Kadikoy is magical. It is for the poor, the rich, the sad, and the happy. For everyone, there is something at Kadikoy. The simple state of being there gives you a sense of being in a large modern urban area. Taking the ships to go from the Asian part of Istanbul to Old European Istanbul makes you feel part of a rich history. If you are down, Kadikoy will lift you up. If you’re too prideful, Kadikoy will humble you. Kadikoy changes you for the better and brings you to reality through a shining magical reality every opportunity it gets.
For me, the moment came when a group of beautiful youth were dancing by the water to a beautiful Kurdish song by Şiyar Berwari. I was contemplating the melancholy of the place as Orhun Pamuk describes in his book, Istanbul, when I heard the music. Within seconds, I went from walking contemplatively to taking a video with my phone for family and then rotating the dancing circle with the group kneeling every five seconds to be able to capture the moment. I did not have time to switch to a proper lens, nor did I find time to focus properly and take a photo of the beautiful spin jumps they made from time to time, but I hope their vibrancy is properly reflected in my photo.
There are multiple boats taking people around Bosphorus starting in Kadikoy. Most simply take the boats to cross the strait to the Galata Bridge or Besiktas, but the Bosphorus tours also start from Kadikoy. As a tourist, I took all three on different days and they were all enjoyable. There is the simple beauty of water, the views of the Galata Tower, the lighthouse at the top of a pier full of white dots – Seagulls, which were the color and music of my childhood in a different magical place, but that’s a story for another day.
And then there is Kiz Kulesi. Legend has it that the emperor heard an ominous prophecy about his daughter’s fate. She was going to be stung by a snake. The emperor commands building Kiz Kulesi in the middle of Bosphorus to protect his daughter from snakes, any snakes. On her 18th birthday, when the emperor brings her daughter a fruit basket, she gets stung by a snake hiding in the fruit basket and dies in the father’s hands. There’s a lot one can decipher from the story: that fate is inevitable, the time will come, the snakes hide in places you least expect them, and the list goes on. Like many Eastern stories, the legend of Kiz Kulesi is also about accepting one’s fate. Thinking and writing about fate, of course, goes way farther and older than Kiz Kulesi. It is in every culture. My favorite quote has always been “Receive with simplicity everything that happens to you.” This is from Rashi, the Rabbi who lived in the 11th century. There is the idea of loving your fate (Amor Fati) that goes back to Greek philosophers and was later revived by Freidrich Nietzsche. This is humankind’s oldest struggle – when to bend their fate and when to accept it, and if there is a place to ever think about it, it is Istanbul.
