Istanbul: After the Snow
2016 was a difficult year for Istanbul. Then came the snow – more than a foot of it, coating the domes of the city’s great mosques and the streets that run beneath them in a blanket so white the eyes had to squint in order to take it all in. The ferries that cross the Bosphorus, plying their way from Europe to Asia and back each day, sat still on ice-cold waters. Hundreds of flights were cancelled, vanishing the usual clamour of tourists – and their money – that litter the city’s winding streets and covered bazaars. And in place of Istanbullus striding up the steep cobbled paths that so characterise Istanbul’s topography were children whizzing down them on baking trays.
You might add the heavy snow to the list of traumas experienced by this vast city and its people, but it was also seemingly cathartic. As a friend remarked, ‘Turks have been through a lot lately – they could use some down time.’ Something, even if only through the hard stop it put on the city, that slowed the seemingly relentless pace of bad news. These photographs show fragments of the city as it was getting back to business.