Türkiye Time with a little Greece

We really wanted to experience Turkey as it was the capital of the Ottoman Empire, it is a major port city, and we really didn’t know anything about the culture. We intentionally took a cruise ship that would allow us to see Turkey and then head to Greece.

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This was a fascinating cultural experience for me. We visited 2 cities, Istanbul and Kusadasi, where we had 2 female tour guides. It was very interesting to be in a country where there is significant cultural clashing taking place. Both of our tour guides were Muslim women, and both talked extensively about Mustafa Kemal Atatürk. I would almost say they were border-lined obsessed with him, but for good reason.

Atatürk was the first president of Turkey, after the Ottoman Empire’s fall in 1922, and is known as the “Father of the Turks” due to the revolutionary policies he put in place. For example, he wanted to unify and industrialize the country. He removed Islam as the Religion of the State, allowed women to leave the home independently, he abolished the sultanate and brought a Latin-based alphabet to the country. These were just some of the massive changes and improvements made by him.

There are HUGE flags and posters of him hanging everywhere. The ladies talked frequently about him and also discussed their blatant distastes for the current president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. I believe these two men would not have gotten along very well. Based on my experience visiting there, it may be difficult to visit if Erdoğan is re-elected in the coming years. It seems he is very interested in making Islam the religion of the country and forcing women back into isolation and abuse.

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The two ladies spoke openly about their concern of their rights and worry the more traditional religious East will be imposing on the more liberated West. Signs of this have been the following: changing the Hagia Sophia to a mosque from a museum in 2020 and charging the citizens for entry, opening the boarders of Syria and giving immediate citizenship so Erdoğan could count on their conservative votes, killing the country’s beloved street dogs (he has not done this is Istanbul yet, but our tour guide was concerned it was coming), and, last, he has sent the country into a very high inflationary state due to his poor economic policies. This is leading to a brain drain of the country as many doctors, scholars, and professionals have fled the country from the economical and political issues.

As we learned about the Sultans and the Ottoman Empire, I can very confidently say that Aladdin was WAAAAAYYYYY the FUCK off.

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Some fun facts per our tour guide: the average age of death of the Sultan’s harem of women (which included the Queen and the Sultan’s Mom) was around 30. This was because the women would frequently kill each other. It was basically the show survivor. Any women who became pregnant and had a boy was at high risk of attack. The Sultans did not care if the Queen was killed or not apparently. African slaves were turned into eunuchs’ to watch over the women. However, they weren’t allowed into the ladies chambers so they could not really protect them from other ladies. And the women were stuck together in small, cramped quarters that they were not allowed to leave, for life.

While that was the heavy part of experience, I will say everything else was amazingly beautiful. Everyone was very welcoming and polite. We had a lesson on how traditional Turkish rugs are made by hand. Then the boys rolled around on the rugs they were trying to sell us. I absolutely loved the silk blue rug Owen was rolling on in the bottom picture, but I couldn’t justify the $7k price tag.

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The history and culture is so rich. We saw the Hagia Sophia, which is literally falling apart. You can see me pushing one of the many leaning columns in the structure. The history of the Hagia Sophia is fascinating. I hope they can fix the structural issues soon before it’s too late. Then we saw the Blue Mosque, which was absolutely gorgeous.

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I highly recommend visiting Turkey and hiring a local guide. The private tours were fantastic as we could ask a ton of questions and avoid the crowds. Learning the history was my favorite part, and the people we interacted with were very kind and welcoming.