Hundreds of human tragedies are hidden behind the spectacular reconstruction of Istanbul, which is being carried out by the Turkish authorities. The game is not about highways and the largest airport in the world, but for the hearts and minds of the citizens. And the city suffers from it. The fight for the New Turkey absorbs successively silent witnesses of the history of Istanbul - incl. the legendary pastry shop existing since 1944.
Musa Ateş is quite a withdrawn man. He shows no emotion. But when he sees Deniz, his lush, noble, pepper-colored and salt-colored eyebrows rise so high in joy that they frown his entire forehead. Musa embraces Deniz as tenderly as a son and immediately serves him the specialty of the establishment:profiterol, tiny puffs covered with thick, dark chocolate. Deniz can be sure that he has a lifetime board in İnci Pastanesi, the Patisserie İnci.
"Erase history"
Musa still recalls scenes that took place on a rainy December day. Deniz, carried by agitation, makes his way through the crowd surrounding the confectionery and is the only one to run inside. He demands that the policemen show their IDs, he shouts that they have no right to refuse to show them, throws out the rules and paragraphs that the eviction must be notified one month in advance.
With his body, he prevents the policemen from taking the equipment out. When they try to lead him away, he resists, clings to the door handle and, to the thunderous applause of the crowd, he denies it with a force that must have surprised them. He is slim, with a delicate build, and yet he has to be crammed into the police car by as many as six officers.
When he departs in it, Musa and the rest of the İnci employees take to the street with profiterol and other desserts on silver-plated trays. The owner looks shocked. Serving the gathered crowd, he repeats, shaken, "they erase history, erase history". People are sobbing in the pouring rain with sweets in their hands. The Mephisto bookstore opposite them plays music with the saddest violin in the world and vocals that go to the heart.
"On the side of beauty and good"
İnci Pastanesi was established in 1944 and has always been housed in the Cercle d'Orient building, a monumental, richly decorated building on the representative İstiklal avenue, in the heart of Istanbul. Musa tells me he has been the manager since 1960. He keeps an eye on the pastry shop, even when he talks to me, he specially chose a table right in front of the entrance.
When she finishes speaking, she narrows her eyes and looks up to indicate that I can ask another question. He chooses which one to answer. - Family history? But there is no need to talk about it - he scolds me in literary Turkish, with a beautiful, classical syntax that finds the chaos of colloquial language unacceptable. There is not a single unnecessary word in his answers.
The police appeared on the threshold of İnci on the morning of December 7, 2012.
Musa will not tell me about the day İnci was closed and forced to move from İstiklal into one of the side streets. - I am on the side of beauty and good. I don't go back to what was wrong. It is important that we have managed to protect all employees and maintain the ties that bind us with our clients He says with the dignity of an old-time gentleman.
This day is told to me by Deniz Özgür, who received a two-year suspended prison sentence for his attempted intervention. Witnesses to his trial, with whom I later speak, say that Musa defended Deniz so fiercely that the judge asked him:"If you wish, I can fire Mr Özgür immediately and judge you instead."
- It wasn't about İnci herself, but the whole Cercle d'Orient complex. We defended the Emek cinema there - explains Deniz. Emek opened its doors to viewers for the first time in 1924. It is in its halls, with décor resembling a theater or an opera, that the famous Istanbul Film Festival began, and many directors grew up on the ambitious repertoire of historical cinema.
Therefore, when, during the renovation of the Cercle d'Orient, it was decided that a shopping center would be built in the Emek site, and Emek would occupy its last floor, the world of cinema held its breath. - For the first time we went to İnci to get to know the opinion of the employees about the whole matter. The confectionery had its clientele, usually from the older, wealthier generation. We couldn't afford profiterol.
"Act of revenge and psychological victory"
Having sat down with his tea on elegant stools among the elaborate display cases full of desserts, Deniz allowed Musa to take a journey through the traditions and history of the Beyoğlu district. From then on, he often dropped in for tea.
The police appeared on the threshold of İnci on the morning of December 7, 2012. - The fight for Emek brought people aware of the value of such places into a kind of community, so the news spread immediately. People started coming from all over the city, I also came as soon as I could - Deniz tells me in the twilight of the farthest corner of the cafe where we talk. He shows me the arrest video on the screen of his cell phone. The eviction of İnci, the last store in the Cercle d'Orient building, could not be stopped.
The text is an excerpt from Agnieszka Rostkowska's book "Warriors with glass eyes. In search of a New Turkey ”, which has just been released by Wydawnictwo Poznańskie.
- In the evening, the police came to deprive us of any illusions that we would retake and save İnci. They smashed door frames and furniture, and smashed windows. An act of revenge and psychological victory - concludes Deniz. Everything was done with heavy hammers that İstiklal Avenue was already familiar with. - Whenever we organize a bigger protest to defend another historical place, Musa always sends us profiterol - he adds.
Musa neither confirms nor denies. - I think of Istanbul as a rose that we could not cultivate with proper care, so it withered and died. God forgive us ... He just says, and his neatly trimmed hair, which has little left, seems even grayer in the October afternoon sun.
- Until recently, Beyoğlu was full of culture, cinema, theaters, restaurants ... Showing up here without a tie was considered tactless! - he is always in a suit himself. Elegance and distinction fill his every gesture, but at the same time there is an alarmingly much fragility in him. - İstiklal was traveled by European tourists with interpreters and guides. I can't see them now. We miss Europeans! We miss you so much! - he repeats with irritation unlike him, as if he wanted to appeal:come back!
Source:
The text is an excerpt from Agnieszka Rostkowska's book "Warriors with glass eyes. In search of a New Turkey ”, which has just been released by Wydawnictwo Poznańskie.