Istanbul—The City Between (I)

When you read books, or even nowadays you watch the television, what you get is the side presented to you from the person’s perspective and vantage. No knowledge is as good as personal experience of a place; its landscape and topography, interaction with people flesh and blood—their passion, values social chemistry, aspirations, faiths and humane […]

When you read books, or even nowadays you watch the television, what you get is the side presented to you from the person’s perspective and vantage. No knowledge is as good as personal experience of a place; its landscape and topography, interaction with people flesh and blood—their passion, values social chemistry, aspirations, faiths and humane cultures, including their virtues and vices, their love for their country and the very worth of their welcome and hospitality. All of these form the silences and the unspoken dimensions that are undiscoverable from cold text, no matter how eloquently and lucidly captured within the pages of the books. In school one had read and taught the history and geography of many a nation which, even now, however widely travelled one have been privileged to have been, have never been visited. The Great Lakes of America, the Niagara Falls shared between Canada and America, the snow cap of Iceland, and so on. These are landmarks that one had read and taught to students who come out with distinctions but about which, until you actually experience them, your knowledge is partial, imagined and incomplete.
These are some of the thoughts which tumble in my mind as I alighted at the Ataturk International Airport of Istanbul; an Airport known as a crucial link between the Far East and the Western world is, perhaps, the largest in Europe and certainly the best managed in the continent since 2010. What have one not read about this unique city, first settled some 6000 B.C? Conqueror of Europe and yet referred to, in its lowest crest-fallen moments, as ‘the Sick man of Europe, Istanbul is a city worth visiting, with many lessons for mankind and especially for nations seeking to develop and attain great national heights.   
The famous, historical city of Istanbul (formerly called Constantinople) is located at the heart of this ancient world. It is stunningly adorned with picaresque historical monuments, nature’s alluring and exquisite beauty and disarming splendour. More striking is its inimitable location between two continents, with the narrow ‘Bosphorus strait marking the border between the predominant Christian Europe and the dominantly Islamic Asia. With a population of over 15 million people, Istanbul’s climate is ideally clement and soothing. Its vegetation is rich and lush, endowed with aquatic splendour and bounteous watery presence, with an ‘unsurpassed coastline ‘which links the Bosphorus, the princes’ islands!, the Black Sea and the Sea of Marmara. The Bosphorus is a delight to behold, especially in the night through a boat ride, enjoying salivating culinary of assorted cuisines and tantalizing, world’s best belly dancers (especially DIDEM). It is simply a tourist wonder. We shall devote the critical attention of this brief travelogue to tourism, which the entire Istanbul largely huge population has lived upon, literally, and for which there is a lot for the this country to drink from. Cultural industry, through tourist mercantilism, has been a major revenue churning resource of this most beautiful city.  
Most history and archaeology students (not to talk of students of cultural studies) must be familiar with the geo-political and cultural importance of this city, which I was most delighted and honoured to have been enabled to visit by the organizers of the International Federation of the Reproduction Rights Organization (IFRRO) in my capacity as the Chairman of the affiliated Reproduction Rights Society of Nigeria (REPRONIG). Which other city in the world enjoyed or enjoys the special history of Istanbul? It is the only city in the world which has served as the capital of three Empires—Roman Empire, Byzantine Empire and the Ottoman-Istanbul. These Empires were ruled by about 120 Emperors and Sultans in the protracted period of 1600 years. All of them, cumulatively, left legacies and heritages of astounding monumental works from which, as we shall see, Istanbul built its tourist reputation. A night cruise, as I began to mention above, gives you an unforced education of some of the great sites that make Istanbul a world tourist destiny. Taking off from the calm waters of Golden Horn surrounding the city on the northern side, the sail takes you through the legendary Bosphorus (the city was first founded by the shoes of the Golden Horn) where you are confronted with the wondrous picturesque view of Istanbul literally cruising with you.
Then, the tourist has begun to drift with the palpably designed experience of the great advantage that the city of Istanbul has taken of nature’s endowment from which the city generates huge revenues. The cruise, which lasts for five hours (from 7pm to midnight), takes you through, and reveals the Galata District across the Golden Horn from the ancient peninsula. On the other side of the Bosphorus are Uskudar and Kadikoy. What strikes a creative mind about this topography and its deployment is the inimitable and gracious mix of nature and nurture—the way man has converted nature’s endowment to great human economic and social advantage—the like that we continue to yearn for on our land with even greater gift of nature and human capacity to fulfil the dream of fulfilment as one of world’s greatest spaces to inhabit.. Local travel agencies, who by the way, right from the Airport take complete care of your accommodation, book your  room, fetch you there, organize your travels, including tour travels, enable short-term visitors to behold the city’s main locations and sites of interest—especially the historic Hagia Sophia Museum, the Suleymaniye Mosque, the Blue Mosque, the Hippodrome, the Topkapi Place and the Covered Bazaar, with its very friendly environment swooped upon by innumerable hospitality places of hotels, restaurants and parks.
Other places of classic tourist welcome are the Roman, Byzantine and Turkish sites inside the city as well as along the Asian and European shores of the Bosphorus, the Roman city walls and the Dolmabahee Palace which is counted as the richest palace in the world.  So, you are not going to visit hallowed relics of ancient memories, but delightful pleasurable living sites enthusing old grandeur and contemporary leisure. This is tourism at its most purposeful and desirable.
Is Istanbul an Elysium? Paradise of sorts? Far from it. Wait.