Saturday, September 6, 2008

more posts from Istanbul

and more posts from inside of AyaSophia and the Blue Mosque




















Thursday, September 4, 2008

Istanbul by night

Dear friends,

These are some of the pictures i took during our cruise around old Istanbul with my new UN colleagues from Iraq and Montenegro this night. The pictures are taken from Sultanakhmet square again. It was about 10 PM when the big pray next to the Blue Mosque took place. TV crews came to do reports about it (picture below). I think i had too many beers...so better go to bed now to have some rest before the last day of the meeting. I will have to pretend i had a long sleep.
Miss you alll....

Denis















Wednesday, September 3, 2008

My dear friends.

These are some pictures from Istanbul. It’s a lovely and definitely unique city divided into two parts by Bosporus. It is believed that one part belongs to Europe and the other to Asia. Believe you or not, but you feel the difference as soon as you cross Bosporus.

It feels a little similar to Bishkek. People are not very organized (also spitting on the streets), the transport is hectic, the drivers are mad. There are many, many mosques. The best (but also tourist) place is Sultanahmet square surrounded by three huge mosques – the Blue Mosque, the St. Sophia Cathedral, and one more which name I don’t remember. I was there at the day time and mullahs from all three buildings started to pray/sing one after another in a style of a good old opera. It was fantastic. Even people not of Islami religion (or any close to it), stopped to listen to this, dare I say, “show”.

Needless to say, food and sweets are fantastic.

With greetings from hot (in many senses) Istanbul.
Denis

P.S. Remarkable – there is no toilette paper in the hotel toilet. I had to buy it from the supermarket.

All the below pictures are from the old part of the city. The new part is nothing to see. Too modern to be interesting.