<ul fr-original-style="padding-inline-start: 20px;" style="padding-inline-start: 20px; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em; list-style-position: inside; box-sizing: border-box;"><li dir="ltr" fr-original-style="" style="box-sizing: border-box;">My friends call me Edi.</li><li dir="ltr" fr-original-style="" style="box-sizing: border-box;">Currently I'm a bartender, and if I didn't do that I would like to be a goatherd.</li><li dir="ltr" fr-original-style="" style="box-sizing: border-box;">According to my friends, my specialty (even though I hate this word) is mixology. It is akin to reinventing the elements if you ask me.</li><li dir="ltr" fr-original-style="" style="box-sizing: border-box;">I live in Moda in Istanbul, but in my heart, I am an&nbsp;Amazonian.</li><li dir="ltr" fr-original-style="" style="box-sizing: border-box;">When a dog follows me for a while, I feel like I'm in my neighborhood.</li><li dir="ltr" fr-original-style="" style="box-sizing: border-box;">My favorite place to walk at night is Yoğurtçu Park. Because the trees in the park are suitable for climbing. I don't always climb, but it feels good to be surrounded by nature.</li><li dir="ltr" fr-original-style="" style="box-sizing: border-box;">Only a real Caferağa local with hearty eating habits would know: <a fr-original-style="" href='https://link.apos.to/c/U72Mm9ue-vzd?c=NX4V4vHrTZbzRXvlNm36N&s=web' rel="noopener noreferrer" style="color: rgb(9, 9, 9); text-decoration: none; background-color: transparent; outline: none; cursor: pointer; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; touch-action: manipulation; user-select: auto; box-sizing: border-box;" target="_blank">Registon Uzbek Restaurant</a>. <a fr-original-style="" href='https://link.apos.to/c/u2Ri2sUN791Y?c=NX4V4vHrTZbzRXvlNm36N&s=web' rel="noopener noreferrer" style="color: rgb(9, 9, 9); text-decoration: none; background-color: transparent; outline: none; cursor: pointer; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; touch-action: manipulation; user-select: auto; box-sizing: border-box;" target="_blank">Samsa börek </a>and <a fr-original-style="" href='https://link.apos.to/c/q5eHLd-og1-9?c=NX4V4vHrTZbzRXvlNm36N&s=web' rel="noopener noreferrer" style="color: rgb(9, 9, 9); text-decoration: none; background-color: transparent; outline: none; cursor: pointer; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; touch-action: manipulation; user-select: auto; box-sizing: border-box;" target="_blank">Legman</a> as the first order.</li><li dir="ltr" fr-original-style="" style="box-sizing: border-box;">After midnight, you can probably find me at the Mehmet Ayvalıtaş Square, (Moda Havuz as the locals call it) with my friends.</li><li fr-original-style="" style="box-sizing: border-box;">The songs I'm listening to at night right now are on <a fr-original-style="" href='https://link.apos.to/c/j18FD69JpdtS?c=NX4V4vHrTZbzRXvlNm36N&s=web' rel="noopener noreferrer" style="color: rgb(9, 9, 9); text-decoration: none; background-color: transparent; outline: none; cursor: pointer; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; touch-action: manipulation; user-select: auto; box-sizing: border-box;" target="_blank">The Gloaming</a> album.</li></ul>

Conjointly inhabited, isolated area where buildings are stationed in a row, side to side and in an adjacent order; where recesses opened to concrete gardens; oxygen per cubic meter is reduced from the first hours of the morning until noon; the first objects to be seen on the pavements are respectively a car tire, a ripped trash bag, a left shoe, an old cable, the remote control thrown away because it is incapable of switching channels, a dead battery. The ambulance siren and crowd cacophony are fixed noises in the backdrop. This is a pessimistic reading of the metropolis.But what if we defined cities by steps walked instead of kilometers, square meters, and parcels traversed? Would we come across the fig tree, one hundred and twenty-two steps away from the doorstep? What if, forty-eight steps later, we bumped into aunty Süreyya who would give us her recipe for a stew, dessert or jam depending on the variety? In two hundred and fifty steps, on the street named after some doctor, could the smell of salt water mixed with the pine, make us forget the day ahead filled up with to-do lists?&nbsp;<img src="https://s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/images.aposto.com/2023/0/5/1673630845416.jpeg" style="display: block; vertical-align: top; margin: 5px auto; text-align: center; width: 100%; max-width: 550px; border-style: none; position: relative; cursor: pointer; padding: 0px 1px; box-sizing: border-box;" width="550" ratio="0.67" fr-original-style="display: block; vertical-align: top; margin: 5px auto; text-align: center; width: 100%; max-width: 550px;" fr-original-class="fr-draggable"><h4 fr-original-style="text-align: center;" style="text-align: center; margin: 0px; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.85); font-weight: 500; padding: 0px; box-sizing: border-box;">Moda streets</h4><hr fr-original-style="" style="height: 0px; overflow: visible; border-bottom: none; clear: both; user-select: none; break-after: page; box-sizing: border-box;">Seventy-seven steps south onto the doctor-something street, glances are turning towards a wicker basket hanging from the building with Mr Somebody’s name carved in front, like most of buildings in Istanbul are named after. The starting point of the rope fastened with sailor knots is unknown. Next to the 100 Turkish liras there is a note that says 2 lemons, 1 box of spaghetti, and 6 medium-sized tomatoes. The note is written on a piece of paper torn from a striped notebook. At this moment, the pillar of the neighborhood, Mr.-somebody, leaves the grocery store also known as the market/ the buffet/the tobacco shop open 20 hours a day. The supplies are placed scatteredly in the basket. He pulls several times from the rope, dinner ascends to the sky. Three hundred and forty-one, two hundred seventy-seven, no, seventy-nine steps later, you are facing the sunset, intuitively.For four hundred steps, while the smell of onions, garlic, and tomato paste diffuse from the kitchen and the sound of series, news, documentary, and marriage programs coming from TV’s on the ground floors blend; the night is no more the harbinger of the sun going down, but of the full moon, the street lights, the life behind the curtains, and the pantone of an altered light source. Now, the city is neither the abode of those who start the night as a hot mess nor those who start the morning in haste. The night is lustrous.Follow us,Hazal

Neighborhood: Caferağa. A local and the narrator: Burak Ayaz. 

🌕 Caferağa, Burak Ayaz

A weekly journal of neighbourhoods to dig into urban culture, people stories, and sociocultural dynamics. In every issue, we meet an inhabitant in their hood where they live, create or belong.

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🌕 Caferağa, Burak Ayaz