Happy New Year 2014!

 

Turks celebrate New Year very festive and solemn. As I mentioned before this celebration can be compared to our Christmas. They decorate the Christmas tree and the  houses, they are buying each other gifts, sit down to a refined dinner, the main dish is usually a turkey stuffed with rice and chestnuts. There are parties in a good restaurants, concerts of Turkish singers.

People celebrate New Year in clubs, at home among family and friends, or in the open air.

The common greeting of New Year mostly takes place on the famous Taksim or exclusive Nişantasi. 

How it will be on the last day of 2013. I hope good, but ...

The passing year was not the best for Turkey and Turks. In the middle of the year there has been anti-government demonstrations. Photos, news of these events circulated throughout the world. It was a very difficult time for Turkey. Summer and Kurban holiday passed peacefully.

Next event again put attention on Turkey. In October,  we celebrated the grand opening of the Marmaray. Eyes of the whole world were on Istanbul and the Bosporus underwater tunnel connecting the two continents .

Few people know that the next day people had to get off the subway and walk in the tunnel on the foot, the electricity got broken. It just had to be an experience!

And now, the last days of the year again prove to be difficult for Turkey. Corruption scandal in the Turkish government has led to many protests and subsequent exit of citizens in the streets .

So hope for a beautiful, solemn and quiet welcome 2014 in Turkey are small.

Too bad , because the city looks beautiful.