Looking for Easter in Istanbul
I spent part of yesterday afternoon looking for Easter stollen — or really anything to commemorate Easter. After all, I’m living on the upper Bosphorus on the European side, neighborhoods that used to have big Christian populations and are still studded with Greek Orthodox churches. In the 1980s, there was a Greek Orthodox (Rum) bakery in Arnavutkoy. In the 1990s it became a Muslim Turkish owned bakery. Now it’s a hairdresser. There are very few Rum left in the neighborhood, and there are no Easter foods at all. In Bebek, I discovered some chocolate eggs and some colorful dyed hard-boiled eggs in one bakery (presumably for the foreign Christians living in stylish Bebek), and Easter bread (rather dry and tasteless) in another. No stollen. I know Baylan Cafe has it, but all of its traditional branches in Pera and Karakoy have closed except for the cafe in Kadikoy on the Asian side, too far to go for a bread.
A few years ago, I attended Easter mass at the local Rum church, and a foreign friend invited me to accompany her to the Episcopalian church service in Beyoglu on Easter Sunday this time, but I’ll stay at home and eat my colored eggs and Easter bread. My only dilemma is that I can’t hide the eggs because I’ll know where they are.
I came across this article about an Easter procession in 2005 on Prinkipo Island or Buyuk Ada just off the coast of Istanbul in the Sea of Marmara. It had been disallowed for a long time and the article describes the reactions of locals and of Rum who had come from far away to be there. (click here). In Kamil Pasha’s time in the 1880s, there must have been many of these Christian processions and celebrations everywhere, especially in Beyoglu. It’s a shame that this rich layer of cultural tradition has been lost. It’s a bit like losing species and languages in the world through continual homogenization and narrowing of habitats. Soon we’ll all be wearing GAP and eating sandwiches at Schlotzky’s Deli. (Don’t think I’m kidding — the future is already here in Istanbul.)
You should come to Kurtulus for Easter. Nearly every bakery has Paskalya çoregi and chocolate eggs, bunnies, ducks etc.
Its not stollen but its pretty good.