![\"1.\"](\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/06\/1..jpg\")
<\/a><\/center><\/p>\nAt Kabata\u015f I started up the shore road. It\u2019s always jammed. But northward now, an almost inert standstill. There was debris from some of last night\u2019s blockades, brilliant in the sunshine. <\/p>\n
<\/a><\/center><\/p>\nA couple hundred yards further, the iconic Dolmabah\u00e7e Mosque on the Bosphorus side. It was built in 1853 by the Armenian Balyan family dynasty of nineteenth-century architects.<\/p>\n
<\/a><\/center><\/p>\nThrough the window of the mosque, shut by police. Gas victims were treated here last night. Lemon is a common antidote. Directly across the road stands the stadium for Be\u015fikta\u015f J.\u2009K., one of the great football clubs of Istanbul, and a common site of disturbance. So too last night. In May, police gassed the club supporters before the final match of the season. The stadium is being torn down and rebuilt.<\/p>\n
<\/a><\/center><\/p>\nRiot cops were taking it easy by Dolmabah\u00e7e Palace next door, built also by a Balyan in the 1850s. Here the sultan moved from centuries at Topkap\u0131 Palace near Aya Sofya; here Atat\u00fcrk died, in 1938.<\/p>\n
<\/a><\/center><\/p>\nLooking back toward the white prominence of Be\u015fikta\u015f\u2019s stadium. Sidewalk bricks all along here had been torn up\u2014for throwing? Street blockading?<\/p>\n
<\/a><\/center><\/p>\nThe road\u2019s landward wall is lined with giant photographs of Atat\u00fcrk\u2014like a procession of silent-movie stills. Most Turks have always loved and revered Atat\u00fcrk, founder of modern Turkey. In recent years his image has exploded in popularity even more, as an icon of opposition to the Islamist party of Tayyip Erdo\u011fan.<\/p>\n
<\/a><\/center><\/p>\nAtat\u00fcrk watching from an earthmover by Dolmabah\u00e7e Palace.<\/p>\n
<\/a><\/center><\/p>\nAkaretler is a tony new development in Be\u015fikta\u015f and it saw some of last night\u2019s heaviest action. On local TV coverage (of which there\u2019s been scandalously little) it was like watching a scene from the French Commune. Akaretler was originally a development of row houses for employees at Dolmabah\u00e7e Palace (designed, natch, by a Balyan). Now W Hotel, among others, is here. I snapped this picture near the W: a load of plain clothes cops stepping of a bus.<\/p>\n
<\/a><\/center><\/p>\nThere\u2019s an Atat\u00fcrk Museum in Akaretler, with a second-story window busted from last night. I had the place to myself. I took advantage.<\/p>\n
<\/a><\/center><\/p>\nHad a quick cheap lahmacun<\/em> for lunch in Be\u015fikta\u015f, which is a market area of bustling alleys. (Its soccer ultras are called carsi<\/em>, meaning market). Couldn\u2019t resist having ayran<\/em>, the drink promoted by Erdo\u011fan as alternative national beverage to rak\u0131<\/em>. I toasted with the great Occupy Gezi chant, Tayyip Istifa!<\/em> Tayyip Resign!<\/p>\n Across the shore road from lunch, there\u2019s a brand new Shangri-La Hotel, whose sign had a hard night. The hotel is neighbor to Tayyip\u2019s office, which he\u2019s established ambitiously in a wing of Dolmabah\u00e7e Palace. Hitherto only used by sultans and Atat\u00fcrk.<\/p>\n Thirty police buses now stand shield by Tayyip\u2019s Palace facilities. The following fairly jackass stunt by American writer with over-eager camera:<\/p>\n Writer, snapping away: (clumsy Turkish pidgin) Gazeteci America!<\/em> (American journalist)<\/p>\n Riot Policeman, angrily signaling no: (clumsy English pidgin) TURKISH POLIS!!<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n End of photo op.<\/p>\n I wanted to head to Taksim now but the traffic was awful on the road going back. So I hopped a Bosphorus ferry to the Asian side, then a ferry back to the Kabata\u015f pier, and then the underground funicular up the hill to Taksim. It was a brilliantly lovely day on the water.<\/p>\n Taksim is surreally holiday-like. A holiday streaked with the scorch marks of fury. Globalization is a target of anger too. The building here is the Atat\u00fcrk Cultural Center, site of the local opera.<\/p>\n Young joyrides in a burned-out police bus in the square. They wanted to know where I was from as I climbed in among them.<\/p>\n I snapped this in Taksim for my girlfriend, who was a child under Brezhnev. I presume they are young communists. Lots of lefty banners and flags on display all around, though by no means exclusively.<\/p>\n S\u0131raselviler is the main street parallel to \u0130stiklal, the pedestrianized shopping thoroughfare. Completely blockaded.<\/p>\n Atat\u00fcrk-pride from a seller of simit<\/em> (the sesame-seeded bread ring) along S\u0131raselviler. I wanted desperately to show him by self-portrait with Atat\u00fcrk\u2014but couldn\u2019t find it in my bulging archive of the day\u2019s snaps. Nearby I bought artisanal goat yogurt from a butcher; it comes in a clay pot like a cazuela. It is fantastically tasty. So lumbering along home to our place in Findikli, halfway between Taksim and Kabata\u015f.<\/p>\n I rested at home, then decided at twilight to go back down to Kabata\u015f\u2019s stretch of Bosphorus-side park grass, to take a break from all the action and Twitter fever of the last week. I\u2019d been tear- or pepper-gassed three times since arriving late April.<\/p>\n It was lovely by the water, with its milky sheen at that hour. My attention was then caught by what appeared to be the sight of people running south down the road \u2026 shouting, panicked, as if in a disaster film. \u201cNe var?\u201d I cried to a woman rushing by, in a phrase I figured meant, \u201cWhat\u2019s happening?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cBIBER GAZ!!\u201d PEPPER GAS!!<\/p>\n<\/a><\/center><\/p>\n<\/a><\/center><\/p>\n\n
<\/a><\/center><\/p>\n<\/a><\/center><\/p>\n<\/a><\/center><\/p>\n<\/a><\/center><\/p>\n<\/a><\/center><\/p>\n<\/a><\/center><\/p>\n<\/a><\/center><\/p>\n