I waited a long time with writing and posting this story. I did not want to worry my parents, brothers, family, girlfriend, friends, or readers. Now that I’m in another city, in another country, I feel that it’s the right time to share this. It’s an interesting story, exciting, entertaining, but also serves as a warning. These are not any of the reasons for me writing this however. Through my blog, I want to share my experiences of the intensity of life. Some moments are too private to describe, others are impossible to put into words, however, after this event occurred, I knew immediately I had an exciting story to share. Although the enthusiasm about what I had experienced soon changed into fear.
I was meeting an old Turkish friend in the party district of Taksim, or Beyoğlu to be more precise. We met on Istiklal Caddesi and it was fantastic to greet him in his country after us two having met in my country. We walked down to an alleyway where a few of his friends were getting drunk. The alley was a bit of a twilight zone, some very strange types there, but we soon finished our beers and headed to the club.
We had quite a few beers, talked the whole night and also met a few interesting people. As the club was closing we headed out, but decided it was too early to call it a night. We bought ourselves two beers and decided to chat some more while we finish our beers and then we’d go in our separate directions. We decided to look for a safe place to drink our beers. Drinking alcohol on the street is not allowed in Istanbul, as in Holland, so we wanted to get off the main street since you don’t want to mess with the Turkish police (and I’ll come back to this later). We walked around for 10 minutes, searching a spot that was out of sight enough to not be bothered by police, but in sight enough to be safe… We both had heard warnings about having to be careful in this area, so we took extra care. As we found our spot, my friend nodded towards a guy at the end of the street and joked “this guy could kill us”. We laughed and started chatting about music.
After about 10 minutes, two guys came by. My friend told me he’d be speaking in English and pretending not to know Turkish, since he figured that troublemakers looking for a fight were more likely to leave foreigners alone. I agreed. The guys asked for some money. I told them in Turkish I had none, threw out some more Turkish phrases in a playful way and after this they left. No trouble at all, but my friend was right about not speaking Turkish. There was a certain tensity.
About 10 minutes later another guy came. He spoke to us in Turkish and apparently asked if he could use on of our phones with his SIM card, because he needed to make a call. I’m not going to hand my phone over to anyone in the middle of the night, so I said in very broken Turkish that my phone’s in Holland, because in Turkey I can’t use it. He kinda stayed around like any socially awkward guy would in the middle of the night. I threw out some more Turkish phrases, he replied… It was fun. My friend told me he was impressed with my Turkish. I offered the guy a sip of my beer and everything was cool.
When we finished our beers we decided to get out of there and get back to Istiklal Caddesi, the main street in the district, always full with people – and police. As we indicated we were leaving the guy once more asked us for a phone for his SIM card… I told him again that I had no phone. My friend still pretended to not understand a word of Turkish. We started walking and indicated that we were going to Istiklal Cad. The guy then also started leaving. He said something in Turkish and when he wasn’t paying attention, my friend said that the guy was also going to the same street, which was just two streets away. The guy walked about 5 to 10 metres in front of us and my friend and I resumed our previous conversations, mostly about music and Istanbul.
We turned the corner, and another one. We were now looking at an L shaped corner. The guy in front of us walked to the corner and turned back and said something in Turkish. My friend said that the guy had said Istiklal Cad. was in the other direction. We turned and as I was talking, my friend wasn’t beside me as soon as I expected him to. Always an awkward moment when you think you’re talking to someone and they’re not there. I turned around and my friend was in the middle of the street with the guy holding him. I was wondering what was going on, but didn’t assume anything bad… The hold didn’t look so tight and I figured they were just messing around, after all, if you share your beer with someone, they’re your friend. All naive ideas, but retold it sounds a lot different than when it’s actually happening.
Next thing, the guy had my friend against the wall and I noticed the energy had shifted from jolly to something more serious. I walked around them to notice that the guy had a knife to the side of my friend’s head. I understood what was going on, but remained very calm. I had imagined before what it’s like to get robbed, but never thought it would be so casual. I contemplated for a second, to run and get help… To start shouting… The grab the guy by the wrist of the hand that was holding the knife with one hand and to punch him on his nose with the other… Instead I figured it was best to just stay right there and do nothing. I looked for loose stones or something that I could use as a weapon, but didn’t see anything. I was very surprised by how calm I was and how assertive. I took a step closer and said things like “hey man, you don’t want to do this”, “come on, stop it”, et cetera… Trying to find the reasonable guy in this obvious rookie.
My friend was noncooperative, so the guy put his hands in my friend’s pockets and fished out his phone. He then turned to me and while pointing his knife at me he said “telefon, telefon!” I looked him straight in the eyes and said “hayır, yok.” His eyes were nervous. He didn’t know what to do… it was obvious. He turned to my friend again… hesitated… and then he ran off. My friend and I caught our breaths… uttering “what the f….” And then suddenly… my friend started chasing the robber. I ran after him, but I was tired from the night out and my shoes were very loose, so I couldn’t keep up well. We ran through a few streets with people closing their bars and as my friend yelled out to stop the robber, nobody did anything. At some point we reached a crossing and just stood there… figuring out in which direction the guy had went. When you watch foot chases in Hollywood movies, you always get the moment where the good guys are chasing a bad guy and the reach a crossing, look around… 360 clockwise, 360 counterclockwise… and then curse because they know that they lost the guy. That’s exactly what it was like.
We weren’t finished however. I convinced my friend that we should go to the police station. People in Turkey have very little confidence in the police and so did my friend and so did I… but I also figured that even though there’s a small chance we’d find the robber and the phone… It was also a good chance for some closure.
A new adventure was about to start… Thieves are absolutely hated in Turkey and as I said earlier, you don’t want to mess with the police in Istanbul. Check back tomorrow for part 2!
Have you ever been robbed? How did it happen? Did you expect being robbed to be like actually getting robbed, or was it different?
Lesson learned here: if you’re in a big foreign city and get warned about certain things… Take it very seriously. Never think about it lightly!
BasBasBas.com is about my life abroad. I regularly write about my adventures in Istanbul, Bulgaria and travels in the region. If you’d like to stay up to date, you can subscribe to my RSS feed or get email updates in your inbox. You can also follow me on Twitter.
Comments
15 responses to “How I Got Robbed in Istanbul”
I was robbed in Canada, also at knifepoint. It wasn’t my money though, so I handed it over. $5000, but my employer had insurance so I didn’t hesitate.
Scary as hell. But I don’t fear big foreign cities. It was my own medium-sized home town in which I was robbed.
Wow! What a story. I look forward to part 2, and I’m glad you’re okay.
I was once in a group that was threatened by another group. As the oldest and biggest at the time, I felt responsible to head off the opposite group’s leader, and luckily nothing came of it. As with your situation, it was night and we shouldn’t have been on the street. I think it has made me extra cautious of my surroundings ever since.
I was held up at gun point in a bank in Johannesburg, South Africa. The guys had been disturbed hiding in the toilets by the dog patrol as the bank was closing on a Saturday morning. They shot twice at the guard but missed and came running through the bank. I was a teller at the time but came through to the front to tell my best friend to go away as I’d heard the shots.
The came running past and they locked the doors in time to trap one of them. He pulled his gun and trained it at my head until they let him escape too.
They didn’t get anything but I forgot whole chunks of the events that day and developed ptsd as we weren’t properly debriefed and continued to work as if nothing had happened.
Thankfully I don’t have tales of my own to tell. I do try to be careful, whether in my current local city of residence, or when traveling. An ounce of prevention really is better than a pound of cure!
Glad you are okay, and I too am looking forward to Part 2! 🙂
I have been robbed quite a few times in London and beaten up badly in one intance, but never abroad. This may be because I never go to popular tourist areas when abroad.
Istanbul it a city and whatever city in this world there is a bigger risk of crime. Cities are a breeding ground for this and the needle in a haystack scenario comes about with police dealing with it.
Sofia will have the same problems as you well know, let’s hope you can avoid this situation again. You are now a little more street wise with this experience, but that still doesn’t solve anything.
Glad to say that apart from one or two gypsy no go areas here, in Yambol (which incidently is technically a city) crime and muggings are rare.
It wold be interest to see whether anyone will own up to admitting whether they have actually mugged someone!!
There’s a lot of hiphop songs featuring confessions of robberies 😉
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i think i learn here from your mistakes , but for me i didn’t faced this situation in foreign city but i lost my watch once that make me think about robbery action but don’t know .
i agree with your words/lesson ” if you’re in a big foreign city and get warned about certain things… Take it very seriously. Never think about it lightly! “
Thanks for all your comments 🙂
What’s your first name? I doubt it’s Money 😉
[…] I’ve made quite a bunch of mistakes in living abroad, including a mistake which resulted in me being held at knifepoint during a robbery. There’s a lot to learn from our mistakes and by writing about them publicly, we also help […]
where you were robbed is the red light district of a city where 15 million people live
Well, the red light district was 5 minutes from there I’ve been heard. But as stated, I already knew it was a dangerous area.
I have also been robbed in istanbul. i live on the very outskirts of istanbul in a community called Alkent 2000. Alkent 2000 is a place where a lot of very rich foriegners live. About a year before my robbery some people tried to shoot the gaurds of Alkent 2000 but failed. The same day this story was written was when it happened coincedentley. Monday Januaray 12th 2009 my parents placed 2000 euro on our counter to pay for a school trip to bulgaria. i got ready for the next day of school, and tonight of all nights i went to bed very late and slept very very heavily.
The next morning, instead of waking up to my alarm clock i woke up to my parents shouting and swearing. Their voices were high, and sounded worried and confused. i ran downstairs. The money was gone, the contents of my moms purse was scattered everywhere, my phone and my ipod were gone. My mom’s passion is photography her brand new giant camera was gone with all her lenses and memory cards full of pictures (tears were shed). 4 laptops, 5 ipods, 4 phones, 2000 euro 3 cameras, 2 wallets, my brothers backpack (for carrying stuff) and we also had a guest visiting from canada who lost a phone, an ipod, some money, and his sunglasses.
there was definatley more than one robber because this was done very quikly seening as how 3 other houses were also robbed im Alkent 2000 that night. Usually there are joggers out at night, usually i get up during the night, usually the whole nieghborhood wakes up when every one of the dogs bark, but that night, everyone just slept through it all. Except for one pperson, 4 houses were robbed, in the 5th house the owner woke up and went down stairs for some water coming face to face with the burglar. thankfuly they were unarmed and ran away but i still feel violated, someone broke into my house while me and my family thought we were safe inside, took over 25,000 dolars worth of ireplacable items including the photos of my moms trip to the galapagos islands and trashed my house.
i went to school, i would have much rather been surrounded by my friends then dealing with questions from the police, my mothers tears, and having this horrible feeling that was making me feel sick at the sight of all the commotion, remeber our neighbors also had many more things taken from them, like jewlery. The couceler alowed me to skip classes to just sit and think. i decided i would spend a few days at my friends house because i didn’t feel like sleeping in my bed that night plus i got an extension on all my homework, because my laptop with a whole essay was gone, and all my books that were on top were shredded. In the morning when we woke up thank Jesus that our 3 house cats haddn’t ran away, the robbrs left the door wide open, and stray dogs came inside and ate the cats food.
that was a morning i will never forget
a few weeks later one of my neighbors (extremly wealthy) was murdured while his wife and for children were away in sweden.
It’s not a bad community, the wealth of the people who live here attracts attention.
The last thing i will say is the flash flood destroyed my community and shut down the school for a while
Woah! Very intense story. Thanks for sharing. Scary.