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The Guide Istanbul

Istanbul History and Culture

Kevin Yıldırım / April 05, 2013
Fasıl Music in Istanbul: The What and Where Experiencing local music is one of the best ways to understand a culture, and here are some tips to do so in Istanbul.   Popular music tastes in Istanbul are heading more and more towards European an... Read More »
Rhiannon Davies / March 19, 2013
An Introduction To Early 20th Century Turkish Art Movements Istanbul is now rightly regarded as an international hub of contemporary art. In order to reach this point, the art scene here has changed beyond recognition over the past 100 years. It was only from the mid-... Read More »
Alara Kap / February 21, 2013
Funny Turkish Traditions (Part II) Turkey has some of the best traditions, and we take pride in all of them. The feedback we received from “Funny Turkish Traditions” was so great that we decided to do another one, to add on to the ... Read More »
Alara Kap / February 07, 2013
Funny Turkish Traditions There are varying degrees of culture shock that one must digest before settling into the rhythm of another culture. There are of course ways to make the transition more salubrious, and humor is our favorite o... Read More »
Kemal Derviş / November 29, 2012
Kemal Derviş's AFT Atatürk Lecture On November 13, 2012, Kemal Derviş gave a speech at the Turkish Embassy in Washington, D.C., about Turkey in the present, Turkish identity, and steps needed to ensure that Turkey in 2023 (the 100th anniversa... Read More »
Maria Eliades / November 12, 2012
Rooms with a View: Istanbul’s Historic Cinemas Cinema in Istanbul has had a long history which dates back to the 19th Century. With the emergence of a more urban way of life in the late 19th century, however, it was Pera, or Beyoğlu, which became the cen... Read More »
Maria Eliades and Ilter Türkmen / November 09, 2012
On the Anniversary of Atatürk’s Death Every year on November 10th at exactly 9:05am, traffic stops throughout Istanbul, people stand still for a moment, and sirens blare. The occasion is the anniversary of the death of the Republic’s founde... Read More »
Maria Eliades / October 24, 2012
Kurban Bayramı in Turkey Sometime every year, cartoon magazines feature sundry sheep jokes and people enjoy time off with their families or trips around the country or abroad. As casual as it may seem, this four to five day long holi... Read More »
Yeşim Yemni / October 12, 2012
History of Kuzguncuk While Kuzguncuk is one of the many small neighborhoods on the Asian shore of the Bosphorus, the role it plays in Istanbulites’ collective consciousness is far greater than its actual size. Kuzguncuk is ... Read More »
Madeleine Pelletier / September 26, 2012
History of Samatya The neighborhood of Samatya, located just a few train stops away from the central tourist areas of Sultanahmet and Eminönü, is one of Istanbul’s forgotten treasures. Although it has been throu... Read More »