools and hospitals, to provide earthquake resistance. The engineers recommended that school buildings and hospitals be given priority for upgrading.

"There will be tremendous demands on the emergency response and hospital systems," Irfanoglu said. "We need to make sure that hospitals remain operational. Well-performing school buildings, besides the crucial fact that they would assure the safety of kids, could be used as shelters and emergency response centers after the earthquake."

Engineers also recommended that Turkey develop a communications system for emergency personnel that would function properly during such a catastrophe. Another critical need is to develop an educational program for construction and engineering professionals detailing how to retrofit and properly design buildings to resist the stresses imposed by earthquakes.
ScienceDaily (Jan. 9, 2006)

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/09/060908171606.htm

Incredible!
http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showthread.php?t=504351

Is there a sensible way to escape from the damage caused through fake restorations to the integrity of the officially protected conservation area of Kaleiçi, Antalya, an area now beginning to look like an architect’s toytown rather than any conservation area?

Kaleiçi, an ancient walled city within Antalya, has, after more than 2,000 years of continuous habitation and a vital role as the port of İskenderun, lost its reason for being.

Kaleiçi has ceased to function as a major port city, a home for merchants, traders, for depots and warehouses, and for the captains of ships that sailed the silver sea, a decline that was, if not caused by the construction of a railroad route through the Cilician Gates and the rise of the port of Mersin, certainly inevitable after the establishment of a new deep-water harbor in Antalya in the 1970s,

Kaleiçi is an area that only 20 years ago retained numerous examples of traditional architecture, but it has in recent years undergone a process that can perhaps best be described as “cultural genocide,” through the systematic destruction of the cultural and architectural heritage of what was until the 18th century the most important Mediterranean port city on the southern coast of Anatolia.

The story of Kaleiçi goes like this. Traditional buildings in the old city caught fire and burned down, or they were demolished as the start of so-called restorations, or they were left abandoned and pulled down so speculators, developers, so-called restoration architects, concrete pourers and cladding merchants could profit. In this way, fake restorations have mushroomed across the face of the old city.

Kaleiçi is now an area that has, to a considerable extent, lost its architectural integrity, and with that integrity, its unique flavor. Today, with only a few exceptions, Kaleiçi is little more than a mishmash of fake restorations, of ridiculous fake facades lacking all integrity, and of completely new buildings that are, in their form, materials or methods of construction, entirely lacking in even a perfunctory relationship with the architectural heritage of the ancient city. As a result, today the remaining un-restored buildings look oddly out of place, sandwiched amongst a host of recent fake restorations.

Kaleiçi is being destroyed not by enemy action, as in the Balkans in the 1990s, but by something that is far worse. There has been an astonishing lack of respect for, knowledge of, or care for traditional architecture, and a systematic lack of respect for the past, for culture and civilization, and for the historical memory embodied in the infrastructure of the place. It is an ignorance and indifference that is truly incredible in the 21st century.

The officials that have been appointed to protect this heritage seem to be the same ones that have permitted and authorized the large-scale destruction of the architectural heritage of Kaleiçi by allowing for the erection of new modern buildings that completely reject the traditional methods of construction, traditions that stretch back through more than 2,000 years of continuous habitation in Kaleiçi, and who have, thereby, wittingly or unwittingly, aided and abetted in the destruction of the architectural fabric of the historic city, a destruction that continues today.



Toytown is rising up instead of Kaleiçi

Many of the recent so-called restorations carried out in Kaleiçi consist primarily of the application of an exterior stone cladding over a concrete skeletal frame construction. Sometimes these concrete constructions are decorated with wooden slats tacked onto the exterior walls to give the impression of authenticity, but these applied slats lack any genuine structural function as earthquake shock absorbers because they do not pass through the body of the wall to form the necessary shock-absorbing isolation core. Those restored buildings that have retained the original genuine wooden “hatıl” generally lack the protective cover of painted plaster that was traditionally applied over the rubble and timber walls to prevent the wood in the walls, the “hatıl,” from rotting over time.

What is in the minds of these architects, permit providers and building inspectors? The area of Kaleiçi is supposed to be a conservation area, so the question needs to be asked, exactly which buildings have been properly conserved in Kaleiçi? Tap a painted column in Kaleiçi and you will find it is made of painted concrete, not of wood. Tap a wall, and you will realize it is not made of rubble and mortar, brick, or stone, but is instead made of poured, reinforced concrete and tile-brick blocks, sometimes covered with a thin “authentic” cladding. The walls of the upper floors are not of lath and plaster, but are instead walls of concrete breezeblocks and tile-brick blocks. The structural construction is of reinforced concrete, not of authentic rubble walling with wooden columns supporting the roof. The new tile-work on the roofs is quite different from the traditional roof tiles. Where is the conservation in this conservation area?

“Toytown” is rising up instead of Kaleiçi. Toytown in Kaleiçi is an entirely newly fabricated motif, not attached to any long-established building tradition, not originating from the skilled hand, heart and years of experience of trained craftsmen or master builders. If you take the trouble to look, you will find that each authentic structure in Kaleiçi is an individual building, a product of traditions of craftsmanship, quite different from the buildings of modern Toytown.

Toytown is doubtless very profitable to build, which is, of course, why these buildings are built the way they are, but Toytown also tells every single person, Turkish or foreigner, who walks through Kaleiçi, that this is not a conservation area, not a restoration projection, not Kaleiçi. This is Toytown, which is something altogether different.

This area may officially be called a conservation area, but anyone can see clearly that the responsible people have no idea, or perhaps they have no desire, to preserve and practice the conservation of heritage, no wish to preserve an area of great historic importance and character.

The question needs to be raised. Why has an area such as Kaleiçi been officially designated a conservation area, if it is not in fact being conserved? That is, conserved in any reasoned understanding of the meaning of the word. Is the word “conservation” a word that has been entirely emptied of all commonly accepted meaning as it applies to Kaleiçi?

The answer is, sadly, yes. The use of the words conservation and preservation should indicate at least some respect for what was made and constructed in the past, for our human heritage, a heritage to be passed on to our successors intact.

Is the word restoration, like conservation, just an empty slogan to increase the prices being charged, or does the word restoration have its generally accepted meaning, a legally enforceable meaning in many countries, a word meaning to return what is to be restored to the state it was formerly in, that is, using the same forms, materials and methods of construction as those that were formerly employed?

Kaleiçi is an area that has been newly paved, and the new pavement slabs are pale in color and unpleasantly blinding in the bright white summer sunlight. Kaleiçi has been paved, no doubt at great expense, but the streets are already full of freshly cracked and broken slabs, and there appears to be no proper rainwater runoff system. The thick flatbed of reinforced concrete that lies beneath the pavement surface will doubtless over time direct the rainwater into the walls of houses on either side of the lanes and road, as most of the old roadside canals draining the area have now been filled in. This is a place where cars drive through narrow winding streets, pressing pedestrians against walls, or are parked in the narrow streets, forcing pedestrians to thread their way through them, creating a scene like some wild car-parking area or sleazy Toytown tourist trap.

The solution may be for the state to purchase this entire area before it is completely destroyed, and to turn the entire area of Kaleiçi into an archaeological-historical park, retaining those structures that have retained their architectural integrity, and demolishing and properly excavating the areas now covered by Toytown, thus fully exposing the history of the city of Antalya from the past two millennia. The long-term future of cultural tourism in Turkey may require a dramatic initiative such as this, rather than more of the same cheap architectural fakery and wishful thinking, a Nero fiddling while Rome burns and Toytown rises, if Turkey is to retain market share in an increasingly competitive international tourism sector.

The archaeological history of this area, a record stretching back through more than two millennia of continuous habitation of this port city, from the Ottoman centuries, the Beylik period and the Cypriot Lusignan conquest and occupation, to the Seljuk and Byzantine periods and the occupations under the Abbasid Caliph's naval forces, to the Roman and Hellenistic periods, the levels of destruction caused by conquests, fires and earthquakes, has been explored to date in only an extremely fragmentary fashion. Rescue excavations, supervised by the staff of the Antalya Museum, are conducted when ancient remains are found in the course of excavating building foundations and during the course of waste water and other canalization works, including the recent and ongoing Vakıf excavations at the site of the Basilical Church of Eisodia tes Panagias-Hagia Eirene, of the Lusignan 14th century Antalya Catholic Cathedral, and of the later Cuma-Korkut-Kesık Minare Mosque.

If this proposal were implemented, the future of the remaining authentic buildings in Kaleiçi would be secured. Otherwise, if the pattern of destruction of the past 20 years continues, there will soon be almost nothing left above ground of this historic heritage. Kaleiçi could, if properly excavated and displayed in a modern, informative manner, become a magnet for international cultural tourism, an Ephesus or Pompeii in the heart of the modern city of Antalya. It would be a place of wonder, of shared discovery and understanding, that would bring Kaleiçi, with its international connections, its potteries, glass works and metal works, gardens, and layers upon layers of buildings, back to life. The old city would have a reason for being, a function again, and it would be a source of employment and revenue.

Wednesday, May 28, 2008

T. Mikail P. Duggan
ANTALYA - Turkish Daily News

Thank you so much for your previous information, about the song GARIPLER,Erol. Too bad that I did not have your information with me while searching for this particular CD in Istanbul. I finally gave up the search.

What an insight!!

http://www.skyscraperlife.com/turkish-infrastructure-technology/770-marmaray-worlds-biggest-transportation-project.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marmaray



First in Turkish:

http://www.ntvmsnbc.com/news/416993.asp

Treasure dig threatens Bosphorus rail link

It's been called the project of the century: a mission to connect two continents with a $2.6bn rail-tunnel running deep beneath the Bosphorus Straits.

The idea of linking the two sides of Istanbul underwater was first dreamt of by Sultan Abdul Mecit 150 years ago.


Now that Ottoman dream is finally being realised.

But the modern version of that vision has hit a historical stumbling block.

Istanbul archaeologists have uncovered a 4th-Century port at the site where engineers plan to build a 21st-Century railway hub. The Marmaray project cannot even begin work in the area until excavations are complete.

Out in the middle of the Straits, marine engineers are now working day and night to compensate in advance for any delays. Boring beneath the waves, they are preparing the ground for the deepest tunnel of its kind.

"We are strengthening the soil by injecting concrete into the seabed so we can place the tubes easily and take measures to counter earthquakes in the area," an engineer explains, shouting above the din of an enormous drill working non-stop behind him.


"It's true I lose sleep over this. I worry we won't make it on time"
Haluk Ozman, Marmaray Project Manager

Parts of the Marmaray tunnel will eventually run just 6km (3.7 miles) from the active North Anatolian fault line.

"This is the best way to link the European and Asian sides of Istanbul. There is no space for a third bridge," he argues.

The Istanbul authorities hope the Marmaray project will ease congestion in a sprawling and increasingly overcrowded city. The rail link should carry well over a million passengers a day, significantly reducing boat traffic on the Bosphorus and car congestion on land.

But the railway was supposed to be running by 2010. Now its managers are not so sure.

Ancient port

Yenikapi on the European side of the city was selected to house a state-of-the-art train station. But when shanty homes were cleared from the site, archaeologists uncovered treasures beneath of a kind never before discovered here.

Just a few metres below ground, they found an ancient port of Constantinople - named in historical records as the Eleutherios harbour, one of the busiest of Byzantium.

"We've found 43m of the pier so far," chief archaeologist Metin Gokcay explains, pointing to a line of wooden stakes emerging from a green pool of water. He says the Marmaray site has yielded the most exciting finds of his long career.

"We believe there used to be a platform on those sticks - down there is where the horses were unloaded."

"We've also found lots of things that tell us about the daily life of the city in the 4th Century," Mr Gokcay enthuses, standing close to a tunnel he suspects was an ancient escape route.

"We found leather sandals, for example, with strings through the toes and around a thousand candle-holders and hairbrushes. I've done many digs in Istanbul, but there are many things here I've never seen before."

As well as the stone remains of the harbour itself, Mr Gokcay and his team have uncovered perfectly preserved ancient anchors and lengths of rope. Dozens of men are still scrubbing the mud of centuries from hundreds of crates of artefacts, for assessment.

But perhaps the site's most treasured find is stored beneath a large protective tent.

Inside, dozens of jets spray water to preserve a wooden boat that is more 1,000 years old. Its base, about 10m long, was discovered intact beneath what was once the sea.

The dig has uncovered eight boats in total - another first for Istanbul - and archaeologists believe there are more to come.

It's a dream discovery for them, but a nightmare for the Marmaray management.

"It's true I lose sleep over this. I worry we won't make it on time," admits Marmaray Project Manager Haluk Ozmen. He says the dig is only delaying work at the Yenikapi site for now, but warns it will soon affect the entire project.

"The dig is the only thing that can delay the Marmaray project. That's why we're working 24 hours a day to meet our deadline. Everything is in the hands of the archaeologists now."

Engrossed in their task, those archaeologists refuse to be rushed by commercial concerns. Their work was scheduled to finish four months ago, but they now reject all talk of deadlines.

"The Marmaray team cannot spread their cement or tunnel any deeper here until we finish," states a determined Mr Gokcay. "They have to wait for us. And I will continue my work here until the last artefact made by human hands is found. It's impossible to accept anything else."

In addition to the Eleutherios harbour, the dig teams have exposed a long section of the city wall from the days of Constantine I - the first time the wall has ever been uncovered.

At a site as rich as this, there's no telling what else could turn up.
BBC news, two yrs. ago

A Look From Turkey’s East To The World
BERIL DEDEOGLU b.dedeoglu@todayszaman.com
As is the case for most countries, during the electoral process the interest of the greater public in external developments declines.
Nevertheless, this lack of interest is larger in politicians compared to ordinary people, because an important part of the population pursues their lives in connection with other countries and they define themselves according to external developments. Several regions in Turkey can set an example for this fact, but Van and Dogubeyazit, which are the extreme eastern points of the nation, prove what they say about Turkey: in order to understand Turkey, you should go to the provinces.

The eastern Anatolian town of Van is a city of poplars. It’s an important center with its historical background and its natural beauty forged by mountains and lakes. The region is marked by many civilizations from the Urartians to the Ottomans and it has astonishing social diversity. Kurds, Azeris, Farsis, Arabs, Turkmens, they all live side by side; Hanefis, Alevis and Shafiis share the same city. The city’s main economic resource is the trade from the neighboring countries, even if everyone claims that agriculture and stock-breeding are the main activities. That’s why foreign countries have vital importance for Van. The truck and bus circulation increases near the Iranian border, showing that the region is the crossing point and the transfer center for Middle Eastern peoples. Dogubeyazit’s markets, named after Iran, Pakistan and Syria, indicate commerce’s importance. For the local people Iran’s nuclear activities, the European and US position towards Tehran or the name of the Iranian president have no importance at all. What is imperative is not to have a development that would obstruct commercial transactions, such as a war in Iran, Syria, Iraq, Pakistan or even in Russia.

This is exactly what Jean Monnet has said about Europe and what Karl Deutsch emphasized in his “security community” and “social communication” theories. According to these, societies with historical, ethnic and religious ties establish trade relations and communication more easily than others and these links strengthen interactions between societies. Some sort of interdependence is thus created. The interdependence increases the level of security and thus reduces the risk of armed conflict. This approach was formulated according to the European experience and its practical result is the European Union. Nevertheless, this theory is viable in Turkey’s border towns too. In eastern Turkey merchants care about the end of the Iraqi civil war more than the presence of the American troops; they don’t want to see a destabilized Syria; they are worried about a US embargo against Iran and they don’t think that a Turkish military operation in northern Iraq would be wise. In brief, the vast majority of the inhabitants are not influenced by the electoral rhetoric and global power’s attitudes.

Another example of the incompatibility between political calculations and social demands is set by the polemic about Van’s Akhtamar church. On the official road signs there is an insistence on the use of “Akdamar” orthography. But the excursion boats to the church’s isle prefer to use its original name. The local people are very religious, however they criticize the absence of the cross and the bell on the restored church. They even stress that religious tourism could be stimulated if the building was used as a church and not only as a museum. Apparently local people don’t think that there is a connection between this building and the Armenian issue, piety nor the foreign powers.
http://armenians-1915.blogspot.com/2007/07/1807-media-scanner-10-july-2007.html

You are right, Lady in Red, German and American Pretzels are beneath the wonderful tasting Simit. I would walk a thousand miles to eat Simit again.