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FENAFILM PRESENTS

A FILM by ZEYNEP DADAK

BASED ON EREMYA KOMURCIYAN’s 17th CENTURY ISTANBUL TRAVELOGUE

INVISIBLE TO THE EYE

My lord, the great Vardapet,

I offer you reverence and greetings.

The year is 1661.

At dawn on a mild spring day,

I have begun a log of my travels, addressed to the sages.

As you will know, Istanbul is my hometown.

I promise to guide you through this exceptional city in seven chapters.

This work is moulded by a humble mind.

Please accept it like a bouquet of flowers.

Some might ridicule me:

"He tells us what we already know but only exhausts himself."

I don't intend to respond to foolishness.

The essence of things lies in stories behind the familiar.

As everyone knows, this city was built a long time ago by a king named Vizandis,

who named it Vizantia and reigned over it.

PART ONE HOMECOMING

Let us sail east along the coastline,

and carefully view all we see.

Let’s watch our city from a distance for a while.

Let’s imagine what can be seen inside the city walls.

My family is from Kumkapı. There are four churches in Kumkapı.

Three of them belong to the Greeks and are near to our house.

Close to these three,

there is a single church that belongs to us, Armenians.

This church, Surp Asvadzadzin,

is where immigrants take solace, as we do too.

Kumkapı is a symbolic place for the Armenians.

Because, at the moment, the Patriarchate is in Kumkapı.

After Mehmed II conquered Istanbul in 1453,

Armenians were systematically forced to migrate.

Kumkapı is the first area where they settled.

And this character of the place is true today.

There are many refugees and migrants here.

Kumkapı is still the main destination for people who first arrive here.

This is the character of the neighborhood.

To our left, we see the great mosque, Sultanahmet

with its six minarets, and it faces the Hippodrome.

Then we see the magnificent Hagia Sophia

constructed by Justinian the Great.

There is a lion’s den with closed windows in its dome.

This former church, is now filled with elephants, foxes,

wolves, coyotes, bears, lions, crocodiles, leopards and tigers.

This is the Palace of Ibrahim Pasha.

Ibrahim Pasha is among the most powerful personages

of the first period of Sultan Suleyman’s reign.

After the Pasha was slaughtered, the palace went back

to the control of the sultan and was used by various officials.

At one point, some parts of the palace served as a prison.

Moreover, we know that the Armenian intellectuals

arrested on April, 24 1915 were imprisoned here,

in Ibrahim Pasha’s Palace.

Afterwards,

it was rearranged and became the Museum of Turkish and Islamic Arts.

During the country’s political turmoils and tensions,

the Hippodrome played a major role.

My heart sinks when I walk around the square.

I'm still haunted by the sight of Janissaries hanging from the trees,

after their revolt was violently suppressed five years ago.

PART TWO THE PALACE

Let us rest here for a while and observe the palace.

This place, at the tip of the city,

is aptly called "The Nose of the Palace."

The view from this place is spectacular

because you can observe those who pass by sea.

Slow down, we are about to crash.

Turn the rudder, turn it.

When little boats pass by the Nose of the Palace,

they cannot resist the currents and run ashore here

where strong currents from the Black Sea to the west, break the waves.

Hey! The guy has fuckin’ fallen in!

- Quickly, quickly. - He fell in man!

The Bostandji guards run to help when a boat gets caught by the waves.

Hold on! Come on bro, come here.

Bostandjis catch people in the sea with hooks as if they are fishing.

The ones who have swallowed water are hung upside down.

Pull him up guys!

Turn your eyes back to the palace,

look at the western facade look at the eastern walls.

Those who bring produce

from the islands and the regions disembark here.

From Egypt comes sugar, straw and hemp,

rice and bamboo from the Nile, and coffee and henna.

And from Venice, mirror glass, binoculars, paper and crystal

so that pretty brides can admire themselves.

Further down, is the house of the Djebedjis artillery corps.

Arms, armors, lances with banners and

all other types of war materials are found there.

Look at the dome and mihrab of this building,

which was once a Byzantine church.

On the right and left of the mihrab, it reads "Aysmavur."

Just outside the big gate, lords, pashas, despots

and important men were executed.

And here at the Diwan Gate the convicted are beheaded.

Their dismembered heads are thrown into the sea.

The crown elite know that they will never be held accountable.

PART THREE THE GOLDEN HORN & THE BASKET

The ninth gate of the city is called the Fishmarket.

And opposite the Fishmarket Gate, we can see the gate of the Spice Bazaar.

When it opened its doors in 1664, we were excited.

The coffee roasters are here.

The sultan saw them as a nest of trouble and banned them.

But to no avail.

Men enjoyed their coffee in secret and later asked to be pardoned.

The Fish Bailee lives here to supervise the maritime customs.

The swordfish is brought there and distributed to the shops.

With its sword-like nose, this fish is as tall as two humans and a cubit wide,

it’s caught with a net.

And as the skewers threaded with bay leaves are put on the fire,

its magnificent smell scents the air.

Then you eat it, with wine.

The tenth gate is the Prison Gate.

And inside this gate, is the shrine of Cafer Baba.

Here, debtors and killers pay their dues.

Women are separated from men, and men according to their nationality:

Turkish, Greek, Armenian and Jewish.

Yet all enter through the big gate.

Gazaros, Sargis, Istefan, Lame Hovannes, "Reverend Hell",

Gırbo and crazy Toros were incarcerated here.

May God forgive their sins.

Each faith has its own stories about this dungeon.

- Selamun aleykum. - Aleykum selam.

The honorable Cafer Baba was tortured here in Byzantine times.

Legend has it that his soul still roams inside.

What is this?

They say people collect all sorts of things to help the prisoners

and send them to the tower in a basket.

Rumor has it that this place was in the sea.

And there was a women’s prison upstairs.

This door is the door of many secrets.

Parents bring their mute children

and in five or six days, thanks to Allah, they start speaking.

The 14th gate is Cibali. It is surrounded by houses.

The pier is filled with all kinds of produce

to fulfil the needs of the inhabitants.

The 18th gate is the Lighthouse Gate.

This area is inhabited by Greeks.

The Greek Patriarchate and metropolitan bishops are here.

The Patriarchate was relocated three times.

Its first location was the Havariyun Church

built during the era of Constantine the Great.

Sultan Mehmed, after his conquest of Istanbul,

had the church demolished and turned into a mosque

with a mihrab facing the qibla and named it after himself.

The 19th gate is the Balat Gate.

Jewish people live outside the gate

and inside, there are various communities.

- What's up bro? - We're going to the seaside.

Down in Balat is the 20th gate, Ayvansaray

where Jewish people live and the well-off live close to the shore.

Inside the gate there is a ruined church

with a holy spring, this church is Vlahernas Panaia.

There is a certain holiness attached to water.

It has a very important place in Greek theology.

It does not have the same meaning in the Armenian faith

but there are holy springs in some Armenian churches,

which implies that it is not an Armenian church.

It is connected to the Armenian Patriarchate,

it has an Armenian priest but historically it is a Byzantine church.

This explains why the Greeks of Istanbul are

historically not very fond of the Armenians of Istanbul.

It is a funny situation.

Two Christian minorities of the city who do not get along very well

probably because of history or myth.

PART FOUR THE GHOST RIDER

My dearest Vardapet, after this point it's impossible to continue by boat.

Let us continue our journey on horseback.

As we climb the hill, we see the Crooked Gate.

So called because the two sides of this gate are not completely in line.

This door is the 21st gate in the city’s land walls.

Now, the city is on our left.

Our city like a paradise with its delightful air and water.

Nearby is the Palace of the Porphyrogenitus.

At a high point in the city.

This grand Byzantine palace is in ruins today

and winds course through it.

Litros, where Greek gypsies live, is also here.

Gypsy women are singers,

they go inside the houses, and they sing on the streets.

They go to taverns and play music for those in love.

They dance and sing new songs and tell stories:

O those who suffer, come and lie with me sometime.

Kiss me with a kiss.

Drunken folk get excited and put money on their foreheads.

Yes, let’s do the last checks. Is the lighting crew okay?

We have arrived to the 24th door. Its name is Yenikapı.

There are dervishes rooms and Mevlevi lodges in the gardens.

It is on the way, it is coming, relax, no need to panic.

They don’t want it man, put it down.

- Start the generator. - When he starts to speak...

We are on air.

3, 2, 1. Go.

Good evening dear viewers,

I welcome you all to our show with respect and love

"New Horizons in Education and Culture."

The 25th door is the Silivri Gate.

Outside the gate, is Uncle Sieve’s tomb.

He never opened his mouth, he never said a word.

He ate his sieve as he followed the gypsies.

This man’s body had darkened.

He walked naked all year round and stood by himself.

He ate the sieve and held his pipe.

When he passed away, everybody rushed to his funeral.

They buried him in a shroud.

They organized a big funeral ceremony

and prayed as if he was a mufti or a sultan.

They considered him a sacred person.

But I think he was a savage.

Dermargos, a priest from Topkapı, wrote that,

passing by the city walls one day, he saw this man

take a gypsy woman and harass her and that the woman was shouting.

Still, the shrine-keepers of today say that it is a place of healing.

Next to the tomb are pitchers filled with water,

a remedy for infertile women who wish to have a son.

Ladies and even sultans come here in their carriages.

Women put the water on their breasts, bellies, stomachs,

and the private parts of their bodies.

On both sides are Muslim cemeteries.

Further down is Balıklı, the Greek holy spring.

This place is also called Hırisupiyi, meaning "golden basin."

The miracles of this holy spring have been witnessed by many.

A sick person who was almost dead, was resurrected with this holy water.

Let’s walk through the cemeteries where thousands of our fellows are buried.

There are many nameless tombstones but the graves of the rich

can be identified by their writings and symbols.

Let me mention some of the men

who came to Istanbul, voluntarily or involuntarily.

And having lived here, they are now sleeping their last sleep in Balıklı:

Istanbul Patriarch Hovannes,

Bedros Gargaryan’s student Kot Karabet from Erzincan,

Alacacı who was executed during the Dzırazadig riots,

priest Minas and some other old men,

up there, Toros from Sivas, Catholico of Kilikya,

then Noradunk from Sivas, Kiragos from Pelenk,

poor Hovsep from Kayseri, Hagop from Pelek

and further down Patriarch Istepannos of Megri.

We buried the honorable Komürcü among them.

May God keep his house without trouble

and let him continue his lineage with honor.

- It is a big graveyard. - Yes, it is huge.

There are almost eight thousand graves.

In different shapes and sizes.

During the September 6-7 pogrom,

what happened in the Greek cemetery happened here as well.

Our archive is entirely gone.

None of the graves before 1955 are archived,

they only have dates written on the gravestones.

For example it says 1933, he died in 1933 but

we do not have any names.

- And there are thousands of graves here. - Yes, thousands.

- Are there also graves without a stone? - Yes.

There are those with only an iron cross.

Were gravestones also harmed in September 6-7?

Of course, gravestones were damaged.

They attacked the directorate.

But the biggest damage was done to the archive.

Without an archive there is no memory.

A graveyard that was handed to the community in 1554

and there are no registers before 1955.

- Hundreds of years... - Yes.

There goes another funeral.

Everything is side by side here.

On one side there is a Muslim funeral, their cemetery is close by.

Here there is a Muslim cemetery, and here a Greek cemetery,

an Assyrian cemetery and also an Armenian cemetery.

We are surrounded by the dead.

This scene sets a good example for those who stay behind.

Looking at the graves of the hapless young we realize that we are only mortal.

In front of the graves of the elderly we think of our own end.

Like reading pages of history,

we remember and draw lessons from the good and bad sides of life.

Vardapet, my lord, pray that these dead people may find salvation

and let’s continue our journey through the green tulip fields.

PART FIVE THE NIGHTINGALE & THE CONQUEST

This way...

Hear it?

All those poets had their reasons for writing their poems.

The love of the nightingale and the rose...

The nightingale suffers from heartbreak.

Heartbreak... Ah.

Have you ever heard a nightingale sing before?

Not sure.

Listen up!

I think it’s singing again.

- This one is also a nightingale, right? - I think so.

It’s coming from over there. Come.

During Roman times, this was an area of seclusion and monasteries.

Now there are numerous masjids and mosques,

some of them transformed from churches, some built anew.

Having seen these buildings,

you will ask why this area is called "Eyyub".

Muslim authors give the following explanation of its origins:

During the first rule of the Caliphates,

Muslims from Baghdad tried to conquer Istanbul by attacking it by sea.

Their commander, Eyyub Ensari was killed and buried here.

Having acknowledged Eyyub as a holy patron,

the Turks passed through Okmeydanı and came here to Eyyub Sultan.

Their prayers here were answered and they took the throne.

Greek books tell a different story about Eyyub.

According to them, when the last Byzantine emperor abandoned his duties

and wandered around the city, a holy man by the name of Job (Eyyub)

was secluded here.

One day an angel appeared to him and said:

"God Almighty commands you to go and find the Byzantine emperor.

Tell him to abandon the evil path,

warn him to return to ruling in accordance with God’s orders!"

When Eyyub went to the emperor’s palace,

he was ridiculed and treated as a madman.

Then the angel showed itself to Eyyub one more time:

"Go to Edirne where the Turks are and pass my words onto them."

Eyyub visited Sultan Mehmed’s palace and told him:

"God commands you through me: Go to Constantinople,

and you will conquer it without much trouble."

Upon returning to Istanbul, Eyyub passes away.

The sultan kisses Eyyub’s grave,

then he takes back the sword, girds himself, performs his prayer:

"May this be the law for all my successors. All those in my lineage

shall gird their swords here when they come to the throne."

PART SIX SWEET WATERS OF EUROPE

Let us leave the tip of the sea behind,

and go forward on our boat and enter Kağıthane.

Sweet waters flow here from the mountains.

The yoghurt and milk for the palace are provided

by the dairy farms in this area.

Large trees and windmills rise at the side of the river.

People used to come here for entertainment

but in 1650, as in the rest of the promenades,

wandering around here was prohibited.

The people are truly saddened by this.

If you desire it, let’s go to Hasköy to wander around.

A few Armenians reside here. They travel between here and Balat.

The Greeks have a church along with the Priest’s Pier.

In the valleys there are vegetable gardens,

and next to them there are mansions and villas.

There is a large Jewish population here.

They have their own bazaar and marketplace.

The imperial shipyard is nearby.

It has 110 separate construction sites.

Currently 24 of the ships belong to governors,

and 16 solely to the Sultan.

The city walls start from the western end of Galata.

The first gate in Galata is Azapkapı.

There is a large mosque here,

and a pier that is filled with all kinds of produce.

In the ditches around the wall, they make ropes.

Opposite is the Turkish neighborhood,

and across from there is the great cemetery.

Galata is divided into three parts. It looks like a city in and of itself.

And since we are at the tower gate, it is convenient to walk towards Beyoğlu.

On this road,

the European translators live. They serve the ambassadors.

The Genoese ambassador used to live in the first house.

When he was wronged, he left the city for his homeland.

Just ahead lives the ambassador from Flanders.

European Franciscan priests from Jerusalem,

have their estates nearby, with a large garden.

Next to it stands their monastery, Terra Santa.

The Venetian ambassador used to live below the monastery.

He gathered all his belongings and escaped with his men.

The French consulate is further up the road.

Photography was first introduced to this country

mostly through the arrival of the Orientalists,

and people working in consulates and their relatives

who went back and forth,

developing trade relations.

Thus, the first photography studio here dates back to the 1840s.

The Abdullah Brothers for instance, worked in a studio in Beyazıt.

Later, Pascal Sebah founded a photography studio.

Maryam Şahinyan founded a studio in Beyoğlu.

How does the city change, how does it transform?

Actually we can get insights from these studio photographs.

From here, it will be really useful to look at Ara Güler.

In his interviews he says,

"I am recording an Istanbul that is dying. I know it will disappear soon.

If I don’t photograph it, if historians don’t write about it,

no one will know about the way Istanbul is today."

The Taksim I know has gone through constant transformation.

Today it is changing again: the Atatürk Cultural Center,

one of the symbols of the modern Republic, has been recently demolished.

Right across from its ruins, a mosque overlooking

Taksim Square is under construction.

Since the Gezi uprising in 2013,

Taksim as a square has transformed a lot.

It is no longer the Taksim I know.

But this is not such a recent issue.

For the last 200 years, Taksim has been the battleground

for opposing political views that have not been able to defeat each other.

Gezi Park was originally an Armenian cemetery.

In 1560, if I’m not mistaken, during the plague epidemic in Istanbul,

it began to be used as a cemetery for Armenians.

The Military Barracks was built

in Taksim in the 19th century.

In 1933, the Istanbul Municipality

decides to reorganize the square and its surroundings.

Naturally, the prices go up.

The municipality seizes the cemetery. The remains of the barracks are demolished

and Gezi Park becomes the first ever official public park of the Republic.

Armenian tombstones

were used in constructions in Sultanahmet and Eminönü,

as well as the famous stairs to the park that still stand.

Taksim Square is also important

due to the massacre of 1 May 1977.

In short, there is a constant battle

on who will determine what happens to the Square,

and whose symbols will prevail.

And so there is constant change in Taksim Square.

We are tired dear Vardapet.

Let us get back to our boat and wander by sea for a while.

Look at the houses and buildings on the Cihangir hill.

Süleyman the Magnificent buried his beloved son Cihangir here,

and built this mosque in his name.

Cihangir Mosque is a special one.

Back then, it was not a mosque of course.

In its place stood a monastery founded by Alexander the Great himself.

Alexander’s real ambition was to rebuild the city from scratch

and open a canal in the middle of Istanbul.

The story goes that, at the time,

The Black Sea and the Mediterranean were not connected.

Alexander’s was not a task that mere human force could handle,

they needed a much greater power.

First he built the famous wall of Alexander,

to defeat the gog and Magog tribes.

While building the wall, he gathered ogres, nymphs,

gnomes and vampires from the Caucasian Mountains.

And put them all in a cave under Cihangir.

He locked them up.

But he had to make them work as well.

So he built a special boat out of copper.

The boat docks at the Cihangir pier.

Guarded by muscled warders,

the giants and vampires are carried to the boat.

The ship is sealed, so they have no way of escaping.

Alexander puts them to work with pickaxes.

They work for days, weeks, and months.

At the final blow of the pickaxe,

the waters of the two seas rush towards each other,

and they all perish.

The Venetian, the Genovese, the French,

the English and the Dutch ships with French flags

wait here in rows.

The prows of the ships

have stunning gilded figures that shine in the sun.

These figures are emblems of kingdoms and princedoms.

On Christian feasts, like Easter,

hoisted flags bearing crosses wave in the wind, honoring Jesus Christ.

On the day of the feast, canons are fired from ships.

The sea and the city tremble.

When the Sultan is on a ship setting forth on a journey,

canons are fired to salute him.

One day, a sultan conquered a city and

befriended the prince of the city he had conquered.

The sultan brought the prince here to protect him.

He settled him in this neighborhood famous for its gardens and villas.

They walked around and conversed in the beautiful gardens.

They watched the moonlight and drank wine together.

- Was the name of the prince Emirgan? - He was called "Emirgün Han".

It later became "Emirgan".

What else did they do together?

They listened to nightingales,

drank the sweetest wine and forgot all their worries.

So what happened to Prince Emirgün?

He was beheaded.

Istanbul’s best view is from the Bosphorus.

Look, I am sure that

someone in that boat is watching us as they sail by.

They are watching Istanbul.

I’m posing for the passing boat.

Up ahead is Sarıyer. My heart trembles when I think of it.

You can see the valleys and streams, the sea that constitutes a gulf,

and the green coasts of Rumeli and Anatolia.

Bless our repast, Vardapet.

Let our friends eat their fill.

O Cupbearer!

Give me the full cup, I'll raise a glass to my darling.

PART SEVEN WOMEN IN DOUBT

My dear Vardapet, I have said enough.

Let’s cross to the Anatolian side.

From Kağıthane to the Bosphorus,

you have seen that only a small part of the land is empty,

all the rest is filled with gardens and villas.

The rich have fun here watching the enchanting sea.

Let’s go towards Üsküdar and see how it looks.

A majority of its people commutes to the big city (Istanbul).

Further down, there is the Queen Mother Mosque.

This is a mosque commissioned by Nurbanu Sultan.

We call it the Old Queen Mother Mosque.

Many mosques, when commissioned by a woman,

are not known with the name or title of those women, a very curious thing...

The New Mosque in Eminönü used to be known as the Mother Queen Mosque.

Some people still recognize this name

but it's mostly known as the New Mosque.

Similarly, Queen Kosem's Mosque, is now known as the Tile Mosque.

The point of view of women is of course very distinct.

The way they view the mosque,

looking from here in secret, to easily observe...

It's a place where I can be on my own,

where I can run away from the hurly-burly of the city and rest,

maybe a place where I can sleep, talk with other people...

The role of women, be it their role as commissioners,

their role in politics, literature or in music,

became more visible and multidimensional in the 17th century.

Asiye Hatun is a woman who wrote down her dreams around 1640.

She lived in Skopje. As her sheikh is in a far away place,

he needs to follow the trajectory of her spiritual progress,

especially through her dreams.

She writes down her dreams as letters and sends them to her sheikh.

She feels really close to him

but by no means wants it to be understood as a physical thing.

She feels weak but

when in her dream the sheikh touches her once, she is healed.

She tries to ease her doubt with a comment like,

"Of course this does not have any sensual meaning."

Another theme that we come across frequently

throughout her dreams is doubt.

Asiye Hatun is a woman in doubt.

She dreams of herself as deserving to proceed to the next level

of her religious education and then she says,

"No no, I can never deserve this, I have doubt in my heart."

The word doubt recurs throughout

Asiye Hatun’s letters.

But this doubt never comes across

in male "first person" narratives.

Maybe you see the word once or twice, but as a theme it does not exist.

Men do not have a voice like Asiye Hatun.

It is really rare to hear a first-hand female voice

that takes a woman’s dream letters and studies her life to understand

the social world through her.

My dear Vardapet, this is where the city ends.

On the left of the lighthouse you can see many small islands.

Each bears its own name: Flat, Saddlebag, Sharp,

Henna, Fortress, and Rabbit...

Most of the islands across the water are beautifully built-up,

people come here for the view.

On some of the islands there are sanctums,

churches with gardens and domes and effigies, and monasteries.

The remains of a shrine at the top of the hill here are still visible.

On our way to Bursa, Saint Philippos and I spent two joyous days here.

Our men caught a two-cubit long baby swordfish just off the shore.

Catholicos conducted a religious ceremony and we were honoured by his blessing.

Catholicos was delighted by this godsend that was enough to feed us all,

and we had a great feast.

My dear lord Vardapet, our journey comes to an end.

Forgive me for writing so little.

We have only observed what can be seen from outside the city walls.

I have refrained from describing the inner city,

for what I have written was already too long.

Please do not tire an old man like myself with more questions.

There may have been things that I forgot from exhaustion.

Don’t bother with them. Please accept this humble gift.

You do not have to thank me. Please just confirm you have received it.

EPILOGUE INVISIBLE TO THE EYE

On moonlit nights, the sea trembles with a gentle breeze,

and the wise ones go for a stroll.

The troubled of heart ease their pain by listening to the birds sing.

Enjoying drinks at the tavern, and the view of the glittering sea...

It is all ephemeral.

Those who saw, and those who heard are long gone.

We have seen their graves.

I didn’t mention all the different kinds of birds in the aviary,

nor did I describe the various types of horses.

We did not take a look at what's growing in the gardens.

While we wandered around the mansions and the green places of the city,

we omitted the fruit trees.

We did not taste their fruits,

we did not investigate their names, nor their origins.

We didn't see the sheep, nor the slaughterhouses.

We did not stop at bright and seductive bathhouses.

We only took a boat and went on a dreamlike journey,

watching the city from afar.

Who ever lived, or built, or wrecked, or put things on top of each other,

or pulled things from underneath, messed with the order of things...

Emperors, sultans, pilgrims, priests, ladies...

Now it’s only ghosts.

Only the graves remind us that once we lived together.

Now you can mourn, rejoice or rage at will.

But do not be mad at me,

for I have done my best.

Based on Eremya Komurciyan's 17th Century Istanbul Travelogue