Day 4 – Chora Church, Aya Sofya, Whirling Dervishes

My day started off with more weird music at the hotel fitness center, another fabulous breakfast overlooking the whole of Istanbul, and a little bit of misdirection from our hotel’s concierge. There is a very out-of-the-way Byzantine church in the western suburbs of Istanbul that was supposed to have wonderful mosaics that I wanted to see. I asked the concierge how to get out there via public transport. She said I should just take the number 87 bus and then she gave me very specific directions for where to wait for this bus. It was easy to find the bus stop she was talking about, but after waiting for a half hour there and seeing every other number bus except the 87, I decided she was wrong. Cara had also told me that they had been wrong or unknowing in other areas before so I decided I should ask someone else and try and find it on my own. Then, I was walking back to the hotel and passing the bus stop that the concierge specifically told me to ignore and there, sitting there just waiting for me to board, was the 87 bus. I hopped on and we started off into the farther reaches of the sprawl of Istanbul.

I quickly realized that I had not really asked any other questions about how to get to this church such as, when should I get off the bus? Hmm. So I went up to the bus driver and started pestering him, which in DC bus culture is strictly taboo. These transactions are also made much more difficult because no one in Istanbul outside the hotel and tourism culture seems to speak much English. So I tried to keep any questions I had to ask people to the bare essentials and use hand motions whenever possible. Example: “Chora Church?” (hand motions: shrug of shoulders and bewildered look on face, followed by pointing to a map). This may have been overkill, but the driver knew what I wanted to know and showed me where to get off so I considered it a communication job well done.

I didn’t spend a lot of time at Chora Church because it is small. If you are planning on a visit to Istanbul any time soon, I would say you could skip this if you’re pressed for time to see other things. However, it is a great break from the bigger attractions and mosaics are some of the most important and historically representative of the Byzantine period. Chora means “land” or “country” in Greek or This church was converted into a mosque during World War II and then later became just a museum. A layer of plaster covered all the artwork and over time earthquakes have taken chunks of them down. And archivists and archaeologists did what they could to salvage what was left. This is the exact same story with Aya Sofya which was next on my list for the day.

Aya Sofya was far and away my favorite building in Istanbul. It’s very similar to Chora Church in its history, and not that much older. The site was dedicated in 360 A.D. (Chora was dedicated in 408), and completed around 520 under Justinian. It has served as a place of worship for Roman Catholics, Eastern Orthodox christians, and Muslims for over 1500 years. It changed to a mosque in 1453 when Constantinople fell to the Ottoman Turks. No services of any kind have been held here since 1931 when it was closed and in 1935 it reopened as a museum. As I mentioned before, this building really embodies the clash between Islam and Christianity that made its mark all over Istanbul. Chora church alludes to it, but really the view you get when you step off the tram at the Sultanahmet stop and turn towards the square is the crux of it. You see two gigantic structures, both shining examples and defining achievements in their respective architecture styles, and each representative of a different religion.

The Aya Sofya has it all inside. The Blue Mosque was always a mosque and still remains so to this day. The renovations done to Chora Church removed the minarets, the mihrab, and the minbar, as well as any other decorations that were added while it was a mosque. Aya Sofya still has the remnants of the battle inside it. When you walk in, you get the audio tour and the tour orients you with the outside of the structure first, asking you to note the minarets, and the outward evidence of different periods of construction which you can see pretty easily, even without an untrained eye. Walking in, you feel the coolness off the marble immediately and the weight of the structure around you. I would guess that there isn’t one piece of that building that doesn’t weigh less than 200 pounds. The huge doors and grates that lead to the cistern below are the most prominent features that lead from the narthex into the main sanctuary. I wish I knew all the technical terms for the parts of the church but I do not and so I ask for leniency with my terminology.

The nave is really where the beauty is. The huge domes, the massive purpose poryphyr pillars, the huge medallions of Muhammed’s relatives’ initials, and the gradeur and history of the structure leave their mark immediately. I can think of few other places where I really do think of the stories the walls could tell, but this place is one. What would the narrative of a building that has its mihrab right underneath a beautiful mosaic icon of Jesus and Mary be? You think of the battles that were won and lost and the people who took shelter here, the conquerors and the conquered that passed through these doors, and you can see the scars on the walls and how each left their own mark. One of the best features of the building for me was in the upper gallery where the vikings left their initials carved in the marble in the balcony. You can only really read the name “HALVDAN” and it dates from the 9th century. But there are other carvings and figures which are possibly older but undeciperable.

Obviously, I loved the Aya Sofya. It’s the building that left the biggest impression on me. I think it’s the best example of the culture clash that defines modern day Istanbul and the best example of what a strategic and interesting seat it holds in today’s Near East and European spheres. I was sad to leave the building but I know that I will continue to think about it as I read more about the history of the region and how events that transpired there influenced present day circumstances.

After the Aya Sofya, I walked back up to the neighborhood around the Grand Bazaar again to see about going to a hamam. I stopped by one that had been recommended to me but found that I didn’t have time to fully enjoy it that day. I decided to hamam (not sure if that’s a verb) the next day walked up to the Grand Bazaar to see if I could get a slight orientation. I spent a half hour there and barely scratched the surface of one of the avenues in the mercantile labyrinthe. I couldn’t stay long because I was meeting Cara for dinner and a whirling dervish show that evening. I met Cara at the tram stop in Sultanahmet and we wanted to go to this place that doubled as a cooking school for dinner. Turns out, they were full and only do one seating at a set time per night but we did stop by and I decided I would sign up for the cooking class for the next evening and Cara would join me for dinner the next day. I had a mezze plate for dinner. When my brother Ben and I were in Egypt we decided that we could live on mezze forever and never get tired of it. I still believe that.

The whirling dervish show was good. I had been told to try and find one that’s less a spectacle and more of a cultural experience. I wanted to know more about Sufism and what goes into the whirling. There were no lights and no grand choreographic measures for this but it was a dual show: turkish traditional music and dervishes. I appreciated getting to hear a little more from the crazy instruments and how the two aspects, the religion and the music support one another. I was amazed at how the participants can spin in one place for so long without getting dizzy, without looking, without moving from their center at all. Whirling dervishes are a particular mystic sect of Islam. Kabbalah is to Judaism as Sufism is to Islam, basically. It’s sort of mandatory to see a Whirling Dervish gathering while you’re in Turkey. It’s also on the Intangible Culture World Heritage list and my UNESCO geekiness mandated it. After the performance Cara and I went to Taksim, found a yummy dessert place and sat around and chatted until it was very late again.