1. Antikarnas Istanbul
Housed in an elegantly restored four-storey townhouse, this is a great shop in which to browse amongst fine 19th-century Ottoman landscape paintings, exquisite Selçuk-era ceramics and genuine antiquities that truly belong in a museum. Until very recently the Turks were in the dreadful habit of throwing out precious antiques and replacing them with gaudy manufactured products. These days however, old is chic and consequently prices have rocketed.
Address: Faik Pasa Yokusu 15 Çukurcuma Istanbul
Opening hours: 9am-8pm Mon-Sat
Telephone: +90 212 2515928
Neighbourhood: Beyoglu
Nearest train: Taksim
2. Kerim
Kerim stands proudly among the designer clothing and furnishings stores in the fashionable upper-class shopping district of Tesvikiye. In this part of town, antiques are merely considered to be accessories that go along with a certain blasé lifestyle. You'll find some very high quality merchandise here. Check out the gorgeous mirrors, incredible religious icons, tasteful oil paintings, silver ornaments and jewellery as well as assorted valuable bric-a-brac. Everything in this store has a price tag to match the corresponding lifestyle.
Address: Atiye Sokak 14 (off Abdi Ipekçi Caddesi) Tesvikiye Istanbul
Opening hours: 9.30am-7pm Mon-Fri (mid-June-mid Sept ); 9.30am-7pm Mon-Sat (Mid Sept-mid June)
Telephone: +90 212 2313717
Neighbourhood: Nisantasi
Nearest train: Osmanbey
3. Tombak II
Çukurcuma - a small backstreet district in Beyoglu, just behind the Galatasaray Lycée - is the place to hunt for antiques and treasures at bargain prices. Tombak II stocks an eccentric selection of collectibles and curios, ranging from 100-year-old bars of soap and 1940s European razors in their original packaging (for a dollar), to silver tea services and turn-of-the-century toys. There is some wonderful stuff around and you might just end up with a real bargain if you dig deep enough.
Address: Faik Pasa Yokusu 34/A Çukurcuma Istanbul
Opening hours: 10am-7pm Mon-Sat
Telephone: +90 212 2443681
Neighbourhood: Beyoglu
Nearest train: Taksim
Çukurcuma is one of İstanbul’s oldest districts, and one of the most colorful parts of Beyoğlu. When I say one of the oldest districts, I do not mean just a couple of centuries. Çukurcuma dates back no less than five and a half centuries, in other words it is contemporary with the Turkish conquest of the city.
The streets of Çukurcuma are today lined by junk shops and antique shops, so it is an area which best reflects the old atmosphere of Beyoğlu.
To get to Çukurcuma walk down the hill from Taksim to Tophane. Although Çukurcuma is in fact the name of a short street, the whole area has come to be known after it. The street in turn takes its name from Çukurcuma Mosque, which was built by Mimar Sinan in the 1540s at the
request of Şeyhulislam Muhiddin Mehmed Efendi. The wear of centuries and several fires have destroyed most of the 16th century structure, only the base of the minaret and a small part of the interior walls remaining to link it with the original mosque built by Mimar Sinan. No inscription referring to him as architect remains either. After the fire which swept through the district in 1823 the mosque was largely rebuilt, and it was extensively repaired in 1968. Today this well cared for small wooden mosque is still in use.
The fountain opposite the mosque was founded by Ömer Ağa, one of the treasurers of Mahmud I (1730-1754), probably soon after the construction of the Sultan Mahmud Reservoir whose water supplied this district. In the 1830s after water had been supplied to Beyoğlu by Nakşidil Valide Sultan, mother of Mahmud II, many hamams (public bath houses) opened in the district, the most famous being Sürahi Hamam, today corrupted to Süreyya Hamam. The hamam was originally owned by an Armenian named Prapyon Kamber, and in the 1960s was taken over by Tokatlı Yusuf Yılmaz. The interior of the hamam is largely original, only the wooden outer hall on Çukurcuma Caddesi having been replaced by a concrete structure. The hamam has a second entrance onto a dead-end street leading off Bostancıbaşı Caddesi. Today numerous tourist groups come here to enjoy a traditional Turkish bath.
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The streets of Çukurcuma are fascinating to wander through. The junk and antique shops sell a huge variety of objects, some of them specializing in anything from lamps to gramophones, and there are also shops which rent and sell old costumes. This is a district whose inhabitants include many Jews and Christians as well as Muslims, and the mixture of cultures adds an additional dimension to the atmosphere of this part of the city.
Turning into Küçükparmakkapı street I head downhill through the back streets of Beyoğlu towards the antique shops. From a ground floor window of a huge gray dilapidated building an elderly priest looks out onto the street. Covering his toothless mouth with an embarrassed air, he tells me that he is 95 years old. After exchanging a few pleasantries I continue downhill. The
sound of scratchy melodies played on an old gramophone record comes to my ear, and I enter the shop where the sound is coming from. Here I make the acquaintance of Tom, a gramophone repairer who is seated at a table in the dim light. At one time he worked for the Vafaidiss in Galata, and is proud of being the only apprentice trained by the now 74 year-old Şaban Usta. Tom has devoted his lfe to the repair of phonographs, barrel organs and gramophones which he buys up and sells, but still has all the enthusiasm of a young boy.
If the day is hot and you look for a place to sit, there is a picturesque café in the garden of an old wooden house right next to Çukurcuma Mosque. This is a cool, pleasant place shaded by fig trees. Everything, including the cups and tables, is old or antique, and everything you see is for sale. If you wish, you may buy the very armchair which you are sitting in. The name is as delightful as the place. Çukurkeyf which translates somewhat strangely as Hole of Pleasure.
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Leaving Çukurkeyf I walk along the parallel street just up the hill and notice an old typewriter in the shop window. I go inside to look at it and meet the prop rietor Melih Usta - usta meaning master craftsman, and used as a title of respect-. He was busy mending the base of a copper lamp under a yellow light. With skilful blows of his hammer he repaired the crack in the base as I looked on admiringly. In this area each of the shops specializes in the sale and repair of different old articles, such as second-hand clothing, lamps, gramophones or marble wash basins.
I had been recommended to find Vildan Usta, whose workshop is in a building with its ground floor windows covered by creepers. The wooden door of the flat creaks as I open it. The interior is gloomy. A corridor filled with parts of cast metal lamps leads into a tiny room lit by what little light filters
through the window. Vildan Usta is seated on a wooden chair which creaks like the door. He is mending a lamp, as he has been doing for the past forty years. In his shop you can see many handmade lamps, some bearing the makers’ names. But Vildan Usta explains that the most valuable thing in his shop is not a lamp, but a cast metal clock which he bought as a young man in Paris at an auction of items from a house that was being demolished. Even though it does not work, he keeps it as a treasured memento, refusing to sell it.
As you walk around Çukurcuma you notice that every shop has its cat, and in some cases as many as five. Nihal Hanım’s cat has had kittens in the space over the shop window. As we drink tea and eat simit - bread rings sprinkled with sesame seeds - she shows me the Beykoz ware glass and pottery of which she is an avid admirer. Then she tells me about Maria and Hasan, oldtime residents of this area. Four years ago this shop belonged to Hasan, Çukurcuma’s oldest resident. Maria Hanım acted as intermediary when Nihal Hanım took over the shop, and Hasan retired to Altınoluk.
Once an insignificant backwater of Beyoğlu, Çukurcuma is now one of the best known parts, and enjoying its new role in the limelight. Of course the antique shops take most of the credit for this, but it could be that the antique shops owe their success to Çukurcuma. The question is open to debate, but whatever the truth of the matter Çuukurcuma is on İstanbul’s map to stay.
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