Stories - SELF-TIMERS FROM BOSPORUS (ITA)
Time passes slowly among the big rocks that are
placed on sides of Bosporus in order to protect the city. Small
groups of friends are going to linger to talk to each other,
listening to music and someone is taking some shots. In the distance,
the skyline of a modern, chaotic and frantic Istanbul, a melting pot
between east and west. A light breeze is cooling the hot summer’s
day. In a while it will get dark. The wind is dragging clouds off,
toward west.
Descending from hills, leaving behind us the
Topkapi Palace, the sea of Marmara can be reached, precisely where
Bosporus begins. The Kennedy Avenue runs toward southwest, coming up
to the sea and following the old walls of Istanbul city. It is a fast
road that connects the station of Sirkeci, the last stop of the
legendary Orient Express, to the Ataturk International Airport. We
are in the European side of the city. The Avenue is protected from
bad weather by an artificial cliff. Citizens meet each other exactly
among these rocks, in the hot summer nights. They sit on the rocks,
surrounded by waves spray, far away from tourists’ eyes and chaos
of the megalopolis. They listen to music, drink some tea; someone has
dinner baking some fish of Bosporus on an improvised fire. They
participate in the passage of big cargos headed to the Russian and
Ukrainian shores of the Black Sea. After the sunset, thousands of
bright lights illumine the city, like in an immense funfair; on the
other side of the canal, the Asian part of Istanbul, with the
neighborhoods of Uskudar and Kadikoy. It is time to take a selfie in
a such breath-taking panorama. For those who have come here
travelling through one of the biggest city in the world, it was
really worth it.
