“Turkey 🇹🇷 ~The Culture of Kindness in Istanbul”

• February 27, 2020
• By Pen n Daryl
• 0 Comment

“When you visit Istanbul, you may come as a tourist, but you will always leave as a friend.”

Today, we visited a few more sites in Istanbul, and as we were trying to figure out how to get a good photo of the enormous “Blue Mosque,” a young man with good English offered his assistance; making sure we knew we had passed the entrance to the mosque. We explained we had no desire to enter the mosque, but we were trying to figure out our best approach to photograph it from the outside. Immediately, he said; “ “Please, if it’s a photo you want, come to my uncles carpet shop, and from there you can climb to the top of our building and get a good photo.“ We were game, and we walked together and visited. Soon, we came to the carpet shop called “Ottomania Oriental Rugs Gallery.“ We were not in the market to buy a rug, but it mattered, little. We met the uncle, named Nuri; a friendly and enjoyable man, who had many stories to tell. His family, of Kurdish nationality (the people with no country), have been in the family rug business for generations. Nuri has a great appreciation for love and life, is a natural salesman, and family man; who admires and respects his wife, whom he spoke highly of. He told us; “A man without a woman, is as useless as a kitchen with no knives.”

We got our photos of the mosque, from the top of Nuri’s store, as well as a few other sites we could see, then we climbed back down the narrow stairway to a sitting area, where we were served hot tea, which was lovely. As we sipped our tea, Nuri had one of his employees show us some beautiful hand-woven rugs; wool and silk. (with no pressure to buy). None of Nuri’s rugs are machine made. He has a staff of 600 people who do the hand-weaving, with great love and care.

Nuri knows about the USA and especially loves California. He has, in fact, visited many times. He knew exactly the city we hail from, and apparently is quite well known in Hollywood, as he has sold his rugs to many famous stars. He really enjoyed working for Sylvester Stallone, to name one of many famous people who purchased his rugs, from his high-end personal collection.

I especially enjoyed seeing some of his collectible rugs his grandfather had taken in trade, some 80 years ago; rugs from part of family dowries. Back in the day, some were eager to trade their precious rugs for a TV set, and Nuri’s grandfather was happy to barter. Now a-days, as Nuri explained, it wound be unlikely any family would part with such heirlooms.The tea was gone, and we needed to move on, as we had much to see, before it got too late. We also were being threatened with rain, in the latter part of the day, so we went on our merry way, after our enjoyable time at the carpet shop. If we were in the market for a hand-made authentic oriental rug, we definitely would have purchased one here.