Turkish Awakening

by Alev Scott

  My landlord, Turgay, is a thoroughly nice man. His wife is an officer in the Turkish army and he has a profound respect for women. He told me I could change any of the furniture that I didn’t like in the flat, but could not hide his bewilderment when I rejected the grotesque twin leatherette sofas which faced each other in grim confrontation across the living room. They were a nauseating off-white, with matching cushions, but Turgay thought they were great. In an attempt to persuade me of their merits, he sat on one of them, stretching his arms out to demonstrate its expansiveness as though he were explaining something very obvious to a small child. ‘You see? Very comfortable. Very şık [chic].’ I nodded politely but stuck to my guns. Now, when Turgay visits, he pretends to like the divan-style chests I have set up but clearly thinks I am mad to have rejected a respectable pair of sofas in favour of some old wooden chests.

  Again, Turkey is not alone in this social trait of wanting to keep up with the leather sofa-owning Joneses, but there was a watershed moment in Turkish history when the country was reborn as a republic in the 1920s. This national rebirth sped up the shedding of old-fashioned Ottoman ways that was already taking place, and formalised the embrace of Western sophistication, which was seen as synonymous with a desire to progress, to modernise. This has only intensified with the march of globalisation in the last century. Who wants old wooden wardrobes your grandmother owned when brand new ones are available, imported from Germany or Sweden? Ikea wardrobes are a form of ostentation in Turkey, a sign to guests that you are attuned to foreign commercial trends, and, crucially, that you can afford the trappings of Western modernity. While in the UK Ikea symbolises uniformity and consumer laziness, in Turkey it sums up all that is desirable – how can you go wrong buying a brand with worldwide appeal?

  While Turks like Turgay cannot understand the Western fondness for old things, others are very much attuned to it and have exploited it to make a lot of money. In areas widely patronised by foreigners, opportunistic and well-informed Turks call themselves antik (antique) sellers and charge prices approaching the European norm. These crafty men buy the ‘junk’ from eskicis and sell them in foreigner-beloved areas like Çukurcuma to expats at five to six times the price. They get even more money for trinkets – old watches, cameras and sunglasses – which they can pass off to passing tourists as otantik antiks. In one eskici I saw an enormous Kodak movie camera, about the size and shape of a calf, hiding away at the back of the shop. It must have been incredibly old, a real collector’s item, and the eskici owner was rather unsure of what it was – it had simply come in a haul from an abandoned house, he told me. The camera had probably been overlooked by the antik vultures because it was too big to sell to tourists, and too niche to be worth the bother of transportation anyway. I still regret not buying it.

  Just as the antique dealers in Çukurcuma have learned to profit from foreigners’ appreciation of the past, so too have the Turks who own property in the little pockets of Beyoğlu that seem to be the areas of choice for expats moving to Istanbul. The so-called neighbourhoods of Cihangir and Galata are the best examples of areas which have been transformed almost beyond recognition into overpriced, foreigner-filled bubbles. Until fifteen or twenty years ago they were quite disreputable but fun, especially Cihangir – a mixed community of gypsies, Christians (in particular Armenians) and transvestites who would wander untroubled around this uniquely quirky neighbourhood, filled with beautiful Italian houses with grimy neoclassical facades. Quite quickly, the area became popular with artists and hippies, drawing foreigners who liked this slightly kooky side of Istanbul; it soon underwent an ironic process of gentrification to suit the elevated budgets of the foreigners who insisted on living there, and the original residents quietly left. Property has skyrocketed and expensive shops have opened everywhere. Cihangir has become the place to live, if one is a relatively bohemian, moneyed expat, but the irony is that most foreigners like living there because other foreigners already live there – it is one of the least authentically Turkish areas in Istanbul. While retaining some long-standing residents and Turkish artisans, the place is largely an artificial expats’ wonderland, where they feel safe and unthreatened, surrounded by home comforts. It is full of New York-style coffee shops selling wheatgrass smoothies, boutique ateliers and shops like Carrefour, so the adventurous Turkey-dwelling expat can still buy Western staples like peanut butter and ham. In Cihangir, you can have the best of both worlds – you are in Turkey, with the fringe benefits of home. I would be a hypocrite to claim that it is not a nice place to live (it was the first place I moved into when I arrived), but there is something a little fake about it. For one thing, the area also attracts the kind of Western-aspiring Turks who love the New York/Parisian vibe – you see them sitting at café tables in the street, drinking frozen lattes all day, there to see and be seen.

  Cihangir is crawling with celebrities who rent renovated apartments that were, until fairly recently, inhabited by families of eight. The owners of these houses have become millionaires by sheer good luck, and if they renovate the interiors to Western style norms they can charge rents which are unheard of by Turkish standards. Foreigners always compare house prices to those of London or New York, so they accept sale prices or rents which are actually way above what a Turk would pay. The whole area is a bubble inflated by hot air and ultimately, fear. A foreigner will often be afraid to live anywhere else but Cihangir or perhaps Nişantaşı or Bebek, because they can’t face the prospect of an area without skimmed milk options, or scary Turkish menus without English translations.

  While I like to think of myself as different from the average bumbling expat, the uncomfortable truth is that, to most Turks, there is not much discernible difference between us. I found this out when I went through the torrid process of trying to find a flat to rent with the ‘help’ of a string of progressively charmless estate agents, all of whom were convinced that they had struck gold when I showed up, another yummy yabancı.

  One incident in particular made crystal clear to me the perception that the average emlakçı (estate agent) has of the average foreigner. It was a rainy day, and Ahmet the Cihangir-based agent insisted that I take his umbrella as we trudged off the main road of Çukurcuma, away from the overpriced antique shops and down what could only be described as a muddy garden path (the irony escaped me at the time). A few hours earlier he had rung me to tell me of an exciting property just released onto the market, a three-storey house in Çukurcuma offered for the price of an apartment. He had not seen it himself, but was assured it was magnificent. Sceptical, I showed up and was initially impressed when we reached the beautiful konak at the end of the garden path. It was made of dark wood, one of the rare nineteenth-century houses still (just) standing in Istanbul. The hall smelt of damp but I was cautiously curious; we ventured inside to find a dusty kitchen with a huge fireplace fringed by broken tiles and a spiral staircase disappearing intriguingly into the gloom. Feeling like Alice taking the plunge down the rabbit hole, I took the lead as we creaked our way up the staircase. At the top, I opened a door into the face of a bearded man in a woolly hat – we both yelled. I apologised. He stared, wordlessly. A movement on the floor caught my eye, and I saw another man stirring on a mattress amid a confusion of guitar cases, mouldy mugs and what might have been another person’s limb. Whispering my apologies this time, I turned to find Ahmet behind me, staring at the scene.

  ‘Ah. There is some mistake.’

  ‘Yes,’ said the bearded man. ‘We are living here.’

  ‘I’m so sorry, we must leave,’ I said. By now I had recognised the men – they were buskers who often played Algerian jazz on the main shopping street in Beyoğlu. Much as I admired their musical abilities, I did not want to linger and question their status as legitimate tenants of this house. Ahmet, only moderately embarrassed, led the retreat, all the while pointing out features like the height of the ceilings and the curvature of the bannisters. ‘Disgusting tramps – but look! Such ceilings! Such bannist
ers! Do you know how rare these features are, Madam Alev? It is an excellent price, really.’

  As we set out into the rain, he was still trying to persuade me that these squatters were only a temporary problem, that the damp was a minor matter, and that I would be mad to miss out on such a splendid property. I am absolutely certain that no Turk would have set foot in the house, let alone retain any interest after a disquieting encounter with smelly buskers. The fact that I was a foreigner wanting to live in this area was enough to convince Ahmet that I would love this dilapidated old wreck because it was old and atmospheric. No doubt I would spend vast sums renovating it. That was not his concern – he wanted his commission and those buskers were not going to stand in his way. I do not blame him. Based on a quick appraisal, I was a clueless foreigner: fair game.

  Turkish estate agents are in no way a reflection of Turks in general. The world over, estate agents plumb the depths of low cunning, and the agents of Istanbul are only doing their modest part in the whole. They have neither the pinstripe suits nor the shiny company cars that add the extra oily sheen to a Foxtons employee but they are just as ruthless in the pursuit of their cut (typically twelve per cent), and foreigners are particularly easy prey.

  It is a far bleaker picture further south than Istanbul, where tourists flock to towns on the Aegean and Mediterranean coasts and even less principled estate agents lurk to welcome them off the plane. Dazzled by the sun, happy to be on holiday, British tourists can be talked into almost anything – including buying property. Having spent a bit of time in towns like Bodrum, Kalkan, Ölüdeniz and Marmaris, which welcome hundreds of thousands of tourists in the summer months, I know the drill in the Costa del Turk.

  Walking down the high street of Kalkan, one is assailed by the distinctive, practised tones of tourist-soliciting locals: ‘Hello, lady, nice fish for you. Delicious chips. You like beer?’ Every shop, restaurant and bar bears the unmistakable stamp of a community which depends on and caters almost solely for its summer influx of Brits on Tour. To my left, Tesko’s supermarket has a newspaper stand displaying imported copies of Hello, OK! and the Daily Mail. To my right, Ali Baba’s All Day English Breakfast has a large plasma TV showing Match of the Day. At night, the marina comes alive with the sweet strains of Rihanna and other UK chart-toppers, and Mojito’s Bar is doing a roaring trade in Jägermeister shots and Red Bull cocktails. Sterling is welcome, and the local economy is thriving. To give some idea of the bubble which is Kalkan, a few miles up the road in the Taurus mountains are villages with names like Islamlar (‘The Muslims’), where no one speaks English and Ramadan is strictly observed. A loaf of bread costs half what it does down on the coast, and your proffered English fiver will be met with bemusement.

  Kalkan is unfortunately not an anomalous community, vying with places like Bodrum, Ölüdeniz and Marmaris for top spot as package-tour destination of choice. Today, these towns are the Turkish equivalents of Malaga and Marbella, where the sun shines just as brightly, and, moreover, kebabs are on offer. Despite the setback caused by the protests in 2013, Turkey’s popularity among tourists is pretty high. This goes not only for seasonal tourists, but also for foreigners looking to buy a holiday home in the sun – real estate here, unlike Spain, is booming. Unfortunately, the eastern utopia is not all it seems.

  Bodrum airport is one of the busiest in Turkey, with more than 1.5 million tourists arriving just in July and August. A steady stream of Thomas Cook, Easyjet and Pegasus planes disgorge their contents into the balmy Aegean air, and hordes of stocky Brits trot off happily with their package-tour guides onto a bus that takes them on the ‘scenic’ route into town. This route inevitably passes brand new, glittering holiday villas which the tour guide will plug as the best buys in town. The guide happens to be a friend of the building contractor, and yes, perhaps there are some more deals on the market. And so it begins; gullible Brits caught fresh off the boat by very seasoned scammers.

  Charlie Gökhan is an investment fund manager who sorts out property scams in the Bodrum area in particular. Charlie is a financial magician with a shadowy past and an intriguing scar across his face, who moved from Britain to Turkey thirty years ago and took Turkish citizenship (his English name is a mystery). His Turkish wife, Serin, is a lawyer and together they run a smooth enterprise helping conned British tourists, for a fee. Gökhan cannot hide his scorn for those who fall for the typical scam: ‘These tourists leave their intelligence on the plane.’ Newly arrived, excited to be on holiday and spurred on by low prices for units in purpose-built apartment blocks or ‘holiday villages’, Brits are all greedy ears when it comes to attractive property deals, especially when it seems like they are getting a good deal from a friend of the developer (who is often a crooked subcontractor or a commission-hungry estate agent). Any remaining doubts are quelled by an apparently independent lawyer, who lets them sign a contract which leaves them with no rights, no title deeds and ultimately no property. They put a deposit usually worth €20–40,000 in a bank account later cleared by the estate agent or subcontractor, who then disappears. The Turkish court system is far too intimidating to tackle, especially with the expenses of an interpreter to consider, and most foreigners give up then and there. They will never recover their stolen money, and the most they can hope for is the affirmation that they were misled. For a lucky few, Gökhan saves the day by coming in to slam down some injunctions, redraft the contracts with Serin and carry the project to completion, meaning that the hapless Brit at least gets a property at the end of everything, albeit at a rather higher price than anticipated.

  In 2012 in the Bodrum and Milas areas alone, over €400 million of real estate was sold, predominantly to non-locals. Of these sales Gökhan estimates about five to ten per cent have been scammed, to the tune of €20–40 million. The scammers ‘disappear’, only to come back richer and more brazen than ever; and while local authorities are wise to them, tourists are not. One notorious Bodrum-based construction company is family-owned, and their website makes this astonishing claim: ‘We believe in COMPLETE HONESTY, VALUE OF PLANNING and WIN-WIN BUSINNES MODELS, which we think are the natural rights of our clients.’ Despite their notoriety, the son managed to open a very successful boutique Ottoman-style hotel in London five years ago.

  Kalkan locals are pragmatic about property scamming, even when not directly involved themselves. ‘These aren’t scams; they are business,’ I was told by Hasan Bey, a pharmacist who keeps a store well stocked with sunburn treatments for his fair-skinned Anglo-Saxon clientele. Tourists get burnt in all kinds of ways down on the south coast of Turkey, and it is because they have a naïve and rather patronising, orientalist view of this part of the world as a sort of paradise – sun, sea and smiling locals, what could go wrong? The same rules apply here as in the rest of the world when it comes to offers which are too good to be true: if you are foolish enough to put a large amount of money in a private bank account without due investigation, you are considered fair game, wherever you are. Of course, there are plenty of opportunities to legitimately buy a property in Turkey, and much of the coast is stunningly beautiful and unspoiled. Kalkan is an eyesore without parallel, with a fan base to match.

  Kalkan locals become completely different people when you speak to them in Turkish. So used are they to performing the eager-to-please act with tourists (‘Yes, can I help you, nice fish?’) that I think it is with a profound feeling of relief that they talk honestly, in Turkish, about the reality of dealing with an annual deluge of tourists. For the local economy these tourists are, of course, a blessing, but it is not easy working in the tourist sector. One particularly gloomy and, I think, alcoholic sea captain talked to me about how the development of Kalkan had stripped him of all self-respect. From May to October, he drives drunken, braying, half-naked English people round the bay in his little boat and lives off the income from that for the rest of the year. He is not religious or prudish, but he is worlds away from his passengers and clearly hates his job. Yet he is arguably in an e
nviable position, earning more and working less than the average Turk. No one is forcing him to work as a tourist boat operator, it is his own miserable choice. There is something sad and sordid about the whole tourist scene on the south coast, but it is the way of the world – people follow money, which is why there are Colombian economists and Filipino PhD students working as nannies in London.

  Fleecing tourists is one thing, but there are more sobering examples of the Turkish preoccupation with making a quick buck; namely, short-term, cheap construction work and a blasé attitude to natural disasters. In 1999, the town of Izmit in north-western Turkey was the site of an earthquake that killed twenty thousand people and left half a million homeless. Six earthquake taxes were set up after the disaster, which were meant to go towards repairing the damage and funding projects to protect areas at risk across Turkey. Since then, tens of billions of Turkish lira have been raised thanks to these taxes, but when the Van earthquake struck in 2011, there was no sign of any funds. When questioned, the Finance Minister, Mehmet Şimşek, said that the money had been spent on roads and construction which mattered ‘to all seventy-four million people living in Turkey’, and that the notion of collecting taxes for a sole purpose was internationally condemned. He claimed that the AKP government was simply using these taxes as previous governments had done. General outrage ensued, of course, but nothing was achieved, and no one was named or shamed.

  Despite modern regulations concerning earthquake-proof foundations and buildings controls, only rich people care enough and can pay enough to buy properties which conform to quake-proof standards. These standards are, by and large, completely disregarded, with millions of Istanbullus living in shanty towns on the peripheries of the city, and average housing in areas like Van being built as it has been since the sixties.