The one who covered 39 km in Istanbul in a single day is me. Met my mom for the first time since COVID. Very happy! And for her, it was even the first trip abroad.
Today’s my last day here, half of which I need to spend working. So I’ll jot down some impressions. I’m sure most of you have been here, but still, a refresher.
The first unusual thing — everyone smokes a lot. I haven’t seen so many people smoking cigarettes (especially girls and women) in ten years.
You can’t cross the road where there’s a fence. Although if a crowd does it, it’s okay. Trams and taxis assume a pedestrian would generally prefer to live, so it’s in their interest to leap aside in time. Taxi drivers seem to feel the dimensions of their car down to the millimeter. For comparison, when I cycle on a (narrow for us) road in the States, a queue forms behind me, even though there’s space for 2.5 cars in width beside me.
There are a lot of men everywhere. In my hotel, for instance, young guys do the room cleaning. In restaurants, it’s also mostly guys, both in service and cooking. On the streets, the male to female ratio looks about three to one.
The seagulls scream differently than I’m used to. Sometimes their cry resembles a human scream.
Oddly, people don’t play backgammon or chess on the streets here. I don’t know if it’s a Turkish characteristic or just the times.
Everyone knows about the cats, but for some reason, during this visit, dogs caught my attention. I encountered three chow chows in just a few days – apparently, a popular breed here. But also, there are very cute strays. Mom didn’t miss a single one. They look clean, well-fed, and are very affectionate towards people and attention.
Almost no electric cars. Saw just one Tesla and one local “brew (Togg). In general, electric transport isn’t popular. There are very few private scooters and bicycles, probably just because for the overwhelming majority of working people here, they are seen as pointless luxury: you can buy a cheaper motorbike that travels faster and can even carry a load. And of course, hills play a part too.
Also, I noticed that in some languages, “Hello on the phone sounds exactly like it does in Russian, no accent at all. And Turkish is among them. Turns your head every time someone responds in ‘perfect Russian,’ and there’s a natural dark-haired, mustachioed Turk on the phone.
The water in glass bottles is very tasty, like HAYAT, for example.
It’s quite unusual to see so many cafés without people with laptops inside. They even talk to each other!
Hi, I'm Rauf Aliev. 