X-Nico

21 unusual facts about Istanbul


Adrien de Gerlache

After a trip to Constantinople and the Black Sea he worked for the Holland-America Line as fourth officer, before obtaining an appointment as lieutenant in the Belgian Navy.

Cenk Ünnü

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

Dieter Zetsche

Dieter Zetsche (born on May 5, 1953 in Istanbul, Turkey) is a German businessman and the Chairman of Daimler AG and Head of Mercedes-Benz Cars since 2006 as well as member of the company's Board of Management since 1998.

Direc-t

In 2004 the band performed in the Rock Istanbul Festival which was broadcast live from Dream TV.

Edgar James Banks

Banks purchased many more cuneiform inscriptions from a dealer in Istanbul.

Hasköy

Hasköy, Istanbul, a quarter or neighborhood of the district of Beyoğlu in Istanbul

Hippodrome of Constantinople

Today it is a square named Sultanahmet Meydanı (Sultan Ahmet Square) in the Turkish city of Istanbul, with a few fragments of the original structure surviving.

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.

Louis Hartz

He retired in 1974 due to ill health and spent his last years living in London, New Delhi, New York, then Istanbul, where he died.

Luther Bradish

The treaty terms demanded by Halet Efendi, the Ottoman foreign minister, were unacceptable to the U.S. Any future attempts at negotiations with Halet became moot when he 'offended' the Sultan and was first banished from Constantinople (Istanbul), and then killed.

Maltepe

#Maltepe a district and municipality of Istanbul province, Turkey

New Palace

The former name of Topkapı Palace in Istanbul after its completion (in Turkish: Yeni Sarayı)

Philadelphion

The other passed through the quarters of Şehzadebaşı and Fatih until reaching the quarter of Edirnekapı (formerly the Gate of Charisius).

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

Sarıyer

The largest of these developments is the new village of Zekeriyaköy, which is now one of the most expensive residential areas in Istanbul.

Türk Kültür Vakfı

is an organization established 1974 in Istanbul, Turkey by a group of American Field Service Intercultural Programs alumni and supporters of the AFS' ideals.

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.

Zekeriyaköy

Zekeriyaköy, Istanbul, a village in the district of Sarıyer, Istanbul Province


Ahmad Ammar Ahmad Azam

On 2 December 2013 around 1.30 pm, after getting the credential to teach Said Nursî's Risalah an-Nur from Hayrat Foundation, he was expected to teach it to his students in Istanbul.

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.

Alfredo Jaar

His work has been shown extensively around the world, notably in the Biennales of Venice (1986, 2007), São Paulo (1987, 1989, 2010), Istanbul (1995), Kwangju (1995, 2000), Johannesburg (1997), and Seville (2006).

Ali Yıldırım Koç

Ali Koç is a Rotarian and a member of the Istanbul Open Sea Yacht Club and New York Yacht Club.

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.

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).

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.

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.

Danube Express

The Express now operates more frequently from Budapest to Istanbul (via Transylvania with stops at Sighişoara, Braşov (for Bran Castle), Veliko Turnovo and Kazanlak.

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.

Dumitru Stăniloae

He went to Munich to attend the courses of Prof. August Heisenberg (father of physicist Werner Heisenberg), and then went to Berlin, Paris and Istanbul to study the work of Gregory Palamas.

Edip Cansever

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

Elections for Metropolitan municipalities in Turkey

The number of metropolitan centers was three in 1984 (Ankara, İstanbul and İzmir) and eight in 1989 (with Adana, Bursa, Gaziantep, Kayseri and Konya).

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.

Finansbank

It also launched a telephone banking system and set up an operations Center in Ümraniye, Istanbul.

Foreign purchases of real estate in Turkey

The particular case of Hatay put apart, as of 1 June 2006, Antalya Province was in the lead in the number of foreign purchases of real estate in Turkey with 5566 lots sold, provinces of Aydın (3998), Muğla (3035), İstanbul (1463) and İzmir (722) occupying the following places.

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.

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.

Indiana Jones and the Emperor's Tomb

He is surprised to find that the Nazis, below Istanbul, have uncovered the ruins of Belisarius' sunken city in search for the final piece of the Mirror.

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.

Istanbul Contemporary Art Museum

The project this year will be the collaboration of the teams from Istanbul, Berlin and Athens.

İzmir Cumhuriyet Square

The monument at the center of the square, which features an equestrian statue of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, is made of marble and bronze, and was crafted by the renowned Italian sculptor Pietro Canonica in 1927 (he also crafted the Republic Monument at Taksim Square in Istanbul, and other monuments in Ankara, Turkey.)

John Burgan

In Berlin, Burgan worked as a writer, director and editor and also taught documentary and media production at the Berlin University of the Arts and at workshops at the University of Fine Arts, Hamburg and the Bilgi University, Istanbul.

Jules Védrines

After Prague he proceeded via Sofia, Constantinople (where he pleased the Sultan by dropping a Turkish flag on the Imperial palace), reaching Beirut on 25 December, Jaffa on the 27th, and finally, on the 29th, landing on the polo ground at Heliopolis, where he was greeted by a representative of the Khedive and by the French Agent, who placed a laurel wreath bound with a tricoleur around his neck.

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.

Kefeli Mosque

All the Latin, Greek and Jewish inhabitants who lived in Caffa ("Caffariotes" or, in Turkish, Kefeli) were then deported to Istanbul and relocated to this quarter.

Mihrişah Valide Sultan

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

Neşâtî

Neşâtî first become affiliated with the Mevlevi order as a disciple of the shaykh Ağazâde Mehmed Dede, first in Gelibolu in Thrace and then in Beşiktaş in Istanbul.

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.

Rabia Haseki Sultan

In 1691, at the age of about nineteen, she was captured by Crimean Tatars during one of their frequent raids into this region and taken as a slave, probably first to the Crimean city of Kaffa, a major centre of the slave trade, then to Istanbul, and was selected for the Sultan’s harem.

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.

Shmuel-Bukh

Zalman Shazar (president of Israel 1963–1973) believed that it was written by an Ashekenazi rabbi active in Constantinople (now Istanbul) in the second half of the 15th century.

Sir Edmund Monson, 3rd Baronet

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

Sütlü Nuriye

In the times of great horror and supply-shortages inflicted by the 1971 Turkish coup d'état, the inventor Şafak Dilken, who was working at the most famous baklava producer in Istanbul, used milk instead of sorbet, and hazelnuts instead of pistachios and came up with a new dessert.

Tropaeum Traiani

48 metopes are hosted in the Adamclisi museum nearby, and one metope is hosted by Istanbul Archaeology Museum, the rest having been lost (There is a reference from Giurescu that two of them fell into Danube River during the transport to Bucharest).

Turgut Berkes

He worked as a radio programmer, librarian, journalist and translator until 1989 when he founded with his partner Fuat Güner (of the famous Turkish pop trio Mazhar-Fuat-Özkan (MFÖ)) FT Recording Studios in Istanbul, which was at the time the most advanced in Turkey.

Turkish Military Academy

Originally located in the Harbiye neighborhood of Istanbul, the Academy was formed in 1834 by Marshal Ahmed Fevzi Pasha together with Mehmed Namık Pasha, as the Mekteb-i Harbiye (Ottoman Turkish: lit. "War School"), and the first class of officers graduated in 1841.

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.

Wilhelm Röpke

Röpke's opposition to the German Nazi regime led him (with his family) in 1933 to emigrate to Istanbul, Turkey, where he taught until 1937, before accepting a position at the Institute of International Studies in Geneva, where he lived until his death, in 1966.

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.