House in Istanbul

A house where My Friend lives in Istanbul, is a typical house of a Turkish family living in the big city. A multifloor building on the street filled with clothing and grocery shops mostly, in the district in the European side, that is not in the city center, but seems to be, when you take into account all the people and cars passing by.

One of the grocery shops in Istanbul

My Friend's family owned the land, where their house stands now, a long time before anybody settled in that area. Finally, around 30 years ago or so, My Friend's grandfather and the rest of his family decided to build up their new house.

The building that they raised has over 4 floors, a lovely iron door at the entrance, which My Friend's uncle made by himself, a huge mirror and 8 post boxes just in the entrance hall and typical round stairs. From the outside it is painted white and from the inside, the staircase is pink. Each apartment is owned by different branch of My Friend's family. And so My Friend's family lives on the 2nd floor, her cousin and his parents live just above and so on... Still, they all lock their door.

View at the random houses of Istanbul from the Bosphorus shore.

I really admire this kind of tradition in Turkish families of living close to each other. In my country, families live like that only if they really have to.