On Wed, 03 Jan 2007 23:50:25 +0000, Jack Campin - bogus address wrote:

Just back from ten days in Istanbul, which is near to being the cat
capital of the planet. I've been visiting Turkey for 25 years. When
I first went, there were many cats in very poor condition: matted fur,
obvious flea infestation, sometimes malnourished. Over the last few
years they've improved enormously. Some random portraits:

- there is a small yard near the top of the Tunel (the nineteenth
century cable-hauled underground railway) which was full of cats
when I first visited, Back then, there was a scruffy second-hand
foreign-language bookshop at the back of the yard, and a population
of about 20 resident cats (and vast numbers of kittens). Now, the
bookshop's gone and there are far less cats. When I first took
Marion there in 1991, we found a small white kitten who loved being
picked up and cuddled. So we looked for her when we were there next,
three years later. She'd turned into a big fat cat who wanted
nothing at all to do with us. Oh well. This time the place was
barricaded off for building work and a big fluffy black one mooched
in and out of the barred gate.

- the fishmarket at the north end of the Galata Bridge is cat heaven.
They have to share the spoils with seagulls but there are always
dozens of cats here. Mostly quite young, there are busy roads all
round and most of them must get run over. A short life but a happy
one.

- just south of the top of the Tunel is the Galata Sufi centre. This
has an extended family of cats guarding the saints' tombs, the
current matriarch being a dark tabby with a big fluffy tail who
wanders between the Sufi centre and the surrounding music shops and
restaurants. She's very friendly, her descendants not as much. In
time they should learn that musicians are just as soft a touch as
Sufis.

- at Anadolu Kavagi, the castle on the Asian side overlooking the
Black Sea, there are a fair number of cats and dogs hanging about,
but the undisputed King of the Castle is a magnificent dark ginger
fluffy tomcat who lords it over his mediaeval ruins. The fluff is
not for decoration, it was near freezing and blowing a stiff wind
when we were there. Down at the quayside, the fish restaurants are
an easy touch for a population of ginger and tabby cats who seem to
spend all day in territorial disputes with the dogs.

- a street trader north of Taksim Square seemed to have left his cat
in charge of a tray of watches. She was an enormous fluffy tabby
and white, like a Norwegian Forest or Maine Coon (not a common kind
of cat in Turkey). You could have trained her to inflict serious
mayhem on anyone who walked off with a watch, but she just liked to
roll over and get her tummy tickled.

- the most stunning place for cats I have ever seen anywhere is the
island of Heybeliada in the Sea of Marmara. This is carless -
there are a few trucks and dozens of horses and carts. The cats
mostly hang out around the quayside since that's where the fish is
(a few fishmongers, people landing fish, very good fish restaurants).
Tabbies, silver tabbies, gingers, calicos, torties, blacks, tuxedo
cats, and some very dark torties in a colour scheme I've never seen
elsewhere. They form something like queues at the fishmongers waiting
for donations (or for the fishmonger to give up for the day and dump
his stock).

I didn't see any cats on the ferries but they must stow away and cross
the Bosphorus all the time to commute intercontinentally between fish
markets in Europe and Asia.

============== j-c ====== @ ====== purr . demon . co . uk ==============
Jack Campin: 11 Third St, Newtongrange EH22 4PU, Scotland | tel 0131 660 4760
http://www.purr.demon.co.uk/jack/ for CD-ROMs and free | fax 0870 0554 975
stuff: Scottish music, food intolerance, & Mac logic fonts | mob 07800 739 557


Very interesting. Thanks for posting. MLB