As I’m a Göktürk resident for over 10 years I thought a lot about the topic of first article. Than I found out that the reasons why I love to live here would be great for the first article.
Aren’t there any negations? Of course there are a lot. If we examine all the things in detail we’ll find many. But I rather choose to look the glass from the full side. We need to be grateful for the things we have and I have some things that I pray about living here. But before these reasons I’d like to refer a little about our moving story from Emirgan to Göktürk.
It was 2004 and I was about to start high school. My father was singing the song of Göktürk / Kemerburgaz for a while. These years were my puberty years and they were the years that I need the city to socialize. And Göktürk was not just a neighbourhood that we don’t visit but also it wasn’t a place that we used to hear like popular districts.
A weekend before the school ends we came and toured the houses on market; the houses mostly in Kemer Country. My parents had some houses on mind at that time that we got into car for to return. Than before we leave Göktürk we came across with our home to be. And they shaked hands nearly in half an hour. And we were turning back our home for to pack up our stuff. While we turning I had mixed feelings. Because the decision was made; “We were moving!”
I still remember that day; the road was single lane and dark. We were right behind a truck with 20km/h speed, the time was not passing and I was constantly crying.
I also had few questions in mind. Like;
“What was I going to do there?”
“How I was going to make friends?”
“Where would I go for to hang out?”
And the most importantly;
“How was I going to city where my friends got together?”
I knew that life would be unbearable for me. Because the neighborhood was really ideal for retired people not for teens!
In the first week of June we moved. Schools were already closed for summer break. And this was going to make harder for me to make friends from school bus.
With no surprise 3 months loneliness was waiting for me!
I can’t explain how I cried that the first day we moved. I never wanted to live any minutes but it seemed like this house will be our home until the day that I got marry. It was a dream lifestyle for my parents. And the most interesting part is that they were young. And I was questioning their reason to live in a place like this.
On Istanbul Caddesi, which is our home, is located, there is a boutique arcade with a few stores and 3 restaurants in total Göktürk.
That restaurants wasn’t the places that I’m familiar with. What if I’d know? Who was I going to go with? I had no friends!
I never forget the day that I saw the Starbucks signboard. I watched while it was hanging. And count the days for the opening. At least I’d have a place to hangout and see some people.
For to many years I lived with grumbling. I was young and all my friends were in the city. I felt like detached from them. Even I made friends, where we were going to go and hangout? I wasn’t even able to reach the city on my own.
I was dependent on someone to take me to city besides Kemer Country. Göktürk at that time was like a dead city after 8 o’clock. And I was consoling myself with the residents at my age that moved earlier than me. At least I had Starbucks.
I was looking over the site there were 8 houses and the rest was worksite. I had a life that I shuttle back and forth between school and home. I got really bored.
And now I see how we can’t think so healthy when we were young. I never guessed how this place would change my life and will develop.
In these years besides grouching, I dedicated myself to sports – that was the only thing I can do on my own- and gained an addiction like watching sunset behind our site. This became a ritual for me.
By this way I started to fell in love with the place I live and understood the value of it. But how?
Here are the 6 reasons why I love Goktürk…
1-Neighbor Relations!
Until the age of 14, I grew up in an apartment where we had great relations with neighbors from all religions and different cities. On that time when we talked about our neighbor relations to our friends and other family members, they were amazedly listening us. I used to call our neighbors as grandmas, grandpas, elder sister (abla), elder brother (abi). I spent more time in their homes than I do in my own home. We grew up with their stories and learnt their traditions. We were painting eggs on Easter, we learnt the meaning of dipping bread into salt. We saw the same respect and interest from them in our holydays. As a result I grew up in a very big family. And my fears when we were moving were mostly related to these relations. Like;
“What if we couldn’t have relations like in our apartment?”
“What if we could have no neighbors?”
I never knew contrary cause I grew up with tied relations with our neighbors.
Even if our apartment was in the city we were lucky to have such a great garden with lots of trees, vegetables and fruits on that garden. Even if we were in city we knew the natural life, how these grew. When we were kids, while we were playing ball used to hit that parsleys and were feeling pain because our beloved doorman used to say to us that;
“Pity them! Be careful! They are lively too”.
Then we moved and we made great relationships with our neighbors in our site like in the apartment we used to live.
But with a difference we were gathering in social facility rather then in our homes. And I have many moms, uncles, elder brother and elder sisters again. While it’s snowy we make sucuk-ekmek (Turkish style fermented sausage in bread) by the fire, we prepare big breakfast tables on weekends, on summer nights we make open-air movie nights and organize long walks in Göktürk.
Now I have a bigger family!
Not only in the site but also in all neighborhood. Now when I go out and take a look around even in cafes tables are getting bigger when we see a similar face and conversations are becoming much more joyous. And I smile because when I see people living happily together and being in constant relation and to see that they enjoy from this makes me happy.
2-The Feeling of Being Familiar With!
The biggest advantage of living in a small neighborhood is that you can be familiar with each corner of that place. I don’t know if you feel the same but I love to live in small places. Maybe we need to use neighborhood rather than small place. And I love the term neighborhood and the concept of it.
To me Göktürk is a very big but a sincere neighborhood. When you live in a neighborhood like this you become a part of it.
You become the native of it, you came to know everyone, you greet everyone and you become aware of your environment.
For to talk myself I feel more secure and more self-confident. I can express myself easily and never think that I’m lonely. I never get the feeling that I’m lost in crowds. I feel myself right in the middle of the life. And I can notice when I see someone strange.
3-Village Effect
After mentioning security and self-confidence I can’t skip that book I adore that I recently read and advice to everyone I talk. It’s Village Effect from Susan Pinker. Book supports the issues that I mentioned above.
Book underlines the importance of living in places like villages where social communication bonds are strong. And Pinker supports this effect with the topics; communication, cooperation, self-confidence and security.
Pinker also underlines the importance of face-to-face communication produce some hormones that increases feeling of trust for each other and decreases stress.
Also in book the current researches that mentioned also show that our social communication directly caters to satisfaction from life and increases our resistance for infections and illnesses. At the same time it’s mentioned that social communication helps preventing heart diseases depending on loneliness and problem solving problems issues.
4-Are you familiar with the word Tradesman?
Tradesman concept is irreplaceable for Turkish neighborhoods. When we were kids we used to call the tradesman in the neighborhood as elder brother, elder sister, aunt or uncle and so on… You become a family with the all neighborhood and this reflects to our salutation style. You not only do shopping but also see some people, talk a bit and feed your communication need. And this is all organic. When a problem occurs everyone becomes one.
I’m a person that can be happy as long as communicate and feeling the need for it. I always love to hear people and their stories. I’d never been that person shops and comes to home in secs. I’m the type of person that shops and can’t go out from the store because of talking. And I see this is not a ritual only for me, I see people coming across and talking each other in the corridors. Even if we can’t find someone to talk with we talk with the cashier.
And the best part in Göktürk we are no longer depend on the city. We can find anything we need.
5-Everyday is a Weekend in Göktürk!
There are some places you know that like each day is like weekend, so relaxed like weekend. You can the all the activities that you can only do weekends. Göktürk is a place like this for me. We can do anything we want in any time of the day and week. When I go to city I look forward to come back for to have a coffee in a cafe, to go to our boutique movie theater and take a walk.
Sites and house’s gardens are all green. Don’t they make you feel great? When I walk the streets of Göktürk I feel like I’m wandering the streets of a different town of a different city. Like it has no relation with Istanbul.
Aren’t streets crowded? They are. And too much! Can’t we find a place to walk on some days? We are! But when you get into your home you can leave that crowd and chaos behind. And this is what I call luxury! We can get into the chaos of life anytime we want and we can isolate ourselves anytime we want. And forest is nearly next to us and we can get nature in no time flat.
As I mentioned I grew up in an apartment with a great garden and in our time we used to hear kids voices from other streets. Some don’t like these voices a lot. And when spring has come that voices starts to and these times I feel that I’m living. I think we’d be all dead if we can’t hear these voices. We would loose our joy, our aliveness.
6-We Can WALK!
Isn’t it great that we can reach everywhere by walking? Yes sometimes when we are so tired we get into our car for even a little thing. But if we feel ok we don’t even need any car or any transportation vehicle. Not everyone likes to walk but to me walking to any place that you like to is a freedom.
On my free times I tread the streets of Göktürk. I found myself in the very back of the neighborhood. I meet someone new everyday. Sometimes I get up and walk in very early hours, when neighborhood is sleeping and I recommend this strongly. Buy your bread on the return path and catch the breakfast.
And just to spite the years that we moved, every time when I’m coming from the city to Göktürk on that place after the truck station when I’m driving down from that slope I take a look to that amazing nature scene and say “Luckily I live here!”. Problems could be solved. Most important thing is that we need to be grateful for what we have and find a reason to be happy in every minute.
P.S: I of course do come across by some problems about here. I can humbly say that they are; scats, parking, fast cars in streets and garbage smell.