TURKISH BAZAAR Oriental Turkish Rugs

America's First Choice for Oriental Rugs - Rugs on SALE !!! Free Shipment

Gullible's Travels:
Ruggie as Tourist in Turkey

by Steven Price

From Oriental Rug Review, Vol. 15/6

Although we avoided most of Istanbul's rug shops, we did want to see the textiles in the city's museums. We were familiar with the Topkapi Palace collection, particularly the elegantly inscribed prayer rugs, from the book cataloguing them. However, although there's much for a tourist to see at Topkapi (including some terrific embroidered textiles), the rugs are not displayed and none of the guides even knew that any existed. The Vakiflar is in the same neighborhood (along with the Blue Mosque and Haggia Sophia) and, although not terribly well lit, has a small exhibition of excellent old rugs and no crowds. The Museum of Turkish and Islamic Arts (formerly a palace, built in the 1524) is directly across the street. It houses an extensive collection of excellent rugs and weavings, a bunch of 20th century Turkish rugs attributed to much earlier dates, and a furnished yurt. No ruggie in Istanbul should miss this museum.
Another place that would interest the textile lover is the Dolmabahce Palace, on the banks of the Bosphorus in a newer part of the city. Not many rugs or carpets are displayed here, but there's lots of beautiful textiles (household furnishings and, especially, costumes). We were told that the Military Museum, which is near Dolmabahce, has complete field tents with the elaborate textiles in place, but we didn't learn that until our time in Istanbul was up. We had no inkling that a military museum might have things to excite us, although we thoroughly enjoyed our tour of the Naval Museum, especially the boats that carried the sultans. The receptionist, a young man assigned to the museum as part of his obligatory military service, sells rugs on the side.

Ephes

After Istanbul, we drove to Bursa, an island of calm after a week in the beehive of Istanbul. No rug hustlers accosted us, nobody pulled Rolex watches from his shirt pocket. Here we were introduced to the traditional Turkish bath. We give it two thumbs up. The Bursa Ethnographic Museum is another worthwhile stop. Although few of its rugs are impressive, some of the other textiles are very beautiful. Next stop, Izmir, a modern, bustling city of nearly two million people. It's not much of a tourist stop itself but has some nice hotels and good restaurants and makes a convenient base for day trips to Ephesus and Bergama. Between Izmir and Ephesus we drove past the Kalehan Hotel, no doubt owned by an eastern branch of the family of ORR's editor.
Ephesus is the site of what is probably the most extensive old Greek city in Asia Minor; simply spectacular. We had no textile-related experiences there worth mentioning, so that's all I'll say about it.
Driving to Ephesus, the Basilica of St. John, atop a small hill just northeast of the town of Seljuk, is a mandatory stop for the tourist. The parking lot is, of course, bordered by a couple of rug shops. One dealer enticed me in after some preliminary conversation by saying he had a wonderful antique Marasali Kuba (sic) that should be interesting. I bit. The piece, at the very bottom of a pile of rugs that he insisted I look at as he removed them one by one, turned out to be what I believe is a Soviet "Five Year Plan" rug, probably made somewhere in Azerbaijan, with colors that probably looked even worse before they faded to their present awfulness. I assured the shopkeeper that it was clear that he was an honest man but that he had been badly misinformed about his antique Marasali Kuba, and I was quite certain that it was not antique, Marasali or Kuba.
 

Next Page

  BACK