A few hundred meters outside the old city, that is: beyond the restored city walls, a park exists around, amongst other things, a fine mosque, two separate stations for two light rail road or metro lines, some sports facilities and so forth. The mosque I’ll show elsewhere, similarly I will also show the nearby “museum of the conquest of Istanbul” or Panorama Museum. The series I show here has a few shots of the park, and of a series of pavilions which each present one of what may be called “Turkish countries”, as well as some replicas of ancient stones with the first texts referring to a Turkish people. The presentations in the pavilions did not want me to go and visit the countries involved shortly, lots of folks art and a few pictures of the major sights. However, as I regularly come across such pavilions in other cities, mainly as part of some town-twinning, I think they reflect the growing awareness (or promotion) of a Turkish conscientiousness, part of a geopolitical reorientation (“Go East, young man”, I’d paraphrase).

A note: Topkapı here is one of the city gates, NOT the palace in the heart of the old town.