Istanbul -- City of Cats

By The Spouse, Guest Blogger

Everywhere you walk in Istanbul, you walk among cats. They lounge on Beyoǧlu’s stairways and benches, patrol the Kennedy Caddesi’s rocky seawall, forage Nişantaşi’s elegant cafes, raise families beneath Byzantine walls. The city not only tolerates, but supports them. Dishes appear on doorsteps, with water or milk. Hands pass tidbits under restaurant tables. Fingers scratch furry ears, and laps welcome kittens.

Like most travelers, we assumed that we were the discoverers of these creatures, and we began, like zoologists in the Amazon, photographing these exotic organisms for later study. The Web, of course, was way ahead of us. Cats, it appears, have a long association with the city, the origins of which may be historical or religious, but is amply documented and discussed. To learn more or join the lively discussion, search  “cats Istanbul” from your favorite Web entry point.

They are street-wise but remarkably tame and amiable. Some are thoroughly well-fed and lazy denizens of park benches in major tourist areas, as this comfortable Topkapi palace guardian (left).

Most others seem to work for a living. Predators of the Serengeti that stretches across the parklands of the Topkapi, or hustlers on the mean streets of bazaars and residential quarters, these cats can make a good life for themselves with their energy and determination. They are fully adapted to life, not in the wild, nor as pets, but in a kind of peaceful co-existence with the city’s people.

They may be scrawny families eking out a living on a rocky hillside, such as this exhausted group below the Monastery of St. George on Büyükada Island, one of the “Princes Islands” in the Sea of Marmara. Fortunately for them, their camp sits just downhill from outdoor kebab restaurant that serves the pilgrims who climb to the Orthodox Church to pray and leave ex voto offerings in aid of troubled loved ones. These cats collect the more prosaic offerings left or tossed from the tables.

In the Chora church, with its amazing 14th Century mosaics, kittens hang around outside to grab a share of attention away from Christ Pantocrator. Thoroughly comfortable with busloads of Spanish, Italian, and American tourists, they invite homage from all who visit.

Thin and elegant long-necked cats, seemingly raised from an Egyptian tomb, regard the traveler with big, curious eyes. As we walked up a long boulevard bordered by summer mansions on Büyükada Island, a youthful one of these stared us down from the protection of his owner’s wall.

Sunday morning in Nişantaşi, the city’s upscale neighborhood.  At umbrella-shaded sidewalk tables, demarcated by shrubs in pots, brunch is served. Cats wage guerilla war for space and scraps. A foraging feline, of thin and elegant demeanor, finds an opening. Eyes big with soulful appeal, furry neck and head invite unwary human fingers to pat and rub, but her attention is laser-focused on the tidbit at the end of a fork  or waiting on a plate. Our plates have sausages, and, bit by bit, totally seduced, we offer them up to our mendicant. But enough is enough—we have to eat after all—and we send our guest elsewhere in search of other tables.

A family is next to fall—a young girl’s face lights up at a neighboring table, and food is passed downwards. This can’t continue. The waiters engage. Shouting, squirting water from spray bottles, they drive the intruder out. Peace returns.

A little while later, a furry nudge on an arm. The cycle begins again.

After a week, we had grown so used to their presence, that life without cats roaming the streets around us seemed a bit empty. Just as, in so many other ways, the teeming  diversity of the Istanbul street makes most other cities we know seem a bit dull by comparison.