Gullible's Travels:
Ruggie as Tourist in Turkey

My wife and I expected to visit Turkey in October 1994, scheduling our vacation around the Second International Congress on Turkish and Central Asian Carpets and Kilims. I was to present a talk there, and even managed to get the organizers to inform me of the acceptance of my proposed topic. We had to cancel at the last minute.1 After some moaning and gnashing of teeth, we decided to take another stab at it. We actually got there this time, starting a two-week visit at the end of May, 1995. We're both incorrigible ruggies but wanted to see some of Turkey (the first visit there for either of us) and not spend all of our time admiring weavings. The plan worked. We saw plenty of textiles

but also had a chance to enjoy scenic, historic western Anatolia and Istanbul. This little report is to share some experiences that may interest ORR readers.

There are a few things about Turkey that are useful to know in making sense of what goes on there. One is that they have serious economic problems. Inflation is severe and the local folks are hard hit by it. The US dollar bought 6,500 lira as recently as 1993; by mid-1995 the exchange rate was about 43,000 to the dollar. There is about 20% unemployment.₂ The people have a strong work ethic, and many a shop owner will pay a little money to someone who brings him potential customers. Thus, in the tourist areas, it seems like anyone who can speak even a little English (or German, or French) wants to engage you in conversation and then help you learn a bit about Turkish culture from his friend (or brother, or uncle, or father, or son) who knows all the wonderful things that can be taught by weavings.

The streets of the old section of Istanbul where the major tourist sites are located abound with such people. They are friendly, courteous, and helpful to the perpetually lost tourist.₃ And, they're interesting folks. BUT, anyone who doesn't want to spend an entire vacation in rug shops has to be firm, insisting that he isn't interested in rugs. Not in seeing them, not in hearing about them, not interested at all. Period.

We did stumble once, during our first day in Istanbul, accepting an invitation into a shop for conversation. It took more than an hour to extricate ourselves politely, after looking at a number of (mostly uninteresting) pieces and sipping the ubiquitous apple tea that evidently is believed to be the ultimate weapon in breaking down sales resistance. We recognized that there were dozens of rug shops within sight from nearly any point in the old city and that it wouldn't take too many more such mistakes to totally absorb our vacation time.

Still, we are ruggies and we enjoy indulging our neurosis. Most shops deal in new rugs, many made in Turkey but also a large number from India and Pakistan. When we passed anyplace with interesting old pieces in the window, we did peek in. One that caught our eye was Mehmet Cetinkaya's (Maison du Tapis d'Orient, Arasta Bazaar, Istanbul). Of course, Mehmet is very well known in the world of collectors. He had a number of beautiful Uzbek embroideries in his window. Having run a gauntlet of dealers in the Arasta Bazaar before reaching his place, the excuse his window gave us to get in off the street was more than welcome. We were greeted by a nice young man (I'd guess, in his mid-teens) who spoke little English. He showed us a few pieces, and said there was very much more but that only Mehmet himself, who wouldn't be back for another half hour or so, could show them to us. We returned an hour later. Mehmet was in and ready to go to work. The area of his shop is no more than 200 square feet, with only a sofa, a desk, the entrance, and a ladder leading to a loft interrupting stacks of weavings. Mehmet is a tall, lanky man who speaks Turkish and French and very little English. After some preliminary pleasantries and a glass of apple tea, he began spreading Uzbek suzani before us, perhaps 25 or more. None seemed as attractive as the one in his window, and that one was sold. He next disappeared up the ladder and returned with a couple of shopping bags, kneeled before us, and pulled out what must have been at least 50 Uzbek embroideries, including some of the nicest I've seen. Back up the ladder, and down he came with more shopping bags, this time with Kaitag embroideries from Daghestan. At least 50 of these relatively rare textiles, ranging from nice to spectacular, were spread before us. What a feast!

More apple tea while he goes back up the ladder. This time he came down with bags full of Ottoman embroideries. Finally, we were ready to talk business. We had set aside three Kaitags, including one for which the word exquisite would be inadequate. These turned out to be a bit too pricy for our budget. Then we talked about two Lakai pieces with glorious colors and designs (Illustrations 1 and 2). These were within our means, and they came home with us.

Lakai embroidered saddle cover, Uzbekistan, 19th century, silk on felt, 2'2"x2'3"

As luck would have it, our stay in Istanbul overlapped by three days that of our friend and sometimes supplier, Saul Barodofsky (Sun Bow Trading Company, Charlottesville, Virginia), who was there on a buying trip. We stayed in the same hotel (the Hali Hotel; where else!) and met for breakfast on all three days.₄ One evening Saul took us to a fish restaurant for dinner with his friend, Ali Yildiz, an Istanbul dealer (Star Gallery, Grand Bazaar, Istanbul). The restaurant was pleasantly situated on the banks of the Bosphorus, and the fish was wonderful. How good was it? Well, with two ruggies and two rug dealers at the table, there was no mention of textiles during a long, convivial dinner.

The next morning Saul accompanied us to Ali's. Some time ago Saul had a Caucasian "tile design" vernay (verneh) that was marvelous in every way except for some synthetic dyes, and we had asked him to look for something similar with natural dyes only. He had passed this information along to Ali, who had not one or two, but four vernays (vernehs) for us to see. Two were especially nice, and one of them struck us with its colors and the sense of movement created by their arrangement in nested diagonals (Figure 3). We were sure this would be outside our budget, so I ordered up some apple tea for Ali. Turkish dealers are convinced of its effectiveness, I reasoned, so it must work on them. Ali demurred, confirming my suspicions, but I pressed on. After giving the apple tea a few minutes to exert its effects, I asked the price of the vernay (verneh) in as casual a manner as I was able to muster. The apple tea had worked! The figure he quoted was so far below our expectations that my jaw dropped, and my wife and I exchanged glances that told us we agreed. Within a minute or two, it was being wrapped for us to bring home.

Caucasian verneh, 19th century, 5'9"x7'1"

Although we avoided most of Istanbul's rug shops, we did want to see the textiles in the city's museums. We were familiar with the Topkapi Palace collection, particularly the elegantly inscribed prayer rugs, from the book cataloguing them. However, although there's much for a tourist to see at Topkapi (including some terrific embroidered textiles), the rugs are not displayed and none of the guides even knew that any existed. The Vakiflar is in the same neighborhood (along with the Blue Mosque and Haggia Sophia) and, although not terribly well lit, has a small exhibition of excellent old rugs and no crowds. The Museum of Turkish and Islamic Arts (formerly a palace, built in the 1524) is directly across the street. It houses an extensive collection of excellent rugs and weavings, a bunch of 20th century Turkish rugs attributed to much earlier dates, and a furnished yurt. No ruggie in Istanbul should miss this museum.

Another place that would interest the textile lover is the Dolmabahce Palace, on the banks of the Bosphorus in a newer part of the city. Not many rugs or carpets are displayed here, but there's lots of beautiful textiles (household furnishings and, especially, costumes). We were told that the Military Museum, which is near Dolmabahce, has complete field tents with the elaborate textiles in place, but we didn't learn that until our time in Istanbul was up. We had no inkling that a military museum might have things to excite us, although we thoroughly enjoyed our tour of the Naval Museum, especially the boats that carried the sultans. The receptionist, a young man assigned to the museum as part of his obligatory military service, sells rugs on the side.

Ephesus

Bergama

After Istanbul, we drove to Bursa, an island of calm after a week in the beehive of Istanbul. No rug hustlers accosted us, nobody pulled Rolex watches from his shirt pocket. Here we were introduced to the traditional Turkish bath. We give it two thumbs up. The Bursa Ethnographic Museum is another worthwhile stop. Although few of its rugs are impressive, some of the other textiles are very beautiful. Next stop, Izmir, a modern, bustling city of nearly two million people. It's not much of a tourist stop itself but has some nice hotels and good restaurants and makes a convenient base for day trips to Ephesus and Bergama. Between Izmir and Ephesus we drove past the Kalehan Hotel, no doubt owned by an eastern branch of the family of ORR's editor.

Ephesus is the site of what is probably the most extensive old Greek city in Asia Minor; simply spectacular. We had no textile-related experiences there worth mentioning, so that's all I'll say about it.

Driving to Ephesus, the Basilica of St. John, atop a small hill just northeast of the town of Seljuk, is a mandatory stop for the tourist. The parking lot is, of course, bordered by a couple of rug shops. One dealer enticed me in after some preliminary conversation by saying he had a wonderful antique Marasali Kuba (sic) that should be interesting. I bit. The piece, at the very bottom of a pile of rugs that he insisted I look at as he removed them one by one, turned out to be what I believe is a Soviet "Five Year Plan" rug, probably made somewhere in Azerbaijan, with colors that probably looked even worse before they faded to their present awfulness. I assured the shopkeeper that it was clear that he was an honest man but that he had been badly misinformed about his antique Marasali Kuba, and I was quite certain that it was not antique, Marasali or Kuba.

There were magnificent mosques nearly everywhere we went in Turkey, the "tourist grade" mosque being the Turkish equivalent of western Europe's cathedrals. We'd heard that the mosques have layers of outstanding old rugs on their floors. This may have been true once upon a time, but today the floors are usually covered with modern workshop products from Pakistan and India and, in many mosques, machine-made carpets. Actually, the closest thing to nice rugs in a mosque that we saw were in the Isa Bey Mosque, a 14th century structure just a few blocks from the Basilica of St. John. A beautiful, richly inscribed rug was mounted on a far wall. When I admired it, the imam invited me to go look at it after surprising me by saying that it is a modern, machine-made cotton rug (a fact that was easily confirmed close up). We were greeted by the owner of the neighboring rug shop as we exited. Apparently business had been slow, and he was convinced that the imam was telling people to avoid dealing with him. We emphasized that nothing of the sort had been said to us, but that we did not want to stop to see his goods anyway, and we understood that there was no obligation and that we were passing up an educational opportunity.

How did we react to Turkey as a tourist destination? The appeal to the textile lover is obvious, and nobody reading ORR needs to be told that. In addition, the country is an historical treasure, with Greek, Roman, Byzantine and Ottoman cultures intermingled. The physical geography is beautiful, a mountainous desert with magnificent coastlines, lot like California. The people are kind, extroverted, and friendly. We plan to return to Istanbul and visit Central Anatolia and the Black Sea coast next year.

Notes