There are two words to tell this novel written by nobel-prize winning Turkish novelist Orhan Pamuk. Dark and Powerful!

The Black Book starts with the short flashbacks of the boy,through his childhood and the story slides mysteriously in the dark shades of his memories in istanbul,the darkest city ever in a book told.The whole story is comprehensive enough to gaze at the beauty of this ancient sparkling
city,the author tries to immaculate the readers and he achieves.  This book requires effort, but it is worth every bit of it.

I especially like the pages where it is told what would we see under if there would be no water in Bosphorus sea and the crazy parts with the old Ottoman head executioner.

The cartoon drawing that you see near is an imaginary scene from Bashi-baozuks attacking to enemy without any clothes by famous Turkish caricaturist Bahadir Boysal.

There is a legend that Ottoman army put crazy people on to the horses naked and sent them fiercely to enemy army. The enemies couldn’t understand what the hell these strange looking, shouting horde coming to them for death and as a result, there occurred much disorder and moral fall in the army before the real battle.
Besides the legend depicted on the drawing, there was really an army of bashi-bazouks (In Turkish languages it means “Mad Head“) who didn’t obey any rules, undisciplined living without salaries. They were also mostly religious fanatics which gave horror to western countries.

The western literature and history, this term entered exactly. Even from famous cartoon Tintin series, Captain Haddock used it as a curse and argot. You can read more at Wikipedia about this unique army.

Turkish Bath Culture has roots in Roman Baths and its a history of several centuries starting from Ottoman times.

This book provides detailed information about Ottoman Bath Architecture, The Essential Components of the Bath: Tellak and Natir, The Baths and Sex, the most famous baths (hamams) of Istanbul including Cemberlitas Bath, Cagaloglu Bath, Oruculer Bath, Suleymaniye Bath, Sifa Bath, Gedikpasa Bath, Kosk Bath, Vezneciler Bath and many other ones. You will also read many interesting facts about the Turkish baths and life.

A recommended read about Turkish culture.

Did you know that Turkish cinema produced the most number of western films after Americans and Italians (spagetti western)? The Turkish western film invasion began in 1967 and continued almost 7 years resulting in more than 100 films and surely lots of laughs. Almost all famous film stars of those years had taken roles in these low budget movies.

It is so funny watching Cangos, Ringos, Gringos, bad bandits, cruel barons, “Turkish” Mexican babes, scheriffs and redhead indians knowing that our culture and people are totally different. Here are some posters from this period. Notice the film names like “Ringo against Gestapo !!“, “Zapata” and “Zagor” )

Turkish cinema also owns a high number of famous film ripoffs like Superman, Batman, Star Trek, Exorcist etc. You can watch them daily to fight with stress and feel the real absurd. Here are the Turkish Film Ripoffs.

We is very love yuo nicely tourist. Come to us please as fast as much as you is very can.
Turkey are so sunny dear turrist. gooood kebabs and blue szea..