Dolmabahace Palace and Minaturk

2 August 2014

What brought us to Istanbul and not some other destination this summer was Mark's meetings with the Apiales Society at Istanbul University. So, on my own, I joined a tour to on the Golden Horn, to the European side of the city, to see the newer palace-- Dolmabahce Palace. It was built between 1843 and 1856 and meant to awe. No photos are permitted inside, and there is not self touring. In fact, we really only saw a handful of rooms and those at a quick pace. The modus operandi is gawk and walk.

This palace was built to be more modern that Topkapi-- and also more luxurious. There is little that looks Turkish-- some arabic here and there-- but it mostly looks like it was designed for shock and awe. Our guide pointed out over and over that the furnishings were from what was considered the best in the world-- English crystal, French trompe l'oeil paintings, but carpets from Turkey! The cost in US dollars-- 1.5 billion. It's difficult to stomach, actually, as that amount was a quarter of the yearly tax revenue at the time.

On the other hand, the palace had a more recent, reverential history. When the republic was founded, ownership was transferred to the Turkish Republic. The capitol of the new Turkey became Ankara, but when the founder and first president of Turkey (Mustafa Kemal Ataturk) was in Istanbul, he used a few rooms of this palace. He died in the palace on 10 November 1938 at 9:05am,and all the clocks in the palace have been stopped at that hour. So, what could have stood as an Ozymandius lesson of hubris and decadence leading to decay, has a bookend of respect.

I had a funny conversation with the guide about the name of the palace, since I saw the word dolma in it. Stuffed grape leaves couldn't have much to do with a palace. Actually, it does since the translation of dolma is filled, and the second half of the palace name means garden, so this palace's name is garden-filled.  ((It only is a little bit-- the palace took up so much of the building site that there wasn't too much space left for garden.) They funny part was that the guide was shocked that as an American I knew anything about dolmas! He should have seen me the day before on the walking tour. I smiled and told him I had actually made dolmas.

 

The next tour stop was to Miniaturk-- an attraction that has miniature replicas of the wonders of Turkey. You could call it "Laura sets her sights on a return trip to this county..."

  It's cute and the replicas are pretty detailed. I was given a ticket with a bar code, and at each replica that I wanted to know more about, I'd wave the ticket in front of the scanner and probably, a British man would start to talk and explain. So, the background noise was a mixture of English and Turkish explanations of the sites. The other backgroud was the ominous sky-- from the low lying coastal area where Miniaturk was, I could see thunderheads and lightening on two hills.

The end of this tour was in a torrential downpour. The streets filled in five minutes. Either Istanbul is not used to monsoons or the storm sewers are showing their age.