Istanbul, 2006
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The Other Side of the Bosporus
In 2006 I visited Istanbul for the first time.
I was struck by a number of things. That was the case because what I saw was the opposite of what I expected to find. I expected the western side of Istanbul to be quite mundane and the eastern part of the city to be less liberal.
By and large it happened to be a little different; I saw burquas in the western part of Istanbul and miniskirts on the other side of the Bosphorus - what a surprise! Later I understood that this wasn't so unlogical: the people that live in eastern Istanbul, a sort of outpost when looked at it from the east, are interested in moving towards 'our' western direction and will try to adapt to what they consider a western, modern look, whereas in the western side of Istanbul or in Istanbul as a whole, there are political and religious voices that say that Turkey should not westernize more than it has already done.
People with this conviction will not try to look westernized but rather stick to the world they know so well. Metropolitan Istanbul, like so many big cities in the world nowadays, is effectively an interesting mixture of many different lifestyles and many different levels of development.