Sultanahmet, Küçük Ayasofya

Küçük Ayasofya Camii, Saints Sergios Bacchos Church, Sultanahmet, İstanbul, pentax k10d

a set of photos from inner side

Küçük Ayasofya Camii

Küçük Ayasofya Camii, Saints Sergios Bacchos Church, Sultanahmet, İstanbul, pentax k10d

May I enter ?

Kariye museum, Chora Church

old fabric houses from Galata region

streets of Galata, İstanbul

Galata kulesi (galata tower)

Galata Tower, Galata kulesi, Galata region, İstanbul, pentax k10d

a plane tree could stand at my head, I wouldn’t need a stone or anything.

istanbul lale festivali, istanbul tulip festival, emirgan, pentax k10d

Last Will And Testament

Comrades, if I don’t live to see the day
— I mean,if I die before freedom comes —
take me away
and bury me in a village cemetery in Anatolia.

The worker Osman whom Hassan Bey ordered shot
can lie on one side of me, and on the other side
the martyr Aysha, who gave birth in the rye
and died inside of forty days.

Tractors and songs can pass below the cemetery —
in the dawn light, new people, the smell of burnt gasoline,
fields held in common, water in canals,
no drought or fear of the police.

Of course, we won’t hear those songs:
the dead lie stretched out underground
and rot like black branches,
deaf, dumb, and blind under the earth.

But, I sang those songs
before they were written,
I smelled the burnt gasoline
before the blueprints for the tractors were drawn.

As for my neighbors,
the worker Osman and the martyr Aysha,
they felt the great longing while alive,
maybe without even knowing it.

Comrades, if I die before that day, I mean
— and it’s looking more and more likely —
bury me in a village cemetery in Anatolia,
and if there’s one handy,
a plane tree could stand at my head,
I wouldn’t need a stone or anything.

Moscow, Barviha Hospital

Trans. by Randy Blasing and Mutlu Konuk (1993)

Nazim Hikmet

istanbul lale festivali, istanbul tulip festival, emirgan, pentax k10d

İstanbul 2010, Redbull Flugtag event

Redbull flugtag event, Caddebostan 2010, İstanbul

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Redbull Flugtag 2010, Caddebostan

Redbull Flugtag 2010, Caddebostan-Istanbul, pentax k10d

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