Three days in Istanbul
When I was planning a trip to Russia, I found that tickets from Moscow to Istanbul and back were hardly INR 18,000. So I decided to take a whirlwind one-week tour to Turkey. After all, Turkey was home to the most ancient human civilizations ever discovered. Gobekle Tepe dates back to 11,500 BC to 7,500 BC. In comparison, the rest of the ancient civilizations are relatively new (Mesopotamia dating back to 6,500 BC, new evidence placing Indus Valley settlements at 7,500 BC, Egyptian 6,000 BC, Jericho 9,000 BC. In fact, it may have predated most civilizations, because archaeological digs in Anatolia, at A şıklı Höyük are dated to 9000 BC. My interest wasn't in ancient history (humanity has been around for 250,000 years) but in the Turkey of post-coup attempt Erdogan, of a country where the military iis trusted as the guardian of Atatürkçülük, since Kemal Ataturk’s demise in 1938. I wanted to see how a country that has seen centuries of Greek, Byza...