Kumbaraci is the main street of Tophane, a neighborhood of Beyoglu in Istanbul. The street links the touristic and commercial area of Istiklal on the top, to the Bosphorus shore on the bottom. Kumbaraci is one of the last streets in the area that has not been entirely gentrified yet and where new coffee shops and design studios pop up between local delis and traditional craftsmen’s workshops. Ayça runs a small second hand shop on the bottom of the street, where she also lives. A talk about neighbours, Gezi-Park, the president and stolen dogs.
Ayça Odabasi: Again these shoutings outside…There are so many weird people around here these days. Drug addicts. I don’t know if it’s the cold weather or what.
Noha Mokhtar: Drug addicts in Tophane?
A: Yeah. I noticed it these season. A lot of drug addicts. Actually 20 years ago this was a harbor area with all the drug traffic. Tophane was known for being the main destination for drugs, it was really dangerous around here. I heard that you would see a head cut and thrown in the garbage… you know this kind of mafia drug dealers. I guess every big city has this, here in Istanbul it was Tophane.
N: You heard that from people who live here?
A: Yeah. But I remember even 7 years ago when I first moved here, the streets were really dark and pickpockets would hide waiting for you. But now it’s changing of course. Kumbaraci where I live is the main street between Istiklal and the Bosphorus down in Tophane. Istiklal has always been a touristic street and the whole area is gentrifying, but in my street it takes more time. Kumbaraci is special because it has all these «bakkals» or delis run by people from East Turkey. All of them are run by families with five or six brothers and they all hang out together in these shops. I live right in front of that deli and bakery and there is always this group of men by my house.
N: True, there are only men hanging out in this street.
A: Yeah, for example the guy of this deli, he was here since I moved in. I know that he has five brothers and five sisters. In the last six years I’ve only seen guys watching the shop but never seen any of his sisters. I just saw his mom getting something from the shop once. This means these women never go out… Isn’t that weird?
N: The women use the basket they put down with a rope from their window.
A: True, but the family I am talking about lives a block away, not in this street. I know because I used to be friend with them.
N: But you are not anymore?
A: No, not anymore. First when I moved here, I thought I wanted to get accepted by this community the way I did with my neighbors in the ghetto where I used to live in Brooklyn. I am not saying it’s less dangerous or that less crimes happen, but here there is no space for women. That’s the main difference between the Puerto rican area where I lived in New York and here. It’s not about crime with guns here, it’s mostly macho or harsh in the everyday life as a woman. In the surface it looks like a happy street, but actually when you are a woman, specially if you are not covered… I didn’t realize when I first arrived, because at the beginning they were curious about me and they were smiling at me. But once they see that you are not the muslim woman they have in mind, they turn to be impolite with you. And also I am a special case: I am married to a foreigner.
N: This makes you a special case?
A: Yeah… I mean even regular Turkish friends of mine who live with their boyfriend are special cases for them, or if you live with a flatmate. They don’t accept this way of living together if you are not really a couple. This is one of the neighborhoods, where these social codes are still very strong.
N: So why did you move here?
A: I wanted to live in Taksim, because I was opening a gallery two blocks away. And we found an entire house, which is so hard to find. A two-floor house with a belt factory in the basement. We renovated it, we spent a lot of money in it, because it was completely empty. I couldn’t buy it so I just rent it, but rents in this city became so expensive, don’t you think?
N: I have no idea. We pay 600 Euros for a three-bedroom flat.
A: It’s not that bad. It’s what people pay now in this side of town. ?
N: You mean what foreign people pay?
A: Not only foreigners, but also newcomers pay around that. It became really expensive. But I still like Beyoglu, because most of the buildings here are historical, they can’t be destroyed… I mean they can, but it s not like in these places where all the buildings are knocked down to be replaced by new ugly constructions like in the Asian side where I grew up… It’s a constant construction site. It’s unbelievable. It wasn’t like that before, but now in 30-35 years it became so crowded. You could not believe the change. It’s insane. We had a garden, trees, people didn’t have that much cars. None of my neighbors had cars, maybe only two people in the building. Now everyone has two cars, everyone wants a garage so they concreted the whole ground. All the garden areas were transformed into parking lots. It’s really depressing actually. That’s why I prefer Beyoglu even if there is no park, at least the buildings are not that tall.
N: Well, there is Gezi Park…
A: Yeah but they wanted to get rid of that park and people protested because they needed a public space. You know since Erdogan came to power 12-13 years ago, he just got rid of all the public spaces. That was the big problem with him, he was really money greedy. I am not saying all presidents were ever good, but Erdogan’s government specially is very money-driven. He was a very poor guy and now he’s one of the richest persons in Turkey. Because he stole everything… I am not sure if this should be written down…
N: I mean everyone knows that.
A: Yeah… First Erdogan was the mayor of Istanbul, then he worked his way to prime minister, now he’s the president. Economically, Turkey blew so people are thankful to him. It’s weird, because the economic boom was gonna happen at the end anyway in a country were everyone is young. Somehow when European economy went down, Turkish economy went up… So people were thinking it was thanks to Erdogan.
N: These small shop owners in Kumbaraci street, they support him you told me. This seems a paradox if you see the number of shopping malls he builds…
A: They do specially support Erdogan in this neighborhood, because Erodgan’s wife is from Siirt, the same village where they are from. All people from this street are from Siirt or Bitlis, two villages in the East of Turkey. Before, Greeks and Armenians where living here, but now in Tophane almost all the people are from Anatolia. So when Erdogan came to power, people believed in him, because he was saying things like «You are poor, I am poor» or «I am a Beyoglu kid»… a bit like Obama being black. But it was the first time that these people identified with a president who didn’t only care for the elite. Before him, turkey was a very elitist society. So automatically people identified with him and even I did. I didn’t care about the religion aspect back then, I was just looking at what he did for social security and technology. But then I felt that religion became more and more aggressive in the last years. Take for example the mosques, five times a day the loudspeakers became so loud! It wasn’t like this before.
N: You mean the volume of the call to prayer has been increased?
A: Yeah. It became louder and louder and Erdogan build so many mosques! He didn’t invest anything in schools, he invested everything in mosques and now we have an excessive amount of them… Here for example there are so many mosques I can count them right here within 200 meters there are six or seven I can think of.
N: So the religious aspect came later?
A: Of course it showed itself later, in the last two or three years. At first he was talking about Kurdish rights, constitutional changes. He acted like he is the one who talks about things, but these things also happened because it was time to talk about them. Europe started pressuring about the genocide, things happen with a course you know. Somebody had to say something, but I can’t really give him any credit. And the kind of people who never believed in him, upper-middle class people, like my parents, they just want to believe in Atatürk and nothing else. But that’s a case in itself, let’s not talk about this.
N: All the issues and debates in Turkey today are so strongly related to the history of the country…
A: True. Everything is so deeply rooted. We never had a president who was not corrupted, never a single one that was semi-ok. Erdogan is constantly lying to everyone, showing different faces… And he talks a lot… Watch television! It’s unbelievable he is always on television. He is a television maniac, and he is always talking like a preacher. He is always preaching people. That’s the best method for ignorant people to make them feel guilty. In this neighborhood, there are people who are illiterate and other who barely read. If you noticed, none of the delis in this street sell newspaper. I am really alarmed. Living in the middle of the city and you cant‘ buy newspapers. This is scary.
N: I heard that during Gezi, the police forced the protesters to come down Kumbaraci street, because they knew that the people here were supporters of the conservative AK Party…
A: Yeah. The people in this neighborhood worked with the police. There are a lot of cameras here. Because of the Italian Embassy, the Italian High School, the French Lycée, the synagogue, it’s an area that is monitored. So during the Gezi protests, the municipality turned the street lights off in Kumbaraci, because they knew that something might happen and that people in this street would take care of that, you know what I mean. So in a way, cops gave an assignment to people.
N: So they just turned the lights off?
A: Yeah so they could act and the cameras would not record it. I saw from my window how they attacked people. I would call my friend to ask what to do and they would say «we are following on twitter, you are not supposed to go out». And the bakery guy across of my house… He had all these men waiting inside of his shop with wooden sticks. Once he pointed to my house shouting «we are gonna burn this house» to intimidate me. «I know she is inside getting on her computer.»
N: Even after the Gezi events you insisted living and having your second-hand shop in this street?
A: Yeah, because at some point all these people will have to leave. Gentrification will push them out, they will not afford to stay here with their small shops. Kumbaraci is the last street of the area that has not been entirely gentrified yet. This is also why I stay here, to make it happen.
N: So do you think that Tophane will become similar to Cihangir, the adjoining neighborhood that looks like Kreuzberg?
A: No it’s not gonna become like Cihangir. It’s gonna be more like Sultanahmet, chic and touristic. They are opening apparts and boutique-hotels. Big constructions are planned on the shore, «Galata Port» shops on the pier. Very cheesy. At this point I will have to leave too. By the way, do you remember that dog that I liked a lot, the one that was always sleeping here outside?
N: The old shepherd?
A: He’s not old. The brown dog, the one that is clumsy… They kidnapped him one week ago. It was the dog of the guy who lives upstairs, he’s very sad. He does not come out anymore.
N: Who stole it?
A: There are always trouble people around here. They stole that dog. It’s so sad. You know he was always next to that shop where they sell oranges on the corner of that street. When he was not sleeping in front of the store, he used to walk around and kill cats.
N: Maybe this is the reason why he has been kidnapped?
A: No. These people who? are nice, but I know that they have some problems with other people. I heard some gun shots once in their place about a month ago. So, maybe it’s some story related to this, but I can’t really ask, he didn’t want to talk about it. It must be important. I hope the dog didn’t get tortured. He was so cute, like a little bear, brown and big. I am gonna get my own dog, but I am waiting for my cats to die. I can’t get cats anymore, I have an awful allergy. I want a big puffy dog, but I want to get a street dog. I will get it when I move from here to a house with a garden in one year. Otherwise life won’t pass, I need a garden and a dog.