The Heartbeat of Istanbul’s Alleys

Istanbul Streets

Istanbul is a city of contrasts. Sometimes, walking through the streets of the European side, you think this city is infinite. Chaotically built houses—mostly with single entrances—stand shoulder to shoulder. A two-story house might sit right next to a seven-story building, creating a staggered staircase effect everywhere you look. Byzantine-era cobblestones and countless mini-markets are all squeezed into the narrow, three-meter gaps between buildings.

Istanbul’s morning starts stormily. Before the early prayer even begins, the smells of fresh buns and Turkish coffee drift through your window. All around, you hear the clatter of old metal shop shutters opening. Noisy kids run to school, shouting and hooting, while would-be Schumachers fly by in their cars—windows down, blasting the wail of some local singer. All this action takes place on a narrow street, barely three or four meters wide.

Breakfast for an Istanbulite is a whole tradition, usually happening right at the workplace. The essentials are tea, olives, boiled eggs, hot flatbread, cheese, tomatoes, cucumbers, honey, kaymak (clotted cream), and perhaps halva. If none of that is available, then fresh buns stuffed with olives and cheese will do. In short, this is just a fraction of what an Istanbul resident eats.

Only after this do the streets quiet down for about two hours. Kids are at school, wives are home cleaning, husbands are at work. Then, the local vendors go on the hunt, pushing carts laden with fruits, vegetables, sweets, and trinkets. Each one has a megaphone, announcing who is coming and what they are selling. Housewives lean out of windows and lower baskets with money; the sellers expertly fill them up. The housewives are happy they don’t have to go anywhere, and the merchants happily count their profits and move on.

Right behind the vendors come the trucks with gas canisters, their megaphones announcing clearly that the gas has arrived and it’s time to check your cylinders. Then comes lunch. Noisy children return from school, making even more racket. Amidst all this, waiters from canteens and cafes dash through the streets with trays, delivering food to shops. All this drama unfolds on a single, ordinary Istanbul street.

Sometimes, wandering these streets, they seem endless. Suddenly, you emerge onto the embankment, faced with a wide 8-lane highway. There, weaving between cars, are vendors selling water, newspapers, sunflower seeds, and odds and ends. You cross at the traffic light thinking, "God, finally—the waterfront, silence, I can enjoy some peace." But stepping onto the promenade, you realize there is no silence here either. An endless row of tea houses blasts music. Where can one find peace in this city? Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately, nowhere.

Do you think everything quiets down at night? You are deeply mistaken. Night or day, everything lives. If it gets quiet for even a minute, a street-cleaning truck will surely wake you up at 2 or 3 AM with its noise. If not that, then a couple of police cars with sirens. And if by some lucky chance neither of those happens, a sufferer with a phone in hand will inevitably stand under your window, loudly proving to his beloved how much he doesn’t love her, arguing with her for the hundredth time. And you lie there, listening to it all.

This is what an ordinary, endless, narrow street of Istanbul looks like.