A Beginner’s Guide to Surviving Istanbul

Istanbul isn’t an easy city for anyone. It’s a challenge, a fight for survival. And if, after many years of living and studying in an Anatolian city no bigger than a single Istanbul district, you’ve had to move to Istanbul, then it’s inevitable that you’ll find yourself feeling like you’re starring in The Hunger Games. So does it always go on like this? The moment you stop asking where all these people are coming from and where they’re going, you start getting used to Istanbul. The real question, though, comes up in an Ümit Besen song: is getting used to something really harder than loving it?

I first set foot in Istanbul when I was 9. At first this new world, which felt no different from a giant playground, meant lovely times spent with family; but as time went on and it turned into attending work meetings and rushing to conferences and appointments, the joyless times began too. These periods, when the time spent in traffic takes up more than a lifetime, give way, from the moment you learn to take pleasure in pain, to the hallucinatory state a painkiller creates. You feel that the pain is there, but you stop feeling the hurt it causes.

I’ve always likened Istanbul to an ant colony that pounces on a sugar cube found on the ground as if it were treasure, multiplies the more it attacks, and even in the middle of all this commotion keeps incredible coordination. These lands, where for years people were made to believe that the very stones and soil were gold, which were turned into the escape point of Anatolia’s centrifugal force, and which every newcomer swore to conquer, have been, and still are, the stage for endings, burnout and dishonorable defeats far more than for success stories.

After this short summary, here comes the full, ordered list of how to survive in Istanbul for beginners, from someone who finished getting used to it long ago and has started ‘enjoying it’:

The Metrobus

Of course you can’t talk about getting used to Istanbul without talking about Zincirlikuyu, which every day stages a small slice of the Battle of Mohács; about how 70-year-old aunties suddenly move with swift, lethal blows as if they’d drunk the magic potion of Asterix the Gaul; about how people can sprint 100 meters so fast just to catch the elevator; and about crowds of people that amount to a rebellion against the very existence of humanity. This vehicle, capable of holding nearly all of Anatolia’s ethnic identities and human characters together in such a small space, is no different from a museum of modern art if you board it at the right time. Once you get used to the state of ‘enjoyment’ that is also the main character of this post, you can easily watch the metrobus turn from a modern form of Chinese torture into a field for sociological experiments.

Renting a Place

For those on the eve of moving to Istanbul, one of the most dramatic moments may be the moment you go on Sahibinden.com and start looking at apartments. For people who had perfectly lovely homes for next to nothing, seeing that they’re stuck with astronomical prices and apartments in dreadful condition is the first step toward great devastation and disappointment. And the moment you realize you’re stuck with real estate agents is nothing less than Bruno Amadio’s famous painting ‘The Crying Boy’ come to life.

I’ll Go to the Bosphorus and Have a Tea

If anyone thinks, when I’m bored or overwhelmed I’ll go to the Bosphorus, have a tea, clear my head and relax, they should know it doesn’t work that way. Even if you’re one of the lucky ones who can leave work around 17:30, once you factor in the daily rush and the time spent in Istanbul traffic, going to the Bosphorus for a tea remains nothing more than a dream. Long story short, don’t get carried away by your friends’ Instagram posts along the lines of ‘Went for a run by the Bosphorus, nobody’s happier than me.’ Istanbul doesn’t promise such a rosy world, especially to beginners!

5 Lira for a Tea?

Life in Istanbul is expensive! Not just a few places or one neighborhood like back home; all of Istanbul is expensive. Don’t go asking how a dürüm can cost 12 lira or a tea 5 lira. This is a city where you have to pay just to live. A city where you have to pay even if you live the way Nazım puts it in his poem ‘On Living’, that is, ‘without looking for something beyond and above living’.

Istanbul isn’t an easy city for anyone. And Istanbul isn’t a city you can easily give up on, either! It’s just a little harder than ever to get used to, that’s all.

Speaking of Nazım, I can’t end this post without a poem:

I mean, you must take living so seriously
that even at seventy, for example, you’ll plant olive trees—
and not for your children, either,
but because although you fear death you don’t believe it,
because living, I mean, weighs heavier.

Nazım Hikmet Ran

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