Kapalı Çarşı Dergisi

Let's assume that the Grand Bazaar has changed. Let's then ask those who have visited the Grand Bazaar for the first time: How do you find the present Grand Bazaar? While you do your shopping between the ancient columns and around the domed arcades, don't you feel that you are within one of the oldest Bazaars on our world? Is it not smelling of history? Can't you sense the old and mysterious in those colourful fabrics, carpets, leather goods, jewellery, gold, antiques, labyrinth-like arcades, bargaining salesmen and the unexpected? This usually is the common opinion of all those who have visited the Grand Bazaar even once. Here, the doors of a different world open up in front of you. Here, you are surrounded by feelings, colours, designs and sounds you have never experienced before.One may not find many past photographs from the old days of the Grand Bazaar. Visual material from the 19th Century is limited to a number of engravings made by Europeans. One may also not find too many articles or books written on the past of the Grand Bazaar. Thus, it is difficult to compare its past and the present. But the fact remains that, what the foreigners have written -however little they

may be- about Grand Bazaar in the past do not differ in depth from one's present thoughts and feelings about the Bazaar. Even if it has changed in one way or the other, the mystery, the richness and the charm prevails. One may complain that the craftsman of the past such as shoemakers, quiltmakers, nargile (waterpipe) manufaçturers do not exist any more. That's not completely true. While you do your shopping under neon lights and feel the history, in the dark, dirty and dusty backrooms of the Grand Bazaar, there still are men who produce handicrafts of the past to be sold in those shiny shop windows in the Bazaar. Having said this let's go and have a closer look around the Bazaar.
For hundreds of years, its jewels, gold, carpets, rare objects and expensive fabrics have contributed to the Bazaar's magnificence. But one will find such articles today as well. Grand Bazaar is still the centre of gold and goldsmiths; it still is the most important carpet trade centre of the world; and it is still the address of real antique in Turkey. True; one can no longer find expensive and exclusive silk fabrics from the Orient, but the Bazaar still excites visitors with cheap but glittering fabrics of all kinds and colours. The real proof of Grand Bazaar's unchanged face is its resistance to changes: The Bazaar hasn't conceeded to electronics and plastics. At Grand Bazaar, carpet is still carpet, gold is still gold and antique is still antique...
Once again; contrary to common belief, a great respect for the past prevails at the Grand Bazaar. They produce amazingly perfect replicas of popular antiques. You will come across plenty of high quality antique replicas in the Bazaar's shops. If you are not an expert you will never be able to tell it's a replica. But the shop keepers will not try to deceit you.
Now, let's again go beyond the arcades and countless shops and have a peep at the backstage. The first places to look at will be the hans (A Han is a two or three floor construction consisting of numerous rooms and halls around a courtyard serving as workshops, used for storage and housing amenities).
There are several hans at Grand Bazaar, some in ruins, some partially used. They make up the unknown face of Grand Bazaar. Cebeci Han near the Mercan (towards the north) exit is one of the liveliest of these hans. Little has remained from the original construction, but it still is one of the best spots that reflect the everyday life of the Bazaar merchants.
This han -easy going and quiet courtyard with its grapewines, coffee houses, simple restaurants, souvenir shops and cells in which craftsmen produce- in fact presents you an open air model of the Grand Bazaar. On the upper landing and in its attached rooms, one can hear the hammer working on brass and copper all they long producing antique replicas to be sold at the Bazaar or other touristic resorts of Turkey. At a corner at the courtyard itsself, an itinerant barber shaves a merchant seated on an ordinary wooden chair while others play cards just to pass time.Opposite Cebeci Han's gate comes the gate of Çukur Han, one can observe hand production of silverware in the small rooms of the upper gallery. Yet in another han, you'll find quilt makers who are now believed to be extinct, practising their art. In another courtyard, you'll find perfect replicas of the old gramaphones. In yet another han you may come across a man who has a deep affection with his profession, preparing moulds for trinkets, sat in a dark cove at the entrance of a han.Indeed when you speak of the Grand Bazaar, the first thing that comes to one's mind is gold: Bracelets, necklaces, rings, earrings and all types of jewellery. Though there are so many places of great interest in the Grand Bazaar, the most exciting places are the shop windows of the jewellers. The goldsmiths will tell you that their major customers are couples to be engaged or wedded and their families who want to buy gifts for them.
But what about the masters and their young apprentices who produce those shiny jewels in their dark and dusty cells of the Bazaar? It's not so easy to work with gold in those tiny rooms behind the arcades and in the hans. These rooms are always over-heated, for the fire is always on. The scrap gold is melted to produce new jewellery. These masters that give life to the scrap gold, unfortunately can not share the glamor0 of the Bazaar.
Then there are the two bedestens (formerly known as the place where fine clothing is sold, Bedesten is the descriptive name given to the two oldest parts of the Bazaar) which symbolises the Grand Bazaar. One of the major reasons that some people believe that Grand Bazaar had lost its traditional face is, the present situation of the Sandal Bedesteni, the former auction hall.The carpet auctions that took placehere for many years, giving