X-Nico

15 unusual facts about Istanbul


Chalcedony

The term chalcedony is derived from the name of the ancient Greek town Chalkedon in Asia Minor, in modern English usually spelled Chalcedon, today the Kadıköy district of Istanbul.

Deniz Seki

After being kept in detention for two days, she was released without charge, however, on February 23, 2009 Deniz Seki was rearrested by Drug Squad officers and detained in Zekeriyaköy Gendarmerie station at the request of the public prosecutor.

Edip Cansever

Born in Istanbul, Turkey, Cansever attended Trade Academy for some time, and worked as an antiquity salesman in Grand Bazaar, Istanbul.

Fedail Güler

He is the world record holder in –70 kg division with 160.0 kg in snatch event and with 350.0 kg in total achieved at the 1994 World Weightlifting Championships held in Istanbul, Turkey.

Forum of the Ox

The Forum lay along the southern branch of the Mese Odós (the main street of the city), in the valley of the Lycus creek, between the seventh and the third hills of Constantinople.

If You Swear, You'll Catch No Fish

The album was recorded in April 1986 at Power Zone Studio in Edmonton, although the album's liner notes claim the studio is located in Istanbul, Turkey.

Isaac Karo

Although the details of Rabbi Karo's life afterwards are unclear, it is apparent that he lived Istanbul in Turkey.

Istanbul-Pythio railway

In 1971, the State railways built a new line from Pehlivanköy to the Bulgarian border at Kapıkule.

Istanbul: Memories and the City

Pamuk's favourite Istanbuli writers, who meant inspiration for him and also became figures of his book, are Yahya Kemal Beyatlı, Reşat Ekrem Koçu, Abdülhak Şinasi Hisar, Ahmet Rasim and Ahmet Hamdi Tanpınar.

His favourite Western travelogue writers play a similar role like Gérard de Nerval, Théophile Gautier and Gustave Flaubert.

Kabataş

Kabataş, Istanbul, a quarter in the European part of Istanbul, Turkey

M. K. Perker

Kutlukhan Perker (born November 2, 1972, Istanbul) is one of the most prominent and internationally recognized artists of his native Turkey.

Philadelphion

The Philadelphion was a public square located in Constantinople (today's Istanbul).

Vasily Kamensky

On his release, he traveled to Istanbul and Tehran; the impressions from this Eastern trip would leave a mark on his later work.

Zeynep Değirmencioğlu

Zeynep Değirmencioğlu (born September 12, 1954 in Istanbul, Turkey) is a Turkish actress.


Ahmet Muhtar Merter

Ahmet Muhtar Merter, also known as Ahmed Muhtar Bey (? İstanbul - 1959; Istanbul) was a Turkish irregular fighter in the Turkish War of Independence.

Amedeo Preziosi

Two years later, in 1844, Preziosi was commissioned by Robert Curzon, the private secretary of the British Ambassador to Istanbul, Lord Stratford Canning, 1st Viscount Stratford de Redcliffe to create an album called Costumes of Constantinople, which now is located in the collections of the British Museum.

Anadolu Agency

After Istanbul came under occupation on March 16, 1920 and the Ottoman parliament was annulled, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk called on all provinces to hold elections for a new parliament to be established in Ankara.

Anna Balakian

Anna Balakian (14 July 1915 in Constantinople, Ottoman Empire (now Istanbul, Turkey) – 12 August 1997 in New York City, United States), former chair of the Department of Comparative Literature at New York University, was internationally recognized as an authority on symbolism and surrealism.

Arabian Peninsula

It was a part of the Ottoman railway network and was built in order to extend the previously existing line between Istanbul and Damascus (which began from the Haydarpaşa Terminal) all the way to the holy city of Mecca (eventually being able to reach only Medina due to the interruption of the construction works caused by the outbreak of World War I).

Bektashi Order

Bektashis continue to be active in Turkey and their semi-clandestine organizations can be found in Istanbul, Ankara and Izmir.

Blood and Oil in the Orient

It concludes with father and son fleeing the Bolshevik takeover of Baku in 1920 via Tiflis and Batumi, Georgia, across the Black Sea to Istanbul.

Carmen Moral

Since then, several orchestras have entrusted her with the post of Music Director, such as the Bogotá Philharmonic Orchestra (Colombia), I. Frauen-Kammerorchester von Osterreich (Vienna), the Symphony Orchestra of Mimar Sinan University (Istanbul), and, for a second time, the National Symphony orchestra of Peru.

Cenk Ünnü

Cenk Ünnü (born 1967 in Istanbul) is the drummer of the heavy metal band Mezarkabul (also known as Pentagram).

Charles Duchaussois

It was 1969 at the zenith of the hippie movement, from Marseille to Beirut, from Istanbul to Baghdad, taking long detours in India, by boat, on foot, in car, Charles bit by bit got closer to Kathmandu, the height of drugs and hippies.

Cihangirzade İbrahim Bey

On 13 April 1919, the capital of the republic, Kars, was occupied by the British troops under the command of General William M. Thomson and after a period of local resistance he was arrested by the British forces and sent, through Batum and İstanbul, to a one-year exile in Malta (see Malta exiles) together with 11 members of his cabinet.

Claude Farrère

Claude Farrère, pseudonym of Frédéric-Charles Bargone (27 April 1876, in Lyon – 21 June 1957, in Paris), was a French author of novels set in such exotic locations as Istanbul, Saigon, and Nagasaki.

Conference of London

Bekir Sami Kunduh, representative of Ankara, insisted that the delegate from Istanbul could not enter the negotiations, and rejected the use of Sêvres as the basis of the talks.

David ben Judah Messer Leon

However, in 1495 the city fell to the French under Charles VIII, and he fled east to the Ottoman Empire to escape the violent pogroms that ensued, spending time in Istanbul before moving sometime between 1498 and 1504 to teach Torah in Salonica, at that time in a state of intellectual vibrancy due to the settlement there of many Sephardi exiles forced to leave after the expulsion of the Jews from Spain in 1492, Sicily in 1493, and Portugal in 1496.

DeviantArt

Starting May 13, 2009, deviantArt embarked on a world tour, visiting cities around the world, including Sydney, Singapore, Warsaw, Istanbul, Berlin, Paris, London, New York City, Toronto and Los Angeles.

Ernest Mamboury

Throughout his life in Istanbul, which lasted for more than forty years until his death in 1953, Mamboury dedicated most of his literary works on the Byzantine structures of this city, as well as other significant historic monuments in Istanbul and Ankara.

Evliya Çelebi Way

(Heavy urbanisation prevents the Way entering either Istanbul, from where he set out in 1671, or Bursa).

Expulsion of the Jews from Portugal

Most Portuguese Jews, thousands, would eventually leave the country to Amsterdam, Thessaloniki, Constantinople (Istanbul), France, Morocco, Brazil, Curaçao and the Antilles.

Görgün Taner

Gorgun Taner (born 1959) is the General Director of the Istanbul Foundation for Culture and Arts (İKSV), a non-profit, non-governmental organisation founded in 1973 that organises four international festivals (Film, Theatre, Classical Music and Jazz), the Istanbul Biennial, and the Istanbul Design Biennial.

Gülderen Çelik

She was born the youngest of five children in the Mecidiyeköy neighborhood of Istanbul.

Hagop Vahram Çerçiyan

Hagop Vahram Çerçiyan was a professor of mathematics, geography, and calligraphy at the Robert College of Istanbul, known for designing the signature of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the first president of Turkey.

Hakham Bashi

Stanford J Shaw, 'Appendix 1: Grand Rabbis of Istanbul and the Ottoman Empire, and Chief Rabbis of republican Turkey', in The Jews of the Ottoman Empire and the Turkish Republic (New York City: New York University Press, 1991), 272-273.

Hunca Cosmetics

It is a well established company, with head offices in Istanbul, Sarıyer, which runs a factory in Çerkezköy, Northwest Turkey and has an annual turnover at US$50 million 2008 together with 550 employees.

IEL

Istanbul High School, Istanbul (Erkek) Lisesi, a highschool in Istanbul, Turkey

İş Bank commercial featuring Atatürk

To find a suitable location for the take representing the features of the era, three separate teams searched İstanbul, Edirne, Bursa, İzmir and Antalya.

Joost Lagendijk

The two were married on 28 October 2006 by the mayor of Beyoğlu, Istanbul, in the famous Pera Palas hotel.

Kaytazzade Mehmet Nazım

In 1884, Nazım worked as an Ottoman official in the public service of the Ottoman Empire in Chios, Adana, Istanbul, Izmir, and Bursa.

Matija Ban

He first lived and worked on the island of Halki (Heybeliada), near Istanbul (Constantinople); Bursa; and the metropolis of Constantinople.

Mihrişah Valide Sultan

In 1795, she founded the Mihrişah Valide Sultan School and Külliye in the region of Eyüp in Istanbul.

Moez Masoud

Masoud's first Arabic program was “Al-Tareeq Al-Sah” (The Enlightened Path), which premiered during Ramadan 2007 and was filmed on location in Cairo, Jeddah, Istanbul, London and Madinah.

Mustafa Akaydın

Mustafa Akaydın was born in 1952 and received his primary and secondary education in Ankara and Istanbul.

My Sweet Canary

In the movie, Martha Demeteri Lewis, Tomer Katz and Mehtap Demir, three young musicians, look for the most famous singers of rebetiko and especially with the intention of learning more about the music career of Roza Eskenazi, as they travel between London, Jerusalem, Corinth, Istanbul, Athens and Salonika.

Namık Kemal

During his youth, Kemal traveled throughout the Ottoman Empire, staying in Istanbul, Kars, and Sofia, and studied a number of subjects, including poetry.

Niyazi

Niyazi conducted many of the major symphony orchestras in Prague, Berlin, Budapest, Bucharest, New York, Paris, Istanbul, London, Tehran, Beijing and Ulan-Bator and played an important role in making the Azeri classical music known to the world.

Patriarch Callinicus IV of Constantinople

In January 1761 he escaped and returned on the slay in Istanbul, where he obtained to be forgiven and in October 1763 he returned to his birth town, Zagora.

Pera Palace Hotel

In Ernest Hemingway's short story The Snows of Kilimanjaro, the main character, writer Harry, stays at the Pera Palace hotel while serving in the military during the Allied occupation of Constantinople (Istanbul) in World War I.

Safiye Sultan

Safiye is also famous for starting the construction of Yeni Mosque, the "new mosque" in Eminönü, Istanbul, in 1598.

Semih Kaplanoğlu

In 1984, Kaplanoğlu moved to Istanbul and worked for a couple of years as a copywriter for advertising companies like Güzel Sanatlar Saatchi & Saatchi and Young & Rubicam.

Shamsuddin Effendi

He was born in Istanbul at the turn of the century and died in 1986 in Diyarbakır.

Shana Cox

Competing in her first major competition for Great Britain, Cox won a gold medal in the women's 4x400 metres relay at the 2012 IAAF World Indoor Championships in Istanbul, Turkey, as part of a team that also included Nicola Sanders, Christine Ohuruogu and Perri Shakes-Drayton.

Sir Edmund Monson, 3rd Baronet

He entered the British diplomatic service in 1906 and served in junior capacities in Constantinople, Tokyo, Paris and Tehran.

Sümer Tilmaç

After the restaurant in Istanbul was closed; he is sparing his time to his farm in Serik, Antalya (Melek's Farm) where he and his wife serves local Cuisine along with local arts to visitors.

Thomas Whittemore

In 1948, he and Paul A. Underwood, from the Byzantine Institute of America and the Dumbarton Oaks Center for Byzantine Studies, sponsored a programme for restoration of the Chora Church in Istanbul.

Üzeyir Garih

Being one of the best engineers of the country, he started his career at the İstanbul agency of Carrier Corporation in the field of heating, vantilation and air conditioning.

Yedi Kule

the Yedikule neighborhood, where the fortress is located, in the district of Fatih in Istanbul, Turkey.

Zididada

The band took part in 2004 in the Dansk Melodi Grand Prix 2004, the selection process for Danish entry to Eurovision Song Contest 2004 to be held in Istanbul with the song "Prinsesse" ending up with 46 points and second overall to the winning song "Sig det' løgn" by Thomas Thordarson that garnered 60 points to represent Denmark.