When I was a little boy, the elderly used to say, ”Istanbul is not what it was, you should see how beautiful it was when I was a kid”.
Today I say the same phrase. It was better before. Yes, it was not a very well organized city, it was crowded and maybe even dirty, but it was beautiful. When I was a kid Istanbul had 1,5 million inhabitants, today it’s 15 million.
In 1987 Turkey was in the middle of a transition from the military ruled country to a commercially driven model there everything was possible.
The democracy in Turkey has always suffered, but the ability of the Turkish people pushing the borders for change is incredible.
The Istanbul you will find in this book is like a postcard, a history from the past.
