By Nikola Marinko · Contractor's Representative Project Manager, WSS Bulancak, Türkiye, 2016-2017 · Updated October 2026 · 6 min read

For years Istanbul was a connection, not a destination. Getting from Belgrade to my sites in Central Asia meant three flights, and the middle one usually went through here. Then Türkiye became the job. From June 2016 to January 2017 I ran WSS Bulancak on the Black Sea coast as Contractor's Representative PM, a €9.8M EU IPA water supply system, and during that posting I finally walked out of the airport instead of changing planes.

These are field notes from two winter days on foot. The Grand Bazaar, the Kapalicarsi, with more than 4,000 shops and the smell of Turkish coffee in every lane. Hagia Sophia, a Byzantine cathedral and later an Ottoman mosque, holding fifteen centuries of the city's history under its domes. The Blue Mosque and its tiles, with the call to prayer carrying across the old town. A boat on the Bosphorus between the Sea of Marmara and the Black Sea, past Ottoman palaces and old fortifications. And dinner at the old fish restaurants in the historic centre, fish straight off the grill.

Two days will not exhaust Istanbul and they are not meant to. They are enough to see why the city has carried so many names, and why it keeps pulling you back.

WSS Bulancak project · Bulancak · Moscow · Osh · Field stories

Istanbul, Türkiye - Two Winter Days in the City I Kept Flying Through

FIELD STORY