Turkish Delight

Spend a summer night strolling down Istanbul's Istiklal Caddesi, the pedestrian thoroughfare in the city's old Christian quarter of Beyoglu, and you'll hear something surprising. Amid the crowds of nocturnal revelers, a young Uzbek-looking girl plays haunting songs from Central Asia on an ancient Turkic flute called a saz. Nearby, bluesy Greek rembetiko blares from a CD store. Downhill toward the slums of Tarlabasi you hear the wild Balkan rhythms of a Gypsy wedding, while at 360, an ultratrendy rooftop restaurant, the sound is Sufi electronica--cutting-edge beats laced with dervish ritual. And then there are the clubs--Mojo, say, or Babylon--where the young and beautiful rise spontaneously from their tables to link arms and perform a complicated Black Sea line dance, the horon. The wonder is that each and every one of these styles is absolutely native to the city, which for much of its history was the capital of half the known world.

The sounds of today's Istanbul convey something important. They're evidence of a cultural revival that's helping the city reclaim its heritage as a world-class crossroads. After decades of provincialism, decay and economic depression--not to mention the dreary nationalism mandated by a series of governments dominated by the military--Istanbul is re-emerging as one of Europe's great metropolises. "Istanbul is experiencing a rebirth of identity," says Fatih Akin, director of this summer's award-winning film "The Sound of Istanbul," an odyssey through the city's rich musical traditions. Akin grew up in Germany but during the past decade has rediscovered his Turkish roots. "There's such richness," he says. "So many people have crossed Istanbul and left their culture here."

Signs of renewed self-confidence are everywhere. The city is still thickly atmospheric, with bazaars, Byzantine churches and Ottoman mansions pretty much everywhere. But that faded grandeur has recently been leavened with new energy. Stock markets are surging. Young, Western-educated Turks are returning home to start businesses. Foreigners are snapping up choice real estate. Turkish painters, writers, musicians, fashion designers and filmmakers are increasingly in the international spotlight. Two major new private museums devoted to Turkish art, the Istanbul Modern and the Pera Museum, have opened in the past year alone. Private galleries like GalerIst and Platform are showcasing, and fostering, new artists from Turkey and around the region.

The city's renaissance is part and parcel of Turkey's embrace of Europe. It's no accident that the Modern's opening was pushed up last December to coincide with the European Union's decision to begin accession talks with Ankara. Turkey's drive to "join Europe" undergirds the economic reforms that have given both Turks and foreigners the confidence to invest and buoyed the country's prospects. Inflation is in the single digits for the first time in 30 years, unemployment is down and GDP growth is more than 9 percent. Reforms pushed by the EU--from its insistence that the military step back from politics to human-rights and free-speech liberalizations--have reshaped Turkey's political and social landscape. At bottom, Istanbul's new look would not have been not be possible had the country's government not been so determined to prove its Western credentials.

In every area of life, a new generation of young Turks is reaching outward. This year's Art Biennale will draw artists from Bosnia, Iran, Egypt, Greece and Lebanon--a most uncommon mix--while the Web Biennale will feature work by Armenians, Ukrainians, Serbs, Macedonians and Romanians. "Istanbul these days has as much dynamism as New York," says Genco Gulan, director of the Istanbul Contemporary Art Museum. If anything, he enthuses, "Istanbul is more alive. There's more interest here in doing something new."

That cultural vibrancy has come hand in hand with a physical renaissance, the likes of which Istanbul hasn't seen in a century. Begin with Beyoglu, an area of grand 19th-century apartment buildings reminiscent of Budapest or Vienna that was largely abandoned by its Greek and Jewish inhabitants in the 1950s and became a Kurdish and Gypsy slum. "Fifteen years ago, you'd be afraid to go there," says Gulen Guler, a film producer who lives in the neighborhood. Fusion restaurants, organic grocers and designer candle shops now abound, along with the city's trendiest shops, galleries, design studios and clubs--many of them standouts of contemporary design. Beyoglu is also home to a growing colony of young foreigners buying up cheap apartments. "This place is attracting people away from very cool scenes elsewhere, like Berlin," says Andrew Foxall, one of the owners of 20 Million, a design and photography studio in Cukurcuma, the artiest of Beyoglu's enclaves.