BasBasBas.com

Tag: Taksim

  • How I Got Robbed in Istanbul Pt. 3

    After being robbed we went on a manhunt with some bad ass Istanbul cops dressed in even more bad ass civilian clothes. The adrenaline started to subside and feelings and thoughts arose… The aftermath of a robbery, including what happens if you don’t learn your lesson the first time.

    How I Got Robbed in Istanbul part 1.
    How I Got Robbed in Istanbul part 2.

    After making sure we’d keep in touch over the next few months, while I was living in Istanbul, we said goodbye. It was now morning and I got on the bus, full of people ready to go to work, or wherever people go at 7 in the morning on a Sunday (and it couldn’t have been church, because it’s Turkey). On my way home the events of the night kept going through my mind like a film. Even when I got to my bed, it was tough to fall asleep. My mind was noisy…

    Could I have intervened? Why had I been so calm during the robbery? Did I put myself at risk by refusing to give the robber my stuff? I also felt a kind of compassion for the robber, which surprised me the most. When we were looking for the robber with the police, on one hand I hoped we’d find him, so that we could get my friend’s phone back and that justice would be done… However, I also knew that justice would not be done if we found him. He’d most likely get the living crap kicked out of him and with a few broken ribs and maybe a broken limb he’d be put together with hard criminals, murderers and rapists for a few months. That doesn’t seem like justice to me. So I sincerely hoped for the robber that we wouldn’t find him and that he might change his ways.

    I started to feel like the guy needed help. I was unimpressed by him and he seemed like a total rookie, so maybe something could still be done. I believe that if the guy had felt that he had a choice, he wouldn’t be out robbing people. Imagine having to threaten people’s lives for a living; I don’t think this can make a human being happy. I have all the chances in the world. I’m more likely to be happy than the guy who robbed us, I’m more likely to achieve my dreams, to attain a certain level of spiritual development even… while this guy has no prospects at all. I felt very sorry for him, but at the same time I felt guilty for feeling sorry for him. I guess it was human and societal values colliding.

    Over the next days I started getting a little scared. I realized that anyone can rob someone successfully quite easily. All you need is a knife and a quiet spot… and it only needs to be quiet for one minute, that’s all. I grew very wary and my previous feelings of sometimes being uncomfortable in certain situations in Turkey, which arose from culture shock, were now transformed into fear. I constantly kept my guard up during my time in Istanbul.

    A week after the robbery, a friend of mine and I went to a club in the party district of the city again, Beyoğlu. It was a cool underground place, but they were charging 8 lira for the beers (EUR 4.- / $6.- more or less). So after trying to bargain, we decided to get some alcohol outside and drink it somewhere in the street. My friend suggested drinking it in some sidestreet, but I insisted that we’d drink it somewhere in a very busy area. We walked down to a big road where a lot of taxi’s were waiting for customers. Most of the taxidrivers wait outside their cars and talk to each other. We judged it as a safe place, even though the ghetto started just at the other side of the road.

    After about 5 minutes, some dodgy looking guy came over and started talking to us in Turkish. I tried to tell him that I don’t speak Turkish and he should go away, but my friend insisted that it was fine and nothing would happen. Everything would be alright, as it always is with him and I’ve got to admit, this friend really knows how to deal with sketchy people. So apparently the dodgy guy spoke German, as did my friend, and they started conversing. We shared some vodka and some beer, but the whole time I was filled with adrenaline and extremely on guard… my body even shaking.

    At some point I was talking in English to my friend and I noticed the guy tapping his finger on my friend’s pocket… I immediately told my friend, since I assumed the guy would try to pickpocket him. Some taxidriver joined the conversation and another guy. I figured we were safe from getting robbed, but we should still be completely on our guard… I couldn’t enjoy the alcohol anymore and wanted to go back into the club.

    We tried to have some fun with the guys and we even ended up taking a picture with them.


    The dodgy guy on the left, my friend in the middle and a friendly guy on the right (sunglasses came from us). The guy on the right actually showed me pictures of his children which he carried around and really wanted to share to show me who he is and what’s important to him. Or possibly because he didn’t speak English and I didn’t really speak Turkish, so it was just the easy way out.

    At some point this guy left and an acquaintance of the dodgy guy came by. They said hi and the guy joined the conversation. It was now him, a friendly taxi driver (who seemed a bit wary about the guys we were speaking to), the dodgy guy, my friend and I, in a street with plenty of people around and a lot of passers-by. I really wanted to go back in and was just waiting for my friend to finish his conversation… At some point I heard my friend saying “hey hey hey!” in a strict tone and saw the guy passing a phone to his acquaintance who was standing behind him, but right in front of me. I got up with a new rush of adrenaline in my body.

    The urgent tone in my friend’s voice might have scared the guy and he got the phone back from his acquaintance and passed it back to my friend. The taxidriver had disappeared. My friend told the guy in German that he would be very friendly, but he should not try to play tricks like that on him. He was very strict on him and the guy (more or less sincerely apologized). Then immediately police showed up and asked me if there was any problem. I told them to ask my friend if there’s any problems. My friend said there are no problems at all, but the cops still asked the dodgy guy for his ID and they stuck it in their pocket after giving it a glance. Guess he would have to report to the police station to get it back. Then I saw the taxidriver again. I think he had warned the police immediately. Very friendly.

    The police told us to get our beer and get out of there, so we did. 10 meters down the street two angry men approached me and told me to throw away my beer… I hesitated, but they showed their ID’s and were cops in civilian clothes. Wow, so much police presence, yet so much crime.

    So this had been the second time I was out drinking on the street in that area and both times someone had tried to rob a friend of me… Once successfully, once not. This made me even more pessimistic about the safety in Istanbul. The city’s safe if you play by its rules… but I’ve never been the type of person to follow the exact rules.

    The next months I felt caged… I didn’t feel free at all, scared to write too critically about the Turkish government and getting my site blocked or getting charged for “anti-Turkishness” (a law once useful perhaps, but now often applied in fascist ways by corrupt politicians and judges), but also scared to be alone on the streets at night. It was the final push I needed to fall into a culture shock that would last for about two months.

    Towards the end of my stay I really started to enjoy myself again and feel alright, but it was too late.

    The good part however: I learned how to deal with culture shock, I got some life experience and I learned to be a little bit more careful at night.

    This was the final part of the three piece series. Thanks for following.

    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.

  • How I Got Robbed in Istanbul Pt. 2

    We had just been robbed… I had gotten off with just being threatened with a knife, but my friend had just lost an expensive phone. After chasing our robber we decided to go to the police and a new adventure was about to start.

    Click here for part 1.

    We headed to the closest police station. We got there and my body was still filled with adrenaline… the rush started subsiding and I started to feel a bit weak. I realized I had to sit down for a second or I would faint. Funny how you can switch from a clear, calm and focused mental state to nearly passing out in such a short time, but then again I’ve always performed well under pressure.

    We were told we had to take it to a different station, so we went there. That’s when we found out we were robbed just 3 corners away from the main police station of the district. We went in and told the cops about what had happened. We were sent to some office where there were a few people telling their accounts to police officers. My friend translated that the basic attitude of these guys was that it’s people’s own fault if they get robbed; they shouldn’t have been in that place, at that time. We were sitting in a waiting room and there was an older man (in his 50s or 60s) whose head was bleeding. My friend talked to him and apparently he had been mugged by the same guy. Apparently he had also held the knife to the head of the guy and had cut him. We told the police that it was probably the same guy and they told us to wait. They said they would send some cops in civilian clothes out to act as bait.

    After about ten minutes we were told to come along and we were introduced to two super bad ass cops in civilian attire. The one had hair until his shoulders and a long red leather coat. The other was shorter and had a black leather jacket and looked like he had a mix of coffee and whiskey as blood and ate burning cigarettes for breakfast.  They told us to get in their car and we started driving. Their attitudes were dead serious. I knew that if we found the robber, they’d beat him up quite badly. Turks hate thieves intensely and many people condone the violence they endure when they’re caught.

    We drove back to the street where we were robbed. Nothing there. We drove through the street where we were drinking beers. At some point we passed some people who were sleeping on the street under a blanket. They stopped the car and told us to get out. We got out. The guy grabbed the blanket and uncovered the people in a rather rough manner. He asked us if it was one of  them and we said no. We then got back into the car, blanket still lying on the street. The cops were definitely a bit rough around the edges.

    We drove down to a neighbourhood which is right next to Taksim, not more than a 10 minute walk from the main street. We entered the neighbourhood and immediately we were in a different world. From the nicest, and one of the richest and most modern sites of Istanbul, to one of immense poverty with a high degree of f—ed upness. The streets were no longer asfalted or paved… There was trash everywhere along the dark or dimly lighted streets. There were prostitutes and transexuals in some streets and murky guys standing around in others, even though it was after 5 in the morning.

    At some point we stopped in the middle of one of the streets, a rather crowded one. One of the cops got out and went into a building. As he stepped into the entryway he disappeared into the darkness of the shadows. Neither of us knew why he had stepped out to go there, but after a few minutes he came back, got into the car and indicated that we hadn’t found him. We drove around for a few more minutes and then went back to the police station.

    That neighbourhood is the worst place I’ve ever seen and I’ve seen quiet a few bad places. The most alarming side to it however is that it’s right next to the area where people go out and get drunk. Robbers can just come out of the neighbourhood, go back to their neighbourhood where nobody will follow them and they won’t be found.

    The next post will be about the aftermath… What I realized afterwards, how it might have affected my stay in Istanbul and the opinion of the Taksim district, and another similar event… Leading me to the conclusion there’s a 99% chance someone will try to rob you if you hang out in certain parts of the district at night. Follow the rules kids, don’t f–k around in this area! Especially at night.

    What are the best and worst experiences you’ve had with police officers? What do you think about the officers in your country? Do you have similar areas next to the most important party district of your city?

    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.

  • How I Got Robbed in Istanbul

    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.

  • “Slowly! … Slowly!”

    Recently I went to an international student party here in Istanbul, but I don’t want to talk about the party. I want to talk about our way to the party. We were hanging out in an apartment on the Asian side of Istanbul, where we all live. We had dinner together, some wine and around 11 we decided to get on our way to grab a bus to the Taksim/Beyoğlu district of the European side of Istanbul; it’s where all the parties happen.

    So we got on our way and into the bus… As we were sitting in the bus, waiting for it to leave, it was noticeable that we were attracting some attention. Of course, we were all chatting and foreigners in Turkey generally attract quite a bit of attention.

    As the bus started moving, we started getting some ugly looks from people turning around and looking at us… Maybe it was not just us being foreigners, maybe we were a bit too loud (even though we weren’t loud, especially by Turkish standards).

    Then, upon one guy’s third turning around and staring at us, he said in a very direct and rather rude tone:

    “Excuse me!!!!” There was a pause.

    “Slowly!” Another pause.

    “Slowly!!” He kept staring at us.

    One of the girls present said okay and then the guy turned around to start a conversation with his neighbour. No doubt that it was about the nuisance and the suffering he had to go through, with us in this bus.

    Even though the guy was quite rude – and drunk, as was obvious upon him exiting the bus – this small anecdote says something about the culture in Turkey, or at least Istanbul. You will hardly ever see someone eating in a bus, or even on the street. When two friends get into a bus together, they usually lower their voices and speak rather softly. This is quite different from other countries I’ve visited, where people generally talk with each other in a normal volume.

    Also, a lot more so than in Holland, people will actually immediately get up for a woman, an old person or a person with disabilities. Not 100% of the times, but a lot more than in Holland. Over here I started feeling that the whole bus should be ashamed of themselves if there’s an old lady standing while there are young people sitting.

    However, all of the above does not mean that the guy yesterday wasn’t completely out of line. First of all, you’re in the bus to Taksim at 11 o’ clock on a Friday night… What do you expect? Second of all, he was eating when he got into the bus. Thirdly, he could have asked us politely at least, or just have made some gesture instead of shouting at us.

    Photo above by ibcbulk on Flickr, shared under a Creative Commons license.

    How is the bus culture in your country? How are people’s manners? Can you comment about some of the things mentioned in this article and how it is in places you’ve been to?

    BasBasBas.com is about my life as a Dutch student living in Istanbul. I regularly write about my adventures in Istanbul 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.

  • Party time in Taksim

    Yesterday night we met up with a ‘bunch’ of Erasmus students (30) in the Taksim district of Istanbul for a night out on the town. My roommate and I headed from our dorms to the park, where we went into a cable lift over the park towards Taksim. Once there, I was amazed with how modern everything was. What a lively district! I’d been wondering where all the cool, young people hang out in Istanbul and this is one of the places.

    Taksim’s main square is a popular place for big public events such as New Year’s Eve celebration and parades. It used to be an important center for demonstrations also, but after a few incidents in the sixties and seventies the Turkish government decided to introduce a ban on these demonstrations on the square.

    After meeting up with a few fellow students from Poland and Spain, we decided to head out and grab a bite. We headed down İstiklal Caddesi (Avenue) which is Istanbul’s main shopping streets and is visited by over 3 million people per day during the weekends. In the sidestreets there are many bars and restaurants, but the area also has a lot of other sights to see which you can read about on Wikipedia.

    After having some food, we walked down one of the streets and came past a Nargila place. This traditional waterpipe has been a very important element in the social life of Turkish people over the course of history and they are smoked to socialize. One Nargila, five teas and a water only cost us 11 lira total, which is around 6 or 7 euros. Great stuff!

    Then we headed to a bar about which I won’t speak, because the best thing you can do is just head over to the area yourself one day and explore all that it has to offer. It’s incredibly vibrant, even more so than what I’ve seen in cities like Paris or London!

    Like to read more about Turkey, Istanbul and my travels in the region? Subscribe by RSS or click here for email updates.

Related Posts Widget for Blogs by LinkWithin