The Cats of Istanbul

In my walking through Istanbul, I have noticed many cats.  I realized that I hadn't seen a cat since I left the United States four months ago. Kyrgyzstan has plenty of packs of stray dogs and I've noticed a couple of different people in my apartment building walking their dogs, but cats aren't anywhere to be found. Perhaps that's why the cats of Istanbul have captured my attention.

I have found that people seem to either love cats or hate them. I am one of the few who fall into neither of the categories. I am quite content to live in Bishkek without a cat, but I have a respect for the feline world that comes from having lived in close proximity to cats throughout my life. I have never technically owned a cat, but have somehow found myself tending to the cats of others. I have given dozens of insulin injections to a diabetic cat, have diapered a 22-year-old cat who could no longer use the litter pan consistently (trust me, it wasn't my idea), have spent three days in Florence searching for an aggressive tabby who had escaped from our top-floor apartment across the rooftops of the city, have been entrusted to take the cats of others to the vet to be sent to the afterlife because the owners couldn't bear to do the task themselves, have helped dig the holes to bury two expired cats, have as a seven-year-old watched a mother cat give birth to several kittens in a closet, and have cleaned more litter pans and hairballs off the carpet than I had ever imagined possible.  These are some of the reasons why, though neither a cat lover or hater, I somehow sympathize with them and have concern for their fate.

Having experienced a complete absence of cats these past months, I found Istanbul's tolerance and even affinity for cats to be a pleasant diversion. Cats are everywhere. They are in the cathedrals, prowling the streets, and begging for food at sidewalk cafes.  I think in the U.S., people would shoo them away, call the animal control unit, and in some rural redneck enclaves I have visited, might even bring firearms into play. But here in Istanbul, cats are free to be themselves and seem to be liked even (yes, I understand they should be neutered and that street life is not a good fate for a cat).  Tomorrow, I will return to Kyrgyzstan, land of roaming dogs and horses and cows and goats and sheep and I will keep these pictures as a reminder of another land. 

In the outdoor café of the Archeological Museum

Resting at the Archeological Café

Another beggar at the Archeological Café

Along the road to Topkapi Palace

This particular cat was not happy to have his/her picture taken and quickly scampered away.

Inside Hagia Sophia

Guarding the lute shop

Resting in the courtyard of the New Mosque
 

Don't know much about history...

Several years ago I was privileged enough to take a course on the History of Medicine.  What made the course particularly extraordinary was that it was taught by one of the most wonderfully brilliant, kind, and interesting professors one could possibly have. His name is Dr. William Campbell. Those of you who are Jeopardy! champions might recognize his name. You see, Dr. Campbell won the Nobel Prize for medicine this past year. I learned a great many things in his class and one of them was how the history of medicine (and really all the sciences) had a really infertile period where nobody really discovered anything new...basically between the years 500 and 1500. This time period was also known as the Dark Ages.  I remember Dr. Campbell spending about 10 minutes on this bleak period in Western science and he did make a quick mention of how there were some advances in medicine in the Islamic world at this time, but he really didn't cover them. And then I forgot about that particular lecture, until today.

Today is when I visited The Istanbul Museum for the History of Science and Technology in Islam. While the West spent about 1000 doing nothing to advance the concept of science, it turns out that the Islamic world was a beehive of scientific activity. Each room in the museum focused on a different branch of science. I was amazed by the room devoted to medical history. During the Dark Ages, the Islamic world was doing things like figuring out how the eye works, developing the field of ophthalmology, and figuring out how blood circulates through the body. These advancements were matched across the spectrum of the sciences, including mathematics, chemistry, astronomy, and physics.

Some of these contributions were forgotten, some were built upon (but not credited) by the scientists of the Renaissance, and a few were acknowledged.  Goethe was one of the first to study and recognize these contributions and by 1900 some Western scholars were beginning to show how Islamic science played an important role in increasing human knowledge and served as a significant contributor to human advancement.  I had a vague notion about all of this before I visited Istanbul, but after today I had a much clearer indication of the amazing linkage between Islam and the sciences during their millennium of discovery.

When we think about Islam in the year 2016, we need to understand it in its entirety. Many I've talked to in the U.S., associate Islam with backwardness and anti-scientific irrationality.  Clearly this is not the case.  We would be wiser to associate backwardness and anti-scientific irrationality with fundamentalism and religious dogmatism that is present in most religions including both fundamentalist Christianity and fundamentalist Islam.  I will never forget the day I was tasked several years ago with tutoring a group of Christian home-schoolers in the sciences.  I received the kids' textbook, which assailed evolution and a whole range of legitimate scientific theories (and advanced notions like a 6000-year-old Earth) and at that point I realized that no amount of tutoring would ever help these children ever achieve scientific literacy.  So, let us celebrate the scientific achievements of all cultures and stand against any force from whatever group of fundamentalists who place dogma above science.

So, although in my History of Medicine course, I only heard a brief mention of Islamic contributions to the sciences, I made up for it today and now have a much more complete sense of the debt we owe to Islam in a multitude of scientific fields and have punctured one more small hole in the giant wall of obliviousness that surrounds me.

Museum Entrance

One of the dozens of astronomical devices developed by Islamic scientists during their scientific renaissance

Dozens of surgical tools developed around the year 1100 for surgery of the eye, far in advance of anything present in the West at that time.

Hagia Sophia

Hagia Sophia is one of the world's treasures. It is the third church on the site, the first one being inaugurated by Constantine II in 360.  This particular version was completed in the year 537 and remained the largest cathedral in the world for almost 1000 years, until the Seville Cathedral was completed in 1520.  In the 13th Century, the Latin Church (what we today call the Catholic Church) invaded old Constantinople, and held Hagia Sophia for several decades and during this time looted and defiled the structure.

The Ottomans took over the city in 1453 and had the Orthodox church converted to a mosque. Over the next 450 years Islamic elements were added to the building like minarets and the gold leaf Christian mosaics were whitewashed. After World War I, the Ottoman Empire ceased to exist and the leader of the new, secular Turkey, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk closed the mosque and converted the building to a museum. At this time, the Islamic carpets were removed and the original marble floors were uncovered, the ancient mosaics were discovered and painstakingly brought back to life and entire cathedral was restored, respecting both its Christian and Islamic histories--although this process of restoration continues to this day.

I have been to many of the major Christian cathedrals of Europe. Because of its extraordinary history, groundbreaking architecture, and breathtaking grandeur, in my opinion, Hagia Sophia is as remarkable a structure as I have visited in my years of wandering through ancient religious monuments. 

Exterior view of Hagia Sophia

Inside the Basilica

The Deesic Mosaic, circa 12th Century.  This mosaic was discovered in the 1932 restoration.  It depicts the Virgin Mary and John the Baptist imploring Jesus Christ to fulfill his mission of salvation.

View of the Hagia Sophia from the vicinity of the Blue Mosque.

Detail of architectural structure of Hagia Sophia

Cooking in Istanbul

My day in Istanbul was devoted to food. In the afternoon I went to the Spice Bazaar and purchased some teas and spices I can't get in Kyrgyzstan. I then spent the evening taking a cooking class at Deraliye which is a restaurant which recreates Ottoman Palace recipes, many of them from centuries ago. It turns out no one else signed up for the class, but Murat, the restaurant manager was kind enough to conduct the class anyway.

I learned to make Stuffed Vine Leaves with Sour Cherries, which was a favorite dish of Sultan Abdul Medjid who ruled the Ottoman Empire in the mid 1800s.  The recipe was taken from historical documents which detailed the recipe. We also made "Sailor's Roll" which is a rolled pastry flled with cheese and peas, deep fried, and served with honey. And the final course I learned was a melon, stuffed with minced meat, pine nuts, almonds, currants, and spices. It is a summer variation of  one of Sultan Sulieman's favorite dishes (circa 1600s) . Traditionally, it is cooked in winter and the stuffing is used to fill quinces.

Had a wonderful time in the company of Chef Mehmet and Murat, both kind, informative, and pleasant gentlemen--and gained insight in the food and culture of the Ottoman Empire.  And had a really delicious meal.

Outside of Deraliye Restaurant where I had my cooking class

Chef Mehmet gathering his strength before preparing to take on one of his more difficult apprentice cooks.

The chef adds the filling to the pastry dough for the "Sailor Rolls"

Sailor Rolls ready for the fryer after being rolled and sliced

Apprentice chef preparing the melon for stuffing

Murat, the restaurant manager, explaining how to fry the sailor rolls

Finished Sailor Roll drizzled with honey

Finished Stuffed Vine Leaves with Sour Cherries

Completed Main Course:  Melon Stuffed with Minced Meat with Melon and Rosemary Side Dish

Dessert: Saffron and Turmeric Pudding with Pine Nuts and Currants

Spice Bazaar and Grand Bazaar

Arrived today in Istanbul for a mini vacation, as I am not sure if will be able to have another holiday before Christmas. I am staying in a lovely little hotel in Sultanahmet, which is Istanbul's historic old city.

I wandered off in the afternoon to do buy some spices at the Spice Bazaar that can't be easily found in Kyrgyzstan like allspice, saffron, turmeric, and garam masala.  Then went to the Grand Bazaar, which is one of the largest and oldest markets in Europe. Both markets give a person an extraordinary taste of Turkey and its mercantile heritage.

The Istanbul cityscape as seen from outside Spice Bazaar

Inside the Spice Bazaar

Shop where I purchased spices

The turmeric I purchased was stored in its own special drawer

Entrance to the Grand Bazaar

The Grand Bazaar dates back to the 1600s.  Pictured is an area where people can wash their hands. 

So many shops, I lost count.

Another place to wash.

Old Babushka's back in business along the Path of Destruction

I knew there was trouble this morning when, while eating breakfast in my kitchen, I could hear Ariston wheezing and coughing.  Ariston is the name I've given my hot water heater who lives in the bathroom, because that's the name of the manufacturer that's affixed in large letters to his round, white front.  Usually Ariston makes loud, assertive, proud noises when working at heating the water in my apartment.  But, today, before I even turned on the water for my bath, Ariston was huffing and puffing meekly, not like his usual self.  And sure enough, when I started my bath, only a tragically small stream of water came dribbling out of the faucet.  I'm quite sure I've been in the company of drooling St. Bernards who slobbered more liquid on me in a moment of greeting than was available today for my daily cleaning.  Why do I give inanimate objects in Kyrgyzstan, like hot water heaters, names?  Because they seem to possess personalities and frailties as profound and real as those of any person.

I arrived at work to find that the entire neighborhood around both my apartment and my office was without water.  It turns out that the work on the water main being done on the street where I live had gone horribly awry and, as a consequence, a massive chunk of downtown Bishkek found itself without water.

By noontime I really had to go to the bathroom, but our office had not even a bucket at our disposal.  So, I decided to go wandering to find a restaurant where I might be able to relieve myself and have a little lunch in the process.  Further and further from my office I wandered, but without any success as no restaurant I visited possessed a bathroom with even a drop of running water. Finally I gave up and had my lunch at a local coffee shop, despite its lack of functioning facilities.

But, I hadn't solved my more pressing concern.  I decided to walk to my apartment to use my bathroom.  Even though my toilet didn't work, at least I wouldn't be worried about how my bathroom usage would affect my co-workers.  My apartment is on Isanova Street, the street where the catastrophic water works are being conducted.  I might be mistaken, but I think the name "Isanova" in Russian translates to "Path of Destruction" because Isanova has been torn up now for the past couple of months and looks like an invading army has lobbed dozens of mortar shells onto the roadway.  In fact I have seen stray dogs almost fall into some of the open, 10-meter-deep holes that now dot Isanova Street.

Kyrgyz utility crews working feverishly this afternoon on the Path of Destruction to fix the accident that wiped out the city's water supply. (Irony alert.)  

When I arrived at my apartment building, I saw that the repair crew was working on Old Babushka. Yes, I have given the elevator in my building a name too.  Babushka was moaning and groaning as the repairmen tried to coax her into operation.  Hers is a chronic illness as she has been broken several times in the four months I have lived in the building--this particular ailment has kept her out of commission for almost two weeks now.  I call her Babushka because she is like a sick grandmother who is bedridden, having been flattened this time by the hot, Bishkek summer.  Even when Babushka is feeling up to operating, she moves slowly and unsteadily, causing one to perpetually worry about her health.

Luckily, I was able to take care of my bodily issues in my apartment and return to work in much better condition.  When I arrived at the office a co-worker said that all this dysfunction made him feel like he was a time traveler who was living in the past: he said he felt like he might have traveled to the old Soviet Union just as it was collapsing. I thought about this. Sometimes I feel like a time traveler too.  Except, I feel like I'm living in the future. I have this strange sensation that I am living through an early, mild version of what the future will be, except the real future will be much worse even than today in Bishkek, if we don't wake up and start to take care of the issues of climate change and other environmental concerns. I feel like I am witnessing a tiny glimpse into a dystopia where no water, no electricity, and collapsing economics will be just some of the lovely features of life for most of us in the not-too-horribly-distant future. Sadly, many of us are listening to the Donald Trumps of the world who don't even acknowledge the possibility of this potentially grim future and our responsibilities to act.  What will future generations say about us, we the oblivious of today, who condemned them to a life of misery because we did nothing when faced with the choice of courageous action or selfish denial?

I managed to make it through the afternoon, but during the last few minutes of work I did feel as though I had to sit very still in order to survive the work day. I scrambled out of my office and somehow managed to make it back to my apartment building to use my toilet, which now functions as nothing more than a fancy porcelain bucket. While the sight of water was still a mirage, I was astonished to find that Babushka was working again, although I decided the wisest course of action was to trudge up six flights of stairs, because I felt I couldn't trust her health quite yet. And as the day concluded, while sitting on my sofa, I decided I would go out to eat for dinner so as not to create any dishes I couldn't wash as I kept an ear out for Ariston who remained eerily silent on his perch above the toilet in the bathroom.

Babushka, ready for passengers.  Maybe, I'll try my luck tomorrow.

Left Behind

I remember when growing up in Washington State, seeing cars with bumperstickers that read, "In case of the rapture, this car will be unoccupied."  I was raised in the ELCA, the liberal arm of the Lutheran church in America, where the concept of the rapture was not seen as theologically valid, so this bumpersticker seemed very bizarre to me.  Why God would pull a small percentage of true believers out of their cars while they were driving them and swoosh these people into the air, up into heaven, on some random summer afternoon seemed inconceivable to me.  The rational Lutheran in me figured that if God was all-powerful certainly he'd be able to figure out a way to wait until the people he wanted to pull up into heaven had safely parked their cars in the Walmart parking lot before commencing.  I mean, why would a loving God create a catastrophe of auto wrecks and airplane crashes across the world?  It didn't seem Godly to me. There just had to be a kinder and more orderly way to begin the End Times.

It turns out, even though I hadn't realized it until I moved to Kyrgyzstan, a rapture of sorts has already taken place in the world.  Actually, it's happened here in Kyrgyzstan.  The date of the End Times was August 31, 1991 and the "Kyrgyz Rapture" didn't happen instantaneously, no one was pulled out of their cars into the sky, but it was a slower rapture that took place during the months after August 31.  On that date in 1991 is when the Kyrgyz people declared independence from the Soviet Union.  What disappeared from Kyrgyzstan at first wasn't people, but the entire structure of the Soviet government: all the Soviet mythology, culture, and ideology gone in an instant.  Very quickly after that all the money and resources from Russia had vanished, as if God himself had pulled billions of rubles into the sky.  Then the ethnic Russians living here realized that they suddenly no longer had the power of God behind them, in this case the Holy Father being Moscow. The floodgates of ethnic Russians pouring back into Russia had started and it was truly as if the Rapture had begun.

Before the rapture, in 1991, there were about a million ethnic Russians in Kyrgyzstan representing about a quarter of the population.  Today, there are only about 370,000 Russians here, less than 7% of Kyrgyzstan.  In essence, they are a little like the sad people from the depressing Kirk Cameron movies; they have been Left Behind.

In my workplace, the vast majority of the positions of prominence in the organization are held by North Americans, Europeans, and those of Kyrgyz ethnicity.  The few ethnic Russians we have in our organization are primarily employed as drivers of our university vehicles or on the housekeeping staff; in fact, the one ethnic Russian in my department left last month for America. After years of trying, he finally obtained his Green Card and is now living in Brooklyn.  When you do see ethnic Russians, you will probably observe them working in small businesses, driving taxis, and waiting tables. Conversely, highly-educated ethnic Russians, doctors, educators, and most anyone who had reasonable employment prospects in Russia fled back to the motherland as quickly as possible, while the Kyrgyz began to reassert their culture which had been suppressed during Soviet times.

I haven't spoken much with those left behind, but I have gathered a few clues. I remember one of my Russian drivers from work playing the radio as we were driving back from Lake Issyk-kul; he was listening intently to Vladimir Putin giving a press conference from Moscow rather than tuning in to the Kyrgyz news.  Even though he was a Kyrgyz citizen, he was somehow still more closely tethered to Russia, even though he had seldom visited there. Another ethnic Russian person has briefly mentioned to me a disconnect from Kyrgyz life.  There definitely does seem to be a disconnection as I can only remember seeing one or two mixed-ethnicity couples since I have been here: the Kyrgyz and the Russian do not seem to connect with each other on "Kyrgyzmatch.com" or "Kyrgyzmingle." I am an outsider in this land and even I can almost feel the separation and loss of those who have been left behind in this human-initiated version of the rapture.

I wonder what the future offers for the ethnic Russian of Kyrgyzstan.  Will their fate be that of the 100,000 or so ethnic Germans who were here before August 1991?  Now there are about 1,000 left in the country and I am guessing that soon there will be none in Kyrgyzstan as they too have been fleeing. When walking down the streets of Bishkek, one sees older ethnic Russians, but the sight of young Russian school children causes one to pause because it is such a rarity. When one calculates the passing of older Russians and the low birth rate of new Russians, the conclusion seems to be that at some point this process will be complete.

Despite my Lutheran skepticism of things rapturous, I have no idea what the End Times might look like, and I suppose I am not able to categorically reject any notion of how the Earth might end. Perhaps, I will be walking through Bishkek one day and see the two rapture-believing Christians in the city fly upward out of the taxi they are riding in, while the rest of us in Kyrgyzstan watch, scratching our heads. Or if Donald Trump is elected President, I may suddenly decide to believe in the rapture and pray that I will be taken quickly to heaven (or anywhere otherworldly) so that I won't have to witness the hellish End Times his presidency might bring to our planet. However, as I entered a taxi cab last night driven by an aging Russian who has been left behind, I realized the most-likely scenario is that the only "rapture" I will ever experience is the aftermath of the one that began in 1991 in Kyrgyzstan.

Ethnic Russian woman sweeping the sidewalk near my apartment

Russian taxi driver waiting for a fare

Elderly Russian woman selling eggs to passersby

Russian store owner selling products to Kyrgyz woman