In the chill of an Istanbul autumn night, the ancient heart of the city stirs with phantoms of the past. The mist rolls in from the Bosphorus, ships’ horns moaning like lost souls, as intrepid explorers venture into the darkened streets in search of Istanbul’s timeless essence. For those who walk the Old City in the wee hours, history is a living, breathing entity, the ghosts of Byzantium and the Ottoman Empire forever lurking in the shadows.
The Haunts of Hikmet’s Istanbul
This after-dark odyssey follows the footsteps of Inspector Cetin Ikmen, the fictional hero of my mystery novels set in Istanbul. Like Ikmen, I disappear into the night, an unremarkable woman in a big coat, treading softly past shuttered shops and silent coffeehouses. Ticarethane Sokak, the street Ikmen calls home, is the portal to this phantom realm, where the hardiest, the mad, and the city’s eternal guardians hold sway.
In a small cemetery on Bab-ı Ali Caddesi, the tombs of Ottoman princes and princesses whisper secrets. A nearby mausoleum houses three 19th-century sultans – from visionary reformers to iron-fisted despots, now entombed together for eternity. The ghostly figure of Sultan Abdülaziz, dead under mysterious circumstances, flits through the gloom, a spectral reminder of the city’s turbulent past.
Echoes of the Hippodrome
Crossing Divan Yolu, the main thoroughfare, I settle on a bench in the vast space that was once the Hippodrome of Byzantium. Constructed in AD203 and later embellished by Constantine the Great, this was the stage for Constantinople’s legendary chariot races, pitting the Greens and Blues – rival factions with fanatical followings – against each other. The ghostly thunder of hooves and the roar of long-dead crowds echo through the ages.
At the Hippodrome’s heart stands the Serpent Column, its bronze coils now truncated, but once topped by three serpent heads bearing a golden bowl. Closing my eyes, I picture them writhing, an homage to the column’s origins as a monument to the Greeks’ triumph over the Persians in 479BC. Here, the past is a palpable presence, the centuries telescoping into a single, timeless moment.
Hagia Sophia’s Eternal Guardians
Accompanied by a entourage of local cats, I approach the sacred precincts of Hagia Sophia. Once a Byzantine church, then an Ottoman mosque, and until recently a museum, this monumental edifice has presided over Istanbul for nearly 1,500 years. Beneath its soaring dome, countless dramas have unfolded, from imperial births in the long-vanished Great Palace to the intrigues of empresses and ill-fated lovers.
Legend has it that on the night of May 29, 1453, as the Ottomans breached the city walls, Hagia Sophia’s priests vanished into the very stones of the building, where they remain to this day, awaiting the return of their lost empire.
Gazing up at Hagia Sophia’s mist-shrouded facade, it’s easy to imagine these steadfast guardians keeping their eternal vigil, their chants echoing through the ages. The cats, heirs to a legacy far older than the priests’, keep their own secrets, their eyes gleaming with ancient wisdom.
A Timeless Tapestry
As I retrace my steps to Ticarethane Sokak, the first blush of dawn tingeing the horizon, the specters of the night begin to fade. Yet the essence of Istanbul – that profound sense of a city forever haunted by its own history – lingers on. In this place where empires have risen and fallen, where faith and power have clashed and intertwined, the past is never truly past. It is woven into the very fabric of the city, a thread that binds the present to the eternal.
For those intrepid souls who venture out into the Istanbul night, seeking the city’s timeless soul, the rewards are manifold. In the phantom-haunted streets of the Old City, in the whispered secrets of long-dead sultans and the echoes of vanished priests, the true heart of Istanbul beats on, an endless rhythm that defies the ages.
