Carpetblogger

The Streets of Cihangir Ran Red Today!

With fake blood.

Does anyone know why the Istanbul riot police fill their water cannons with red water? If they were doing it to mark their targets, they pretty much failed since 85% of the people who were not police at today's Cihangir May Day Riots were, like me and Awesome Mossman, underemployed gawkers. If it was supposed to look like blood, there was too much of it to be believable. There's usually only that much blood in the streets during Bayram.

But excess was really the theme of the day. I really don't feel like explaining May Day in Istanbul, but 31 years ago, 37 people were killed by police during May Day protests near Taksim. The incident was never resolved, no one was punished and ever since then, the government tightly controls all May Day commemorations and forbids large gatherings on the square. So, anti-government forces use May Day as an excuse to challenge the authorities and air a variety of poorly articulated grievances. To be clear, May Day protests have nothing to do with workers.

Since a gathering of more than a couple of people having tea on Istiklal attracts bus loads of riot police on a normal day, May Day really cleans out all the barracks and riot gear warehouses in anticipation. Cops started blocking access to Taksim early in the morning which wreaked havoc with traffic all day. Since those with rock throwing on their minds couldn't reach Taksim, they spilled into the surrounding neighborhoods. Last year, it was Beşıktaş and Dolmabaçe. This year it was Cihangir (among others).

If I need to remind you, we refer to Cihangir as "Yabancı Köy," or "Foreigner Village," because its gentrified streets, overpriced cafes and fine views attract scores of idle expats. Rioters throwing rocks at police in front of the tea garden where Cihangir's substantial leisure class wastes its days is so outrageous, it is simply not to be missed. That's the only reason I bothered to check things out today.

My guess is there were 3000 fully-geared riot police and an armored water cannon. If I were very generous, I'd say there were 100 rioters. The non-rioting, non-police contingent were split between gas-mask wearing journalists and people like me with cameras and flip-flops, numbering probably 300 or 400.

My sense is that most Turks don't really care all that much about the May Day incident anymore. Communists and Socialists are marginal and probably couldn't kick up much of a fuss on their own, so that leaves plenty of space for anarchists, anti-government rock throwers and assorted aggrieved dirty hippies to provoke the cops.

And I have to say, they managed some quality provocation. Rioters (look, I'm not calling them protesters, OK?) barricaded the Cihangir's main street with planters and parking barriers. They turned over dumpsters and started trash fires. Bottles and rocks and paving stones flew through the air when the cops moved in to confront the small pack of young men, but seriously, Cihangir=not Gaza. They dispersed into the side streets when the police advanced waving rubber batons and popping off tear gas cannisters. I did enjoy my first tear-gassing, but it wears off quickly and you can get back out in the mix pretty quickly.

I had forgotten how much fun things like this are (when neither side is taking it terribly seriously). It reminded me of the hot summer of 2005 in Baku, when every weekend we trekked to downtown Baku to run from the police as they beat the shit out of old women and threw guys into black windowed vans when the opposition parties tried to hold gatherings.  A high profile ambassador in Baku removed his lips from the Azeri government's ass long enough to chew me out once for "marching at the head of the opposition rallies." One of many regrets from that period is not posting what I saw or the photos I took at those events, but I didn't want to, you know, get myself in hot water. That all worked out pretty well for me, in the end.

The critical difference between today's riots and the ones in Baku was that the latter were generally peaceful. I take a dim view of protests as a political tool in general, but violent, message-free protests like today's are counterproductive and pointless.

Unless you like tear gas with your adrenaline, which I sort do.

Bursa's Women

Carpetblogger and Red State Sibling spent last weekend in Bursa, one of Turkey's largest cities, situated south of Istanbul and 30 kms inland from the Sea of Marmara. The historic (as opposed to the sprawling concrete) part of the city climbs up the side of Mount Uludağ and is home to lots of hot spring hammams. As (one of many) terminals of the Silk Road and the center of Ottoman silk production, it has wonderful hans and bazaars, even though the silk production industry has long since moved on to other places.

Now, it's a center of cotton production and is famous for its towels. Had I known how awesome and absorbent Bursa's cotton towels are, I would have bought a million kilos (the guy I bought from sold them for 10 YTL a kilo).

Even though Bursa's full of cotton and silk, this is not really a post about textiles. We discovered something about Bursa that's even more interesting than textiles, though still tangentially related.

In addition to the typical produce, silk and clothing bazaars, there's a "women's handicraft bazaar" in the center of the city. The stuff on sale isn't all that appealing -- a lot of polyester embroideries and laces in colors that don't appear in nature-- and targeted at locals, not foreigners. I passed through the stalls -- almost all of which were run by women -- taking photos because I thought it was pretty cool that there were so many women working outside the home in one of Turkey's most conservative cities.

Bursa was once the center of silk production and nearly every single woman on the street wears the ever-so-controversial turban (the Turkish headscarf that indicates the wearer is observant, rather than simply culturally conservative and/or from an Anatolian village. It's been in the news a bit lately). So it's not terribly surprising there are a lot of scarf sellers in the covered bazaar.

What was really surprising is how many of these scarf stalls were run by women. It's not that uncommon to see women working produce stalls, but to see women unfurling scarves like flags, while female customers gather around is really unusual. 

Then it occurred to me that the immaculate and friendly hotel we chose (the Çeşmelı) is run entirely by women (the reception staff cheered when we returned from the bazaar laden with shopping bags).

Someone needs to look into this. Is there a correlation between that women's handicraft bazaar and the number of women working in the mainstream bazaar? Do they start out in the women's bazaar and develop the skills they need to work with the big kids? Do daughters see their mothers working in the bazaar and decide that there's no reason they can't do the same or even manage a hotel?

I am fully aware that the turban is a powerful symbol of encroaching Islamization and a threat to the secular heritage of Ataturk, but it can also be a stylish accessory!  Bursa women -- to an even greater degree than their more cosmopolitan sisters in Istanbul -- really rock the look. The attention paid to coordinating scarf/jacket/shoes is impressive.

Of course,  if you keep your eyes open, there's always a devushka somewhere. The one in this photo must have just hopped off the Ukrferry from Odessa, except the length of her skirt and the absence of sequins, brass and rhinestones on her outfit make me suspect she might be an impostor.

Ask Carpetblogger: Does Camel Toe Have Two Meanings?

Because there are so many easy targets, Out of respect for the rich culture of Azerbaijan, I usually try to ignore ridiculous new stories coming out of Baku. But like the asshole hotel, once they hit outlets like FARK, I feel it's my duty to weigh in and add a bit of cultural context.

The local media recently busted the Camel Toe, a fine drinking establishment in Baku that I have used to illustrate so many anecdotes that Carpetblog (proudly) comes up in google searches of the term.  Apparently, the wizards at the state-controlled Today.AZ just discovered what the name means. (Don't know? Wikipedia does).

The retardedness of taking issue with the name of a bar that has been there for AT LEAST five years is exceeded only by the retardedness of the article itself. Because I don't trust you to click through, I'm going to parse it in this post so you don't miss a morsel.

Azerbaijan is among the most tolerant countries of the world.

This has been repeatedly stated even on state level. Our country serves as an example for other CIS states

This is true, though let's be careful about setting the bar too high. Azerbaijan does compare favorably to Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan and Belarus. However, the Kyrgyz have a real edge in the sheep fucking department and the Moldovans might have better food.

A pub named Camel's toe which initially seems to mean what it means -"A toe of a camel" functions in the very center of Baku, several meters away from the passage, at 22. Mamedaliyev street.

But, in fact the name has a double meaning. The Camel's Toe has a meaning "the clear visible presence of a woman's vulva as a consequence of wearing overly right [sic] pants.

A question comes to mind: was it named so on purpose? And what does the logotype of the pub, which locates in one of the most popular streets of Baku, mean? (see the photo below).

Impossible! A Baku bar whose primary clientele is snaggle-toothed rig monkeys and the women who love them was absolutely named in honor of the foot of a dromedary. What possible double meaning could be extracted from that?

The girl at the bar said the pub was named on purpose. "Every client understands it as he wills..." She refused to translate our questions to the bar owner saying that the latter is aware of the name.

Well, we would not make any conclusions. But several questions arise unwittingly.

Why did they name the pub like that? Could they not understand that this may arise protest among the local population?

I would say the questions arose dimwittedly, but in a country like Azerbaijan which, in addition to its tolerance, is also known for free and open debate in the media, that might be unfair. Also, since the local population utters nary a peep when the national treasure is appropriated by the kleptocracy while IDPs live in holes in the ground, the owners of the Camel Toe probably felt confident that opposition to the name of a bar would be muted.

Perhaps, the British citizens wanted to introduce European culture in Azerbaijan, forgetting about the local mentality?

Perhaps, they wanted to mock at Azerbaijanis, who are not aware of such details of British slang? Or perhaps they bound the slang name of the pub with Azerbaijani ladies, visiting it?

None of the Brits I knew ever tried to introduce any kind of culture, European or otherwise, to Baku. Furthermore, "camel toes" would be the least unkind thing you could say about any Azerbaijani "ladies" that frequented that bar.

The article is infused with a "I'm shocked! Shocked!" tone at the prospect that prostitution *might* be going on in the neighborhood.

By information, our news agency received, prostitutes are working at some pubs, providing services to foreign "fat cats" for at least $500. "Ladies" do not want the local population to see them, therefore, such establishments are usually private and local residents are not allowed in.

So by "private" Today.AZ must mean "advertising in all the English language newspapers" and "garishly signed on the street." And why would any local visit an overpriced pub aimed at foreigners when there are at least eleventy-million sleazy joints offering bargain-basement whores within a 10 block radius that appeal more to the "local mentality" (i.e. young and hairy)? Remember the old Carpetblog rule about bars which you have to walk downstairs to enter?

The sheer number of whorehouses in a downtown area might be yet another area in which Azerbaijan leads the CIS. And when you're competing against Kyiv and Moscow, that's quite an achievement.

All this manufactured outrage at Today.Az suggests to me that the owner of the Camel Toe got sideways with someone in the government, or ran a whorehouse that provided too much competition to the other brazillion in the immediate vicinity or the local liquor importing cartel decided to play hardball. The Producer, who is once again Carpetblog's on-the-ground eyes and ears, reports that the fuss is the work of a disgruntled employee.

Three Products I Would Never Have Found

Had I never gone to Bursa over the weekend (a trip which definitely deserves a more detailed post).

I don't like to tread on Melissa Maples' territory, but since my companion on this trip, Red State Sibling, made it her mission to photograph every Chinese T-shirt non-sequitur (are they Chinese or Turkish?) she came across, I saw a lot of good examples, including these two:

Yes, I too would very much like to teach the world to sin.

The Turkish snack Bal Çerez is not hard to find. Jars of meticulous layers of honey-soaked pistachios, almonds, walnuts, peanuts, hazelnuts, caraway, pinenuts, apricot seeds and black cumin are pretty common in bazaars and supermarkets. The architectural layers look as good as they taste -- sort of like peanut brittle or a peanut butter and honey sandwich.

Some makers take a more sophisticated approach to marketing than others, as we were to discover after Red State Sibling decided to buy up the country's entire supply.

Yes, you're right. It is called "Super Performance Doping" and that is a half naked strongman man holding up two giant jars of bal çerez and a honey bee. Made in Antakya in Turkey's southeast, the Arabic and lack of Turkish suggests Syrians might be the primary market of this particular brand.

I don't know how the Olympic Committee would weigh in on the ingredient list (is doping really even illegal anymore?), but the label makes some pretty bold health claims.

"For every one who wants to be young with a strong mind and nerves and for every old man who dreams to have his youth back."

Doping's secret ingredient, which also distinguishes it from the other 15 jars we bought, is apparently bee pollen and its less well-known and equally potent cousin, bee milk. Other brands claim to have aphrodisiac qualities.

Having already consumed half the jar, I can confirm while my youth may or may not be back, Red State Sibling has been wearing the first t-shirt around.

The Olympic Torch In Istanbul

My views on the Chinese Olympics aside, the Olympic torch relay is the type of clusterfuck that I would avoid like the plague. Unfortunately I found myself on the last bus across the Galata Bridge, just before they shut all the major streets down between Sultanahmet and Taksim for the passing of the torch. Istanbul traffic is static in the best of circumstances; shutting down streets in the middle of the day is a disaster.

I should have noticed the heavily armed riot police on every corner and police helicopters overhead before even leaving my couch, but if I stayed home every time the Turks put heavily armed riot police on every street corner, I would become a bigger hermit than I already am.

Faced with the prospect of neither arriving at my destination nor being able to get back home, I decided to watch. As it happened, a torch transfer happened two feet from where I was standing. I don't know who the guy was who was taking the torch, but the TV cameras were pretty excited about him. Maybe a Turkish reader knows.

The manufactured display of excitement was just as corporate as you'd expect, with the flags of Coca-Cola and Samsung more prevalent than the national flag of the country we stood in. Yay globalization!

The relay failed to attract much attention on the streets of Sultanahmet. Most Turks and tourists seemed happy enough to be able to walk up blocked Alemdar Cad. and not get squished between the tram and a taxi

Carpetblogger Celebrates Fertility

Carpetblogger confidantes are already aware of our views on traditional forms of reproduction. Breeding has always been one of those things we know people do but would never conceive of doing ourselves. This policy chagrins various ancestors.

That's not to say we have no biological clock. In fact, sometimes it ticks so loud, all other sounds are drowned out. It only happens in early spring, though.

Unlike the women (and male -- you know who you are) who got all flushed at the sight of baby jumpsuits at the Awesome Mossman Baby Shower last weekend, our ovaries start to hurt when we see seed packet plumage and  green hoses coiled up outside garden shops.  Spending time with most (there are exceptions) children reminds us to double up on the birth control, but the garden department of Bauhaus (the Turkish Home Depot), with its sprouting bedding plants and neat stacks of potting soil, looks like the nursery of our dreams.

It's been five long years since we've been able to plant anything, but an ill-advised February vegetable garden back in Portland taught us long ago suppress the urge to start digging in dirt too early. Istanbul's spring has arrived in fits and starts, with a few 70 degree days followed by a week of cold and gray, but the need to grow something has become overwhelming.  It's time to sow!

The street-facing Carpetblog residence has rows of window boxes on the first and second floors. In fact, it was the potential of the window boxes that drew us to the house in the first place (its carpet-friendliness was a close second). The boxes sat barren last summer, because truthfully, our urge to grow things evaporates entirely once it's hotter than 80 degrees.

Our first stop was the Eminönü Beleyedesi flower market in the lovely Gülhane Park.
There, the municipality sells hundreds of pink and purple tulips in bloom. If creeping Islamization means millions of tulips in April, I'll get my headscarf out. Along with flats of begonias, geraniums and daisies. They also sell big pots of hydrangeas and rhododendrons, which in Turkish are called "ormanı  çiçek" or "forest flowers." That's exactly what they are! I don't get homesick very often but the forest flowers made me think of the Columbia Gorge where the rhodies at lower elevations are probably starting to bloom. We would like to be hiking among them right now.

The garden market next to the Spice Bazaar has an even greater plant selection, plus a lot of grass seeds, baby chicks, buckets of dog and cat kibble and leeches. There are plenty of vegetable seedlings too, which made me nostalgic for my south-facing tomato garden in Portland. I grew so many tomatoes I would bag them up and leave them on the neighbors' porches at night. No one in Portland needs extra tomatoes or zuchinnis in summer time.

We rounded up ten bags of soil and three flats of begonias, impatiens, geraniums and little filler flowers as well as assorted herbs to hang in boxes on the sunny back side of the house. As I poured bags of soil into the window boxes, the Kurdish ladies in the building across the alley leaned out their windows, watching and encouraging me. "Çıçekler çok güzel!" "The flowers are beautiful!" they said. And indeed, they are.

It was probably the first time I had done anything they recognized as normal female behavior.

Carpetblog Takes Issue: The Exile Goes to Baku

In  typically long-winded piece, Moscow's The Exile gets Baku mostly right. There's also a fine photo essay here from which all these photos come.

Carpetblog does take issue, however, with a few points, in descending order of importance.

Sit on a bench along the posh shopping boulevards in downtown Baku and you’ll soon spot the only two species of western Baku expat: the well-heeled consultant talking oil jargon to his Blackberry, and the Cockney-accented offshore rig worker. Both gather in the same British pubs at night to drink ale, watch rugby, and trade stories about the Russified Shia whores who are as much a part of the oil economy as BP. It is arguably the most depressing expat scene in the world. Even the Riyadh compound rats have clear skies and breathable air.

Most depressing expat scene in the world? Are you for serious? Sure the air's a little dark and the water a little chunky. And, if you lie down with Rig Monkeys, you're definitely going to wake up with whores.

As a Baku expat, you can do anything you want*. You can get nearly any prescription drug over the counter. You can sleep in the bushes on the Boulevard. You can buy your way out of any jam (well, most jams). You can dance until your nipples bleed.  You can ignore every traffic law. You have access to all kinds of bars, as long as they are English, Irish or Scottish. You can buy any DVD the day it's released in the theaters.   You can walk around Fountain Square at 3 am, bearded, in a shalwar kameez and the police won't know what to do with you. No one will notice if you are too hung over to do your job, since no one expects you to accomplish anything and it's probably a week-long holiday anyway. There are thousands of creative ways to entertain yourself, including one or two that don't involve alcohol or soviet-made cars. What's not to like about that?

Seriously, several expat scenes pop immediately into my head that are much, much worse.

I liked the article because it's the first one in a while that's done any probing into the Azerbaijan-American Chamber of Commerce, even though it doesn't get very far into it. I was disappointed, though, when it parroted the same old tired opposition and media NGO lines, without really questioning. 

"The stabbing of Agil Khalil is part of campaign of repression about the Azerbaijani press,” says Emin Huseynov, Chairman of the Institute for Reporters' Freedom and Safety in Baku. “Every March before an election there is an attack on the press. Before the 2005 parliamentary elections, the editor of the Monitor Journal was murdered. The government wants to instill fear and prevent dissident thinking.”

"Every march before an election there's an attack on the press?"OK, you mean like, twice? There were none at any other time? And anyway, the government doesn't have to try very hard to prevent dissident (or any other kind of) thinking in Azerbaijan.

Huseynov also does not discount the possibility that the attack on Khalil was intended as a message to the West. “It is interesting that just two days before [the stabbing] the U.S. released is annual report on human rights practices,” he said. “There is something to the theory that after such reports are released, attacks like this take place as retribution, to make the point that such reports [accomplish] nothing, and that our government has no obligation to listen to other countries.

I guess if you think anyone actually pays any attention to State Department Human Rights reports, this theory might be plausible. Mostly, these are just the fantasies of powerless people who harbor the illusion any western Embassy is going to do anything about the human rights situation in Azerbaijan, other than make the occasional meaningless gesture.

Still, if you heart Baku, the article and photos are worth a look, despite these quibbles.

*These are things I've heard you can do in Baku.

Carpetblog Exposes Corruption!

Instead of being victimized by official corruption, or more likely, taking advantage of it, Carpetblogger seems to have exposed it! 

Almost certainly as a result of this post, the Bulgarian government is  shutting down the skeezy border "duty free" shops, that the Chiplomat and I concluded are best source of mobbed-up Moscowskaya vodka within three hours drive of Istanbul. Apparently the EU says such places are "a focal point" for corruption and organized crime. While this may be the case, I suggest the EU drive a little farther into Bulgaria and they might find one or two other focal points.

This is bad news for people who think Bulgaria is a good source of cheap vodka. It's good news, however, for people who want to think Bulgaria is anything other than the only ex-Soviet Republic that managed to join the EU.

Himalaya Pimp

Longtime readers may know that Carpetblogger and the Producer spent 2003 traveling around the world. In fact, on this day five years ago, we hiked out of Tiger Leaping Gorge in northern Yunan Province to see a Chinese dude pointing his fingers like guns at us and "pew! pew! pew!"'ing with glee as a means of informing us the US had invaded Iraq that day.

About a week or two later, we were in Litang, a Tibetan city in far western Sichuan. In many ways, Western Sichuan is more Tibetan than Tibet (a characteristic it shares with Ladakh and northern Himachal Pradesh in India). I suppose it's too remote for the Chinese to fuck up too badly. Indeed, Litang is one of the highest cities in the world. I haven't been able to find any news reports about violence there, but apparently it is a center of Tibetan resistance and has a strong Khampa influence, it's probably safe to say there have been crackdowns. Khampas are 100% badasses.

I dug up the email (I didn't even have a blog in those days!) I sent home about Litang. Even after 14 countries in 14 months, this place is seared into my brain.

There have been two times while traveling that we genuinely felt we had landed on a different planet. Burma was one and Litang, on the western edge of Tibet is the other. here's absolutely nothing remarkable about the town itself, except that it lies at about 13,500 feet on an enormous plain surrounded by snow capped "hills." It doesn't look that different from Baker City, Oregon, only there are more yaks.

To get there, we spent two days on dirt roads, crossing passes of between 18,000 and 20,000 feet high. Imagine driving from Portland to Seattle, along the crest of the Cascades, on unpaved forest service roads, in an 18 seat bus that hadn't had new shocks since the Mao administration, with 25 of your closest Chinese and Tibetan friends, many of whom are vomiting yak butter. One two-hour stretch crossed a boulder-strewn wasteland of eroded mountains and frozen shallow lakes. It was probably at least 18,000 feet high. No one lived there. I have never seen anything like it.

Litang's population is what truly distinguishes it from the rest of China. It is the largest town in the area and many of the nomads come down from the hills to deal in yak hide and to see and be seen at its markets. We were frequently greeted with a spontaneous "tashi delek," the Tibetan hello.

One thing that foreigners in China must accustom themselves to is being stared at. I feel like I was able to repay six weeks of staring in Litang. I couldn't keep my eyes off some of these people. I nearly got whiplash every time someone walked past me.

Hats and sunglasses are de riguer. The men, especially, wore, all manner of them, made from all sorts of material-- mostly fur. One guy had a two foot-tall fur hat, with a long tail down his back, and enormous Karl Lagerfeld-style sunglasses. Monks had red or gold caps. Some men wore hats of gold and scarlet brocade with fur ear flaps, and modern wraparound sunglasses with yellow lenses.

Some of the people were as dark as Africans. Others looked like they came from central casting for American Indians, with turquoise jewelery pinning thick braids to their heads. Some women wore their hair in the traditional 108 braids, wrapped with silver bangles. Every man had a knife strapped to his waist and the women wear all their amber and silver bangles, all the time. Many of them look shaggy, like their embroidered yak hair coats are a natural part of their skin.

The young men were truly astonishing. Most were tall, with long dark hair. They wore scarlet hip-length jackets with yak hair lining off one shoulder, and prayer beads around their necks. Huge round Elton-john style sunglasses and silver knives finished off the look. They walked with a swagger of indeterminate origin. I call it Himalayan pimp, but the look works.

I wouldn't have been surprised to see them all ride out of town in cloud of dust, back into the hills, leaving an empty city behind, and us wondering if it was at all real.

Other than staring at people, and being stared at ourselves, there wasn't a whole lot to do in Litang, so we sampled the local cuisine which is heavily reliant on yak. Yak is our new favorite meat. It's very fatty and a little gamy. It's great on noodles for breakfast and dried for long busrides.

Yak butter tea, however, is truly vile. I ordered a Tibetan breakfast one morning, and it came with the two staples of the Tibetan diet -- yak butter tea and tsampas, which are little baked barley biscuits. Both are staples of Tibetan hospitality. They look like little dried turds and are barely edible. Yak butter tea tastes like sour milk mixed with soap and salt. Yak butter has a very distinctive smell, and now we smell it everywhere, especially around monks, who light their monasteries with yak butter lamps.

(  Unfortunately, I took my photos in a media known as "film" so I can't post them without substantial effort.)

Within a few more weeks we were in Lhasa. Needless to say, we have been following the Chinese crackdown with interest and a great deal of sadness. I don't have a lot of confidence in the Tibetans' ability to govern themselves effectively (in a later email, I concluded they would be a lot better off if they stopped walking around in circles worshiping rocks and started organizing), but they deserve a lot better than this. 

I'm boycotting Beijing.

Save Acrassicauda!

From Villa Luna:

HELP SAVE OUR HEAVY METAL FRIENDS FROM AN UNCERTAIN FATE IN BAGHDAD

In November 2007, the Iraqi metal band Acrassicauda  was able to get to Turkey through the help of friends who donated money for them to leave Syria. Their visas in Syria were expiring and the government of Syria was threatening to force all Iraqis to return to Iraq.

Now they are in Turkey and their money and options are running out. Life in Turkey is very expensive and very difficult for people waiting to find out if they can officially be resettled by the UNHCR in another country (Turkey does not accept refugees from anywhere other than the West). As it stands now, they may have to return to Baghdad, simply because they can't afford to stay in Turkey much longer. It's impossible to stress just how dangerous this will be for them. It could very likely be a death sentence, and the time in which we can help them is quickly running out.

You can help by making a donation to assist Acrassicauda in surviving while they are stuck waiting in Istanbul. The band has no bank accounts, and Paypal doesn't function in Turkey so the makers of the documentary about them (HEAVY METAL IN BAGHDAD) setup a Paypal account on their behalf. No donation is too small. By giving as little as ten dollars, you can be a part of keeping the heavy metal dreams of four young Iraqi men alive.

Donate Here!

Born out of a basement rehearsal space in Baghdad, Acrassicauda (Latin for "black scorpion") is Iraq's only heavy metal band. Inspired by western bands like Metallica, Slayer and Slipknot, they began writing and playing metal in 2001. Their dream of performing live in Iraq soon became the struggle of their lives.

Due to increased security precautions throughout Iraq, it became difficult to practice-much less get through a show-without literally risking their lives. As the situation worsened in Baghdad they began receiving death threats from insurgents and religious fundamentalists accusing them of Satanism.

The war has now all but destroyed their dream of living in peace, growing their hair long, banging their heads and shredding as loud as they want. The members of Acrassicauda are currently seeking asylum in Istanbul, Turkey.  All of their visa applications to foreign countries have been denied.

In November 2007, the Iraqi metal band Acrassicauda  was able to get to Turkey through the help of friends who donated money for them to leave Syria. Their visas in Syria were expiring and the government of Syria was threatening to force all Iraqis to return to Iraq.

Now they are in Turkey and their money and options are running out. Life in Turkey is very expensive and very difficult for people waiting to find out if they can officially be resettled by the UNHCR in another country (Turkey does not accept refugees from anywhere other than the West). As it stands now, they may have to return to Baghdad, simply because they can't afford to stay in Turkey much longer. It's impossible to stress just how dangerous this will be for them. It could very likely be a death sentence, and the time in which we can help them is quickly running out.

You can help by making a donation to assist Acrassicauda in surviving while they are stuck waiting in Istanbul. The band has no bank accounts, and Paypal doesn't function in Turkey so the makers of the documentary about them (HEAVY METAL IN BAGHDAD) setup a Paypal account on their behalf. No donation is too small. By giving as little as ten dollars, you can be a part of keeping the heavy metal dreams of four young Iraqi men alive.

Donate Here!

Born out of a basement rehearsal space in Baghdad, Acrassicauda (Latin for "black scorpion") is Iraq's only heavy metal band. Inspired by western bands like Metallica, Slayer and Slipknot, they began writing and playing metal in 2001. Their dream of performing live in Iraq soon became the struggle of their lives.

Due to increased security precautions throughout Iraq, it became difficult to practice-much less get through a show-without literally risking their lives. As the situation worsened in Baghdad they began receiving death threats from insurgents and religious fundamentalists accusing them of Satanism.

The war has now all but destroyed their dream of living in peace, growing their hair long, banging their heads and shredding as loud as they want. The members of Acrassicauda are currently seeking asylum in Istanbul, Turkey.  All of their visa applications to foreign countries have been denied.

Are You Going To Kazbegi?

You certainly should! Carpetblogger and the Beirut Correspondent headed up to the Caucasian village in Georgia two summers ago and had a great time hiking around the Holy Trinity Monastery, listening to polyphonic singing and falling into pits filled with sheep heads.

Hans at Kaukasus alerted us to the helpful, well-written site Kazbegi in the Caucasus that details all the homestays in the villages located around the 5000 meter (16,500 feet) Mt Kazbegi. It includes great details that remind me why Georgia is such a bad-ass place to travel, such as:

"At the time we visited the homestays in Jutta, the village didn’t have any phone coverage. That’s why there are no phone numbers listed, ask the locals! But try to remember the first name of your host—because the surname for all the people from Jutta is the same: Arabuli."

"The friendly family might want to give you their huge Caucasus dog as a present."

A giant Kavkaz shepherd is the perfect souvenir from a trip to Kazbegi!

Carpetblog Weighs In: Disneyland in Baku

Astute reader Jonathan passes along a titillating rumor that he's heard around Baku!

"Baku is trying to negotiate to be the location for a Disneyworld! It will be out on the island off Baku, and there will be a new causeway connecting to the new road they are building up near TISA.

I find it hard to believe but then I remind myself that this is a place that thinks it can get the Olympics…

All those fancy hotel pictures you have seen (the arsehole one…) are tied into this dream I suspect."

ZOMG! Because Carpetblog is nothing if not service-y, we're offering some ideas for amusements that we think are consistent with the "Happiest Place on Earth" brand yet, at the same time, take advantage of the rich cultural offerings of "the Oasis Between Iran and Chechnya."

We've already weighed in on some potential events should Azerbaijan be selected to host the 2016 Olympics. Here are some Carpetblog-approved attractions for Disneyland-Baku, offered free of charge.

"It's a Small World": The Boat Bar was an abandoned Soviet-era passenger ferry rusting at a pier next to the boulevard. It was, by far, the best bar in the Greater Caspian Region. Re-hire the whores, water down the liquor, genetically enhance the bed bugs, fill it with pointy-toe shoed thugs and crank the Tatu up to 11! I will personally contribute my bottle of "Za Karabagh!" jubilee vodka for the rechristening.

"Autopia": The best part about MAC Carting was that no matter what time of night (or morning) and in what state of intoxication you arrived, you could drive go-carts as fast as they would go and issue daring challenges to your contemporaries. This is a no-brainer.

"Mad Tea Party" A group of drunk women crash the all-male chaikhana on Malakansky Sad.  Watch the sunflower seeds fly!

"Kleptocrats of the Caspian:" Guys in shiny pin stripe suits randomly approach guests and demand $80 in exchange for a stamp on their ticket stub.

"Frontierland Shootin' Exposition:" Recreates the scene on the Iranian border when the US invades.

"Astro Blasters:" Entry free of charge with purchase of two half-cooked lula kebabs and six Xirdalan beers. It's a squatter!

Carpetblog 100% supports this idea, but there's really no need to build an island. So many of these attractions already exist in Baku that the capital investment should be pretty minimal.

 

 

 

Azerbaijan Death Star

Seriously, I was trying to ignore this ridiculous hotel proposal for Baku, but it turns out I can't. The Azeris are challenging the Gulf Arabs for the "More Money Than Taste" Award.

It looks like a giant asshole to me, which is screamingly appropriate.

Night Slugs

Regular readers know that, over the past four years, members of my household and I have gone to war with various kinds of vermin: Cockroaches in a computer, rats in a washing machine, feral cats attached to a carpetdog's head, and of course, primates.

But lately, I have been struggling with a mysterious force that has challenged me in new and troubling ways. This adversary is particularly vexing because I have never once seen it, only wiped its slime off my shoes and the entry carpet in the mornings.

The Night Slugs.

Our ground floor is more or less below ground, at about street sewer level. This has a lot more cons than pros. The house is poorly ventilated so at best, it smells musty fusty in the guest quarters. At worst, it smells like raw sewage, and not just when it rains. This doesn't deter as many guests as you might expect. We have issued a lot of frequent stayer cards with the caveat "management ignores complaints about the sewage."

Well, there's also the Night Slugs.

They come every night. Evidence of them is abundant -- every morning there are slivery trails of slime along the edge of the walls and cursive loops on the carpet. Now I can keep odd hours --coming home late, leaving for the airport early, arriving home early from the airport. I have never seen a Night Slug.

As a native of the Pacific Northwest, I know from slugs. Banana slugs. The great grey garden slug. The spotted leopard slug. I once saw a banana slug the length of my forearm in front of an outhouse (that outhouse was at Sammamish Bible Camp where I accepted Jesus into my heart in an unrelated incident, not in our backyard, k?). But even in my ancestral home, which far too often sheltered undomesticated animals, slugs were not allowed.

Because slugs were more common in my childhood than dogs and cats and sheep, I learned how to massacre them early -- cups of beer, a squirt of ammonia and best of all, salt. You have not LIVED until you've salted a slug and watched it instantly dehydrate like a living raisin.

I figured Turkish slugs would be no match for a native Slug Master like me. I placed salt all around the baseboards. Imagine my horror when there was no noticeable decrease in slug activity. Apparently Turkish slugs are immune to salt. 

This frightens me. What kind of invisible mutant slug is immune to salt? But you know what? It doesn't frighten me half as much as some of these helpful slug hints that I found while searching for slug pictures. (It says it's a quiz, but they're all true. Proceed with caution. Highlight: Slugs produce mucus so strong that they can hang from it in midair to copulate, which they do, at the ends of stretchy mucus strings more than a foot long.) In fact, that list -- which could only be published in a Seattle paper -- derailed this whole post.

So memo to guests: watch out for copulating slugs when you get up in the middle of the night. Management does not accept complaints about those, either.

PukkaLiving Istanbul

The word "pukka" always makes me giggle because it sounds vaguely dirty and definitely colonial, like a word the Simla houseboy would use to describe the memsahib with whom he's having an affair.

This new English site PukkaLiving Istanbul seems to be neither dirty nor colonial, however.

It purports to feature

"'unique’ stuff only known to the locals with a zest in life: hidden boutiques and indie shops; the best places for budget-busting extravaganza or bargain-basement trophies; our choice of hot new places and cool local hang-outs; where to find little-known designer shops; how to eat, shop and have fun in style while contributing to the local community. "

We'll check it out.