A lazy day in Little Istambul

old turk smoking Nargileh
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Berlin, Little Istambul,

11-04-2000.

glum windows with gray colored dirty windows radiate an uncertain future to those that live here

Looking around while I lock my bike I know for a fact why this part of town is nicknamed Little Istambul, an area east of the famous Unter Den Linden Boulevard and home to a huge turkish immigrant population.

Short rotunt women near middle age walk by carrying head scarves and long pale dresses over woolen pants, rowdy kids in thier early teenage years hang against an old automobile giving me curious but bored looks. Most of the cars parked at the curb look on average about ten years older as cars elsewhere in Berlin.

The three to four storey houses look in a serious state of urban decay, glum windows with gray colored dirty windows radiate an uncertain future to those who live here.

I enter a small turkish coffee house that also does kebab and beer. Food and Warsteiner beer is what I am after, but also some interesting rustic scenes for my sketchbook would come in handy...maybe while away an tranquil afternoon in a turkish coffee house while drawing in my sketchbook and smoking the sweet tabacco from the nargileh.

Rustic scenes are all around me in this small but cozy typically turkish neighborhood gathering place.

Old bearded men in turkish djallebas eye me friendly from nearby tables while suckling contentedly on their nargileh pipes and playing dominoes or card games.

Males in their late fifties dressed in dusty suits sipping mint tea and involved in a heated conversation in turkish, smile at me benignly.

The cloud of nargileh smoke in this joint is overwhelming but I stay most of the afternoon nonetheless making sketches and participating in smoking nargileh.