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Thames Hudson 5... a Day
Günde Beş Kuruşa Sultanın İstanbul'u
Bu eğlenceli ve bilgilendirici rehber, sizi İstanbul'un girişimci yolcular için gözde bir yer olduğu Büyük Tur dönemine doğru bir yolculuğa çıkarıyor. İstanbul bir sırlar kentidir. Denetimin yoğun olduğu Topkapı Sarayı'na nasıl erişebileceğinizi öğrenin ve Sultan’ın haremindeki cariyelerin cazibesi ve onları koruyan hadımlar hakkındaki söylentilerin ardındaki gerçeği keşfedin.
Hareketli çarşılardaki hüner sahibi, tecrübeli satıcılarla pazarlık yapmayı, Türk hamamında hangi heyecanların sizi beklediğini öğrenin ve dönen dervişlerin garip ritüellerine katılın. Veya Sultan’ı tüm şıklığıyla, görkemli mavnasında Boğaz'ı gezerken izleyin. Osmanlı'nın görkemli saraylarına ve süblizasyon camilerine, onlardan önceki Bizanslıların sanatsal ve mimari başarılarına –özellikle heybetli Ayasofya'nın görkemli bazilikasına- hayranlık ve saygı duymamayı imkânsız bulacaksınız.
Yol boyunca Sultan ve hareminden, Bab-ı Âli’yi tutan sadrazama, afili yeniçerilerden kendini beğenmiş elçilere, zengin tüccarlara, uzun beyaz sarıklı müftülere, peçelerinin ardına saklanan Müslüman kadınlara ve Avrupa’nın her köşesinden gelen ve Osmanlı İmparatorluğu’nun bir dizi müthiş milletine uzanan egzotik karakterlerle karşılaşacaksınız. Daha cesur olanlar, köle pazarında sunulan güzel kadınları görebilir, idam izleyen bir kalabalığa katılabilir ya da en tehlikeli kahvehane ve afyon batakhanelerindeki yasaklı lezzetleri tadabilir. Görkemli İstanbul şehrini ziyaret etmek için daha önce hiç bu kadar iyi bir zaman olmadı.
Hareketli çarşılardaki hüner sahibi, tecrübeli satıcılarla pazarlık yapmayı, Türk hamamında hangi heyecanların sizi beklediğini öğrenin ve dönen dervişlerin garip ritüellerine katılın. Veya Sultan’ı tüm şıklığıyla, görkemli mavnasında Boğaz'ı gezerken izleyin. Osmanlı'nın görkemli saraylarına ve süblizasyon camilerine, onlardan önceki Bizanslıların sanatsal ve mimari başarılarına –özellikle heybetli Ayasofya'nın görkemli bazilikasına- hayranlık ve saygı duymamayı imkânsız bulacaksınız.
Yol boyunca Sultan ve hareminden, Bab-ı Âli’yi tutan sadrazama, afili yeniçerilerden kendini beğenmiş elçilere, zengin tüccarlara, uzun beyaz sarıklı müftülere, peçelerinin ardına saklanan Müslüman kadınlara ve Avrupa’nın her köşesinden gelen ve Osmanlı İmparatorluğu’nun bir dizi müthiş milletine uzanan egzotik karakterlerle karşılaşacaksınız. Daha cesur olanlar, köle pazarında sunulan güzel kadınları görebilir, idam izleyen bir kalabalığa katılabilir ya da en tehlikeli kahvehane ve afyon batakhanelerindeki yasaklı lezzetleri tadabilir. Görkemli İstanbul şehrini ziyaret etmek için daha önce hiç bu kadar iyi bir zaman olmadı.
- GenresHistoryTravelNonfiction
144 pages, Hardcover
First published May 1, 2013
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Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews
May 14, 2020
Brief, yet fascinating insight into the cultural and social beliefs and practices of 18th century Turks.
December 26, 2015
'The Sultan’s Istanbul on Five Kurush a Day' was, for me, the delight of this year’s Christmas.
Mr FitzRoy proposes, with no needless earnest, to be your guide in the Istanbul of 1750, as if you were extending your Grand Tour eastwards. (I did wonder whether any European of 1750 would refer to the place as ‘Istanbul', but no matter.) He introduces us to the locals, with their highly coloured footwear, their cafes and habitats, takes you round Topkapı Palace and the Harem, shows you the main sights and slips you into the city’s great celebrations - all in a companionable and amusing style that maintains the fiction of being as vademecum while never lapsing into pastiche.
The book is very informative, though free of any buttonholing harassment. While I’ve probably forgotten much more about Ottoman Constantinople than I realise, I have a strong feeling that I never knew that the Balat district was named after a palace (‘paiation’). The municipality of Beşiktaş (where in recent years a hidden tea garden of effortless charm, perfect for whiling away a late afternoon, has been supplanted by a featureless restaurant and takeaway) is so called for a stone on which the infant Jesus had been washed: again, my memory is innocent of this notion, though, as I discover, that’s but one of the theories. Not had I any idea that the imam would climb the pulpit steps in Ayasofya with a naked scimitar, in token of the principal church of Christendom being taken by storm in 1543.
There’s very much more than this to enjoy here, and I’d devoured it all before making Christmas dinner. Thames & Hudson’s historical guide book idea is seductive, and I look forward to examining their 'Ancient Egypt on Five Deben a Day' or 'The Wild West on Five Bits a Day'. Unsurprisingly from this publisher, the book is beautifully set and illustrated (both visually and with snippets from authors of the time). I found it an utter pleasure.
Mr FitzRoy proposes, with no needless earnest, to be your guide in the Istanbul of 1750, as if you were extending your Grand Tour eastwards. (I did wonder whether any European of 1750 would refer to the place as ‘Istanbul', but no matter.) He introduces us to the locals, with their highly coloured footwear, their cafes and habitats, takes you round Topkapı Palace and the Harem, shows you the main sights and slips you into the city’s great celebrations - all in a companionable and amusing style that maintains the fiction of being as vademecum while never lapsing into pastiche.
The book is very informative, though free of any buttonholing harassment. While I’ve probably forgotten much more about Ottoman Constantinople than I realise, I have a strong feeling that I never knew that the Balat district was named after a palace (‘paiation’). The municipality of Beşiktaş (where in recent years a hidden tea garden of effortless charm, perfect for whiling away a late afternoon, has been supplanted by a featureless restaurant and takeaway) is so called for a stone on which the infant Jesus had been washed: again, my memory is innocent of this notion, though, as I discover, that’s but one of the theories. Not had I any idea that the imam would climb the pulpit steps in Ayasofya with a naked scimitar, in token of the principal church of Christendom being taken by storm in 1543.
There’s very much more than this to enjoy here, and I’d devoured it all before making Christmas dinner. Thames & Hudson’s historical guide book idea is seductive, and I look forward to examining their 'Ancient Egypt on Five Deben a Day' or 'The Wild West on Five Bits a Day'. Unsurprisingly from this publisher, the book is beautifully set and illustrated (both visually and with snippets from authors of the time). I found it an utter pleasure.
September 4, 2025
After my wonderful journey through Egypt with the book "Ancient Egypt on Five Deben a Day" , I was more than excited to embark on one more journey, and this time to Istanbul! I was very disappointed, the writing felt boring and the book was unimpressive, it felt more like a dull study paper than a commercial book meant to entertain a larger audience of readers. Also the book is meant to be a "travel guide" to a place in history the reader obviously can't go to, that is what makes the concept interesting. But it felt like this came as an afterthought to the author. There were also a couple of phrases that felt based in racism and misogyny, like that the women's coverings make it enticing to picture a slender beauty or a fuller figured madam under them... That could have certainly been left out.
June 1, 2026
The Sultan’s Istanbul on 5 Kurush a Day is part of a series of books which purport to be travel-guides for visiting various cities in various time periods. Ancient Athens and Rome have one, as does Shakespeare’s London. This one deals with Istanbul I 1750.
Istanbul is still a fascinating city, and the Ottoman capital at this time is a place of luxury, grandeur, mystery and strict social control. It’s not the Baghdad of Arabian Nights full of pickpockets, and while there are beggars, they are mostly helped by the various mosques and the principal of zakat.
The first piece of advice FitzRoy gives the traveller is to hire a dragoman, this is more than an interpreter, this is someone who can interpret the laws and customs of Islam and the Ottomans, and a good dragoman seems to be someone who leads their charge around safely, without being thrown into prison. He is also in charge of the bakshish, a mandatory tip/bribe that ensures anything happens.
As a Christian, you will be staying in the Foreigner/Christian area of Pera, which is also known as Beyoglu (something I found interesting because it’s also the name of the most popular Turkish restaurant in the area, a place everyone knows as ‘the Turkish on the corner’ and nobody knows as Beyoglu.) You will probably want to explore the local mosques, perhaps even the grand old cathedral of Byzantium, the ‘Ayasofya’, but you will need to do it carefully and respectfully, these are functional places of worship.
Even harder to enter is the Topkapi Sarayi, the Imperial Palace of ‘the shadow of God on Earth’, the Great Turk. If you get into the first two courts, probably through some sort of diplomatic contact, there’s no way you will enter the seraglio, the most guarded places in the palace, a place totally haram. There’s a lot in the book about the separation of men and women in Istanbul, the headscarves and cover-alls, how even the most basic houses divide between a men’s area and a women’s area.
It’s in subjects like this the book falls into some difficulties in point of view. An eighteenth (and nineteenth) century traveller to Istanbul would have been fascinated by this area of things, a secret world filled with erotic charge that was probably quite dull in reality. This book wants to honour the eroticism a reader from the 1750s would have implicitly carried to Istanbul but is clearly concerned about very legitimate modern concerns about orientalism and the ‘sexy foreigner’ notion.
Elements such as this, an awareness of anti-islamic prejudice and also an awareness that (many) Europeans have more of an idea about Islam than people in the eighteenth century, means that the book never fully grasps who its audience is. While the book is a guide to 1750s Istanbul, it’s never clear whether the audience is supposed to be a European in the 1750s or a European from today who would like to travel to 1750s Istanbul. This makes the book a little muddled, with lots of fascinating information but a shilly-shallying tone.
The book has chapters about the layout, the bazaars, how to shop and explore, where to go - where not to go, Christians are very unwelcome in the holy area of Eyup. There are descriptions of public holidays and celebrations, particularly the yearly departure of the hajj pilgrims and the circumcision of the princes. There’s a fair bit about the social order, the Grand Turk himself, his sultanas and other sexual partners, the always present janissaries, who may overturn their soup tureens and riot at any moment. There’s information about the truly peculiar system of handing on power, where Sultan’s sons used to murder each other till there was one left, but now are locked in a gilded cage until one is selected.
There’s also a lot about how the law and religion are intertwined, and how the people believe that the state exists to enforce Allah’s law. It’s a place where religion colours every moment of every day, with the muezzins ringing out for the prayers. If the book is to be believed, 1750s Istanbul is a very ordered place and very safe from unrest (if the janissaries aren’t on one) but this order is based on strict control.
I’d love to visit Istanbul today, much of the beauty described in the book still stands, but the book does make me wish I could hop in a Tardis and visit it then, provided I had a good dragoman with me (and not the Doctor, he’s terrible at keeping his head down).
Istanbul is still a fascinating city, and the Ottoman capital at this time is a place of luxury, grandeur, mystery and strict social control. It’s not the Baghdad of Arabian Nights full of pickpockets, and while there are beggars, they are mostly helped by the various mosques and the principal of zakat.
The first piece of advice FitzRoy gives the traveller is to hire a dragoman, this is more than an interpreter, this is someone who can interpret the laws and customs of Islam and the Ottomans, and a good dragoman seems to be someone who leads their charge around safely, without being thrown into prison. He is also in charge of the bakshish, a mandatory tip/bribe that ensures anything happens.
As a Christian, you will be staying in the Foreigner/Christian area of Pera, which is also known as Beyoglu (something I found interesting because it’s also the name of the most popular Turkish restaurant in the area, a place everyone knows as ‘the Turkish on the corner’ and nobody knows as Beyoglu.) You will probably want to explore the local mosques, perhaps even the grand old cathedral of Byzantium, the ‘Ayasofya’, but you will need to do it carefully and respectfully, these are functional places of worship.
Even harder to enter is the Topkapi Sarayi, the Imperial Palace of ‘the shadow of God on Earth’, the Great Turk. If you get into the first two courts, probably through some sort of diplomatic contact, there’s no way you will enter the seraglio, the most guarded places in the palace, a place totally haram. There’s a lot in the book about the separation of men and women in Istanbul, the headscarves and cover-alls, how even the most basic houses divide between a men’s area and a women’s area.
It’s in subjects like this the book falls into some difficulties in point of view. An eighteenth (and nineteenth) century traveller to Istanbul would have been fascinated by this area of things, a secret world filled with erotic charge that was probably quite dull in reality. This book wants to honour the eroticism a reader from the 1750s would have implicitly carried to Istanbul but is clearly concerned about very legitimate modern concerns about orientalism and the ‘sexy foreigner’ notion.
Elements such as this, an awareness of anti-islamic prejudice and also an awareness that (many) Europeans have more of an idea about Islam than people in the eighteenth century, means that the book never fully grasps who its audience is. While the book is a guide to 1750s Istanbul, it’s never clear whether the audience is supposed to be a European in the 1750s or a European from today who would like to travel to 1750s Istanbul. This makes the book a little muddled, with lots of fascinating information but a shilly-shallying tone.
The book has chapters about the layout, the bazaars, how to shop and explore, where to go - where not to go, Christians are very unwelcome in the holy area of Eyup. There are descriptions of public holidays and celebrations, particularly the yearly departure of the hajj pilgrims and the circumcision of the princes. There’s a fair bit about the social order, the Grand Turk himself, his sultanas and other sexual partners, the always present janissaries, who may overturn their soup tureens and riot at any moment. There’s information about the truly peculiar system of handing on power, where Sultan’s sons used to murder each other till there was one left, but now are locked in a gilded cage until one is selected.
There’s also a lot about how the law and religion are intertwined, and how the people believe that the state exists to enforce Allah’s law. It’s a place where religion colours every moment of every day, with the muezzins ringing out for the prayers. If the book is to be believed, 1750s Istanbul is a very ordered place and very safe from unrest (if the janissaries aren’t on one) but this order is based on strict control.
I’d love to visit Istanbul today, much of the beauty described in the book still stands, but the book does make me wish I could hop in a Tardis and visit it then, provided I had a good dragoman with me (and not the Doctor, he’s terrible at keeping his head down).
May 17, 2024
Bir yabancının gözüyle 1750'nin İstanbul'undayız.
İnsanların yaşayışlarına, adetlere, devletin işleyişi ve dönemin günlük hayatına; Osmanlı'ya dıştan bakan bir seyyahın gözüyle bakıyoruz. Kitaptaki gravürler ve resimler okuma zevkini arttırıyor. Kitap çok akıcı, bu bilgileri aktarırken okuyucu kesinlikle sıkılmıyor. 1750'lerin İstanbul'unu merak eden herkese öneririm.
İnsanların yaşayışlarına, adetlere, devletin işleyişi ve dönemin günlük hayatına; Osmanlı'ya dıştan bakan bir seyyahın gözüyle bakıyoruz. Kitaptaki gravürler ve resimler okuma zevkini arttırıyor. Kitap çok akıcı, bu bilgileri aktarırken okuyucu kesinlikle sıkılmıyor. 1750'lerin İstanbul'unu merak eden herkese öneririm.
January 29, 2018
Conveys the atmosphere of the eternal city with a fair effort to present the relevant period. Full of helpful historical and cultural highlights and curiosities, as well as some clichés about Turks and Islam.
December 22, 2022
Baskısı, gravürleri anlatımındaki naifliğiyle bir 18. ayy Osmanlı panoraması. Bahsedilen tüm bilgilerin klişe ve bilindik olması okunabilirliğine halel getirmiyor. Seyyah hatıratı okumayı sevenler listeye alsın :)
November 4, 2018
1750’lerin İstanbul’unda harika bir gezinti oldu. Şehir yaşamını tüm yönleriyle ele alan keyifli bir kitap. Sosyal tarih sevenlere tavsiye ederim...
May 28, 2021
This tiny book will take you to ordinary life of Istanbul/Constantinople some 300 years ago where you will enjoy as one of the inhabitants of this marvelous city...
December 13, 2025
18 yüzyılda yazılmış kitap Osmanlı İstanbul'unu bir çok açıdan ele alıyor ve dönemi gelenekleri üzerinden güzel anlatıyor.
October 17, 2013
Another assigned book for my Ottoman history course. This was a quick, fun read, written for a traveller in 1750. It wasn't always entirely correct, and the overemphasis on the sexuality of the harem was a particularly incorrect topic throughout the book, but over it was great fun and very informational.
August 15, 2014
I especially loved the last couple of chapters about the seraglio/harem, the festivals and the Bosphorus boat rides. He finishes off gloriously with a description of the male circumcision festival. Imagine a Rick Steves attitude in the 18th century. Amazingly, many of the buildings he describes are stil there and flourishing!
January 27, 2015
not as interesting as I thought it would be for my trip to Istanbul this summer!
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews