TAKSIM GEZI PARK

zacelo se je miroljubno tri dni nazaj. pravzaprav se ze celo leto po malem demonstrira proti izgradnji nakupovalnega sredisca na mestu edinega parka v centru mesta, Taksimu. z gradbenimi deli so priceli ze pozimi, v tem casu pa so bila na vrsti drevesa v Gezi parku. ljudje, predvsem mladi so se spet zbrali, pripravili miroljuben protest, koncert, govore in postavili sotore. ob tretji uri zjutraj so jih s solzilvcem pregnali policisti in zazgali sotore z vsem kar so imeli v njih. v odgovor se je naslednji vecer zbralo se vec ljudi, postavili se vec sotorov. reakcija policije zjutraj je bila enaka. po tem se stvari odvijajo kot domine. protest na taksimu vceraj ob enih se je koncal s solzivcem, vodnimi topovi in nekim oranznim plinom, ki verjetno vsebuje kemikalije, po katerih pece koza. pribezali smo v predverje hotelov, kavarn, trgovin, pomagali poskodovanim. zoorganiziranost ljudi je neverjetna! 
zvecer je izbruhnilo spet ljudje so se zbrali na istiklalu, na dveh kilometrih dolgi ulici so stali rama ob rami, vzklikali, branili pred napadi solzivca, zazigali plakate, ki opozarjajo na ostale nehumane projekte. ne gre se vec samo za Gezi park, ampak za vlado, njihove odlocitve in zatirajoc odnos do ljudi. bomo videli, kako bo, ampak ozracje je besno!


it started peacefully three days ago. actually smaller protests against the government decision to build a shopping mall on the place of the only proper green area in the city, Gezi park, Taksim, were going on throughout the whole year. construction works started during winter already, these time plan was to cut the trees in the park. mostly young people gather and prepared a peaceful protest, with cultural program, concert and speeches. they set up the tents and wanted to stay over night. in three in the morning police woke them up with tear gas and burnt their tents with everything they had inside. in response to that, next evening even more people gathered and protested for their rights. police reaction in the morning was same. after that things followed like each other like dominos. protest on taksim at 1 ended with tear gas, water tanks and some orange looking gas, probably something chemical that burnt our skin. we ran to the hotels, coffee shops, bar and helped those who needed help more than us. organization of people was incredible!
in the evening there was another call for protesters. two kilometers long istiklal street was full of people standing shoulder to shoulder, shouting, protecting each other against tear gas, burning posters showing othe non-humane projects of the government. their decisions and oppressing attitude towards people. we will see what happens, but people right now are furious!

more news: http://halktvcanli.tumblr.com/

protest started peacefully yesterday 

police just before throwing pepper gas

people found shelter in hotel lounge

observing from hotel lounge

gas supply for the police, later they were delivering it with ambulance cars!!

mixture of antiacid and water

crowded istiklal street yesterday night

burning posters promising 'better life'

big companies affected form vandalism

protesters

burning trashes as barricade to the police cars

KENDIMDEM

IZ SRCA

marca in aprila sem pomagala pri animaciji za ömürjev videospot ob izdaji novega albuma. zabavno, ker še nikoli prej nisem. in nepozabno, ker sem spoznala neverjetne in navdihujoče ljudi! noro je ustvariti majhen svet znotraj velikega. 

video si lahko ogledate na spodnji povezavi: http://vimeo.com/64908299
in ostale pesmi poslušate tukaj: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k_1_1Kgk2xs&list=PL02C238BBF1138BF3


FROM THE HEART

in march and april i helped making an animation for ömür's video for his new song on the album that has just been released. it was fun, i was never making something similar before. it is amazing to create small world within big one. and it was unforgatable becasue i met incredible and inspiring people!

video can be seen here: http://vimeo.com/64908299
and other songs found here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k_1_1Kgk2xs&list=PL02C238BBF1138BF3

ADALAR

OTOKI

dve uri stran s trajektom se nahajajo otoki po imenu Princes' Islands. zelena protiutež mestu, ki se z razdaljo obenem znižuje in širi. do kam vse se razlega! dokler ne utihne..končno tišina.

od vse lepote je po izletu tudi moj fotoaparat žal odpovedal. spomini na marec bodo morda tudi zato še toliko bolj intenzivni.

ISLANDS

two hours away by ferry there are small islands called Princes' Islands. nature balances the city that lowers and widens when approaching them. it spreads all around! until it slowly becomes quiet...silence, finally!

so much beauty was too much also for my camera. it stopped working after the trip. it could be one of the reasons to make memories of march even more intense.  

MERÇİMEK ÇORBASI

ISMAILOVA LEČINA JUHA 

še to povem in potem začnem pisati o pomladi. glede na to, da je v sloveniji še mrzlo, zna recept za toplo paradižnikovo juho priti prav. mi smo jo jedli celo zimo..večkrat smo se s cimri oglasili pri Ismailu, gospodu, ki ima tri hiše naprej majhno restavracijo. postreže s čajem, tostom, melemenom (umešana jajca s paradižnikom in papriko), rižom ali juho-čorbo. neprestano govori v turščini, nam s pantomimo razlaga besede, ki jih ne razumemo in nas ima rad. zato kuha tako kot bi kuhale babice.

ISMAIL'S LENTIL SOUP

this is the last post left to write before i start writing about spring. according to the fact that it is still cold in slovenia, this recipe for delicous tomato and lentil soup should be tried out! we were eating mercimek corbasi through the whole winter. often, we stopped by our neighbor who runs a small restaurant three blocks up the street. he offers you, tea, toast, melemen (eggs with tomato and pepper), rice or soup. all the time he speaks in turkish, explaining us words we don't know with pantomime and loves us much, therefore makes us soup as our grandmothers would.

afiyet olsun! dober tek, bon appetit!

ingredients: flour, tomato paste, salt, mint, and lentil in the other pot

flour + oil first, then add tomato paste

+ lentil togehter with water it was in

salt and mint

serving with lemon

cook and assistants

other guests

menu

kitchen and restaurant, all in one

HÜZÜN

prehiteva me čas. zato na kratko nekaj o zimi, ker je sicer zunaj toplo in vedno vec sonca. hladno vreme vedno traja predolgo in nekako sem se tudi jaz na to odzvala s pocutjem, mogoce podobnim kot v Pamukovi knjigi Istanbul. obcutek imenuje hüzün in opise kot melanholijo, ki jo cuti celo mesto, ki v primerjavi z velicastno preteklostjo zdaj propada iz dneva v dan. mogoce je res nekaj na tem, mogoce se me je del tega brez vprasanja dotaknilo, mogoce je slo za druge stvari. kakorkoli, tukaj je odlomek... 

time is passing by fast. let me write shortly something about winter, because outside is getting warmer with more and more sunshine and i feel like i should hurry up to catch the spring. depressive weather always stays for too long and somehow i also found myself feeling according to it. maybe feeling is in a way similar to the one Orhan Pamuk is describing in his book Istanbul. he names it hüzün and describes melancholic feeling whole city feels as one, caused by glorious ottoman past replaced by deep nostalgia for it. maybe there is something about it, maybe it was unavoidable to get involved, maybe it was about other things. anyhow, here is a passage from it..

...but what i am trying to describe now is not the melancholy of istanbul, but the hüzün in which we see ourselves reflected, the hüzün we absorb with pride and share as community. to feel this hüzün is to see the scenes, evoke the memories, in which the city itself becomes the very illustration, the very essence of hüzün. i  am speaking of the evening when sun sets early, of the fathers under the street lamps in the back streets returning home carrying plastic bags..of the old booksellers who lurch from one financial crisis to the next and then wait shivering all day for a costumer to appear..of the children who play ball between cars on cobblestone streets, of the covered women who stand at remote bus stop..of the empty boat houses of the old bosphorus villas, of the teahouses packed to the rafters with unemployed men..the crowds rushing to catch ferry on winter evenings..of the women peeking through the curtains as they wait for husbands who never manage to come home until late at night, of the old men selling thin religious treatises in the courtyards of the mosques, of the tens of thousands of identical apartment house entrances, their facades discoloured by dirt, rust, soot and dust, of the city walls, ruins since the end of byzantine empire, of the markets that empty in the evening, of the seagulls perched on rusty barges caked with moss and mussels, of the crowds of men fishing from the sides of galata bridge..of the city cemeteries that seem like gateways to a second world and of their cypress trees, of the dim light that you see in the evening on the boats crossing from kadıköy to karaköy, of the little children in the streets who try to sell the same pocket of tissues to every passer-by, of the history books in which children read about the victories of the ottoman empire and of the beatings these same children receive at home..of the reddish-orange glint in the windows of uskudar in sunset..of the fruits and vegetables, garbage and plastic bags and wastepaper across abandonem street markets on a winter evening...
it is by seeing huzun, by paying our respect to its manifestations in the city's streets and views and people that we at last come to sense it everywhere..sometimes hüzün is so dense that you can almost touch it, almost see it spread like a film over its people and its landscapes...

                            

                                                   

DIL

LANGUAGE

if someone asks me if i have learned any turkish so far, i can answer 'çok as', what means very little and i think it's not written correctly. but i'm trying. after five months turkish words are turning from unrecognizable 'ššččakmakyorumtum' to those heard every day that i memorized, those i hear often and still cannot remember and to the rest that i will learn in future. not speaking language of the country you live has both, funny and annoying side, of course. language has its rhythm and melody accompanyed with some gestures we don't use. for example, saying no, seems like sending a kiss. and sometimes i learn a word i cannot translate in slovene. one of them sounds something like gönül. it means piece of your heart feeling love.

situation turns form being amusing to a nightmare, when one tries to deal with bureaucratic things. last week i finally decided to do something about the expensive bill i pay for my phone that doesn't make sense with the little use of it. i went to the only shop for which i know one of the employees speaks english. it's on the middle of the istiklal street that two million people walk each day, what means it was crowded inside. everyone impatiently wanted to get something, including me.  employees squeezed among us tried to help (and sell!). if one doesn't pay attention, he misses his chance to ask and person behind takes his position in imaginary queue. my only hope, english speaking guy was talking on the phone and at the same time tried to copy some documents. from time to time he checked some data on the computer and in between discussed lunch possibilities with his colleagues. he hold down the phone for a second but my 'pardon' remained unanswered because he disappeared behind the staff door. 'how can i help you?' 'yes! well..' and i tried to explain as simple as possible. 'it's too expensive. i'd like to have cheaper texts and calls to..' it didn't work. he took my phone, entered a number and turned to the next one. a woman on the other side answered..in turkish! i left the office solving nothing. after tea i found another operator without loud gangnam style music in front of the entrance and less people inside. using google translate we communicated perfectly! they told me to bring my user data from the first one. woman understood my confused facial expression and wrote me what should i say on little piece of paper. i felt like being a child again, sent to the local shop with similar piece of paper saying bread, milk, five eggs..that i offered to the shop assistant. it worked back then and it worked this time too! i got what i 'asked' and proudly returned back. 
and if someone is having same problems, here is the content of the magic paper..

JEZIK

na vprašanje, koliko sem se naučila jezika, znam odvrniti 'çok as' , kar pomeni 'zelo malo' (in mislim da se ne napiše tako). ni enostavno, besede, ki so bile sprva gmota ššččakmakrumtum, zdaj ločim na tistih nekaj, ki jih poznam, tiste, ki sem jih nekoč že slišala in tiste, ki jih bom nekoč poznala. seveda ima to svojo zabavno in nevšečno stran. jezik ima svoj ritem, melodijo in geste, ena izmed njih je znak za ne, ki včasih izgleda kot da ti želijo čez zrak poslati lupčka. in včasih izvem za besedo, za katero v slovenščini nimamo prevoda! gönül, naprimer. gönül je tisti del srca, kjer čutiš ljubezen. in verjetno se spet tako samo sliši in ne napiše.

druga stvar pa je urejanje birokratskih zadev. nazadnje sem se odločila ukrepati glede vsote denarja, ki ga namenim za telefon za niti ne spet toliko pogovorov. odpravila sem se v edino poslovalnico, v kateri eden izmed zaposlenih govori angleško. glede na to, da se nahaja sredi ulice, po kateri se vsak dan sprehodi dva milijona ljudi, se je znotraj gnetlo živčnih ljudi, ki so vsi po vrsti vključno z mano nekaj hoteli. vmes so skakali zaposleni in poskušali na videz vsem ustreči. če nisi bil pozoren, se je vsake toliko kdo urinil v že tako ali tako namišljeno vrsto. moj edini angleško govoreči up je imel toliko dela, da je hkrati govoril po telefonu in istočasno  kopiral neke papirje, vmes preverjal podatke na računalniku in se s sodelavcem zmenil, kaj bosta naročila za kosilo! ko je za trenutek odložil telefon in sem vzkliknila 'pardon!' je izginil v prostor za zaposlene. po razvlečenih minutah se je spet prikazal. 'how can i help you?' 'yes!' zajamem dih in razložim po najbolj bistvenih delcih. da je predrago. da bi rada ugodno klicala in pošiljala smse v vsa omrež..' očitno preveč komplicirano, vzame moj telefon, vtipka številko centra za uporabnike, mi vrne telefon, in se obrne k naslednjemu. zvoni zvoni, in končno se nekdo oglasi. v turščini!!! odvihram ven, rešila nisem ničesar. spijem čaj in petdeset metrov naprej najdem drugega ponudnika, kjer ne preriva toliko ljudi in pred vrati ni zvočnikov z gangnam style melodijo. po začetni turščini hitro preklopim na angleščino in na povabilo stopim za prodajni pult ter preko google translate razložim, da bi rada zamenjala operaterja. tukaj gre lažje. naslednji korak je, da od prvega dobim podatke o uporabniku. hm? prodajalka z mojega obraza razbere, da sama težko, zato mi napiše listek, takšen, s katerim sem, ko sem bila majhna, šla v trgovino in je na njem pisalo kruh, mleko, pet jajc.. z listkom se vrnem v prejšnjo poslovalnico in z njim stopim do prve zaposlene, malo čudno me pogleda, ampak kot pred leti, dobim, kar piše, in ponosna se vrnem nazaj. 

DÜĞÜN

WEDDING 

after sometimes already annoying rainy winter with short snow wonderland in between, warm wind finally started to blow. firstly, it blew away my computer's main board but apart from that, all other changes are welcome, one of them is happening right now on streets of tarlabaşı neighbourhood. we're having first wedding in the season tonight! i don't know how they managed to arrange things with weather, were they lucky, was the wedding spontaneous..:)? i'm not downstairs today, yet i'm writing this post in the rhythm of drums and loud singing that my windows luckily cannot block. photos below were taken at the wedding in autumn and today is finally the right time to show them! that much about their colourful celebrations for now and next time more about their grayscale misery.

POROKA

po na trenutke še kar zoprni in deževni zimi z vmesno snežno pravljico je končno zapihal toplejši veter, ki mi je sicer najprej odpihnil maticno plosco na racunalniku, vse ostalo, kar prinaša s sabo pa je zaenkrat dobrodošlo. med drugim prvi toplejši dan (ne pravim, da imamo ze pomlad, zares se baje zacne sele aprila!) tudi ljubi sosedi proslavljajo s prvo poroko v letosnji sezoni. ne razumem kako se ujeli ravno pravi čas, so se prej zmenili za vreme, se porocajo kar spontano..:) danes sicer nisem z njimi, vseeno pa pišem tole objavo v ritmi bobnov in glasnega vzklikanja z ulice in koncno objavljam par fotk z vzdusja jesenske poroke, ki so kljub nesreci z racunalnikom zdaj na varnem. toliko o njihovem blišču in naslednjič še malenkost več o bedi. 

they were dancing all evening

still looking for their songs on the internet but they aren't there, of course

friends took care of make-up

men's discussion

lokuuuum!

each of guests had to dance with the married couple

kids growing up or better said, dancing up

no matter age

rings

under the dark sky

whole street gathered

sometimes there is better view

from upstairs.

good luck! since they probably don't know where they are going to live after renewal project hits their lives too