Istanbul airport on Victory Day
A three-hour layover in Istanbul Airport became a small meditation on travel, sanctions, national celebration, and the complicated history underneath it.
I last passed through Istanbul Airport in early 2022, when travel was in the early days of recovery after the global COVID-19 pandemic. The place was practically deserted. Large sections were cordoned off and left in quiet darkness, giving it an eerie, mausoleum-like feel. Fast forward eighteen months to late August 2023, and the entire airport is buzzing with life again. All the stores are open and cheerfully lit, with people from all over the world going this way and that again, and shopping in a huge modern bazaar.
The surreal thing this time was more subtle until I noticed it. Then I saw it everywhere. The currency exchange vendors are prominently proclaiming that they accept Russian rubles. I didn’t look at the exchange rate, but I can’t imagine that it’s very good for the Russians. Still, it’s a reminder that this is one of the few international gateways available to Russians because of the current sanctions.
It’s also Victory Day (Zafer Bayrami) today in Turkey, which means that flags are hanging everywhere in the terminal celebrating Turkish independence. And, on my flights in and out of Istanbul, the crews gave a quick mini-lecture on the celebration and Ataturk’s role in creating the Turkish republic.
What was left out of the lecture is that the victory referenced is the defeat of the Greek army in the Battle of Dumlupinar. The Greek army was there as part of the aftermath of World War I, where the Allied powers dismantled the defeated Ottoman Empire and attempted to divide the remains of it between themselves. Unsuccessfully.
Sadly, things didn’t stop there. Tensions between the Christians and Muslims in the area had long been high and the victory by the Turks was quickly followed by ethnic cleansing of non-Muslims over the following months, culminating in a forced population exchange moving Orthodox Christians to Greece and Muslims to Turkey in 1923.
Plenty of political intrigue, past and current, to muse about on a three-hour layover.