KARAKÖY IS A DISTRICT of Istanbul close to the Golden Horn (Haliç). When walking along Tersane Cadesi, a busy avenue lined with shops selling technical goods for mechanical operations (from nails to power tools), we passed an old building topped with domes. Its walls are alternating layers of stones and brick work.

A plaque on the wall of this place reads “ISBU FATIH BEDESTENI AYASOFYA VAKFI KEBIRI OLARAK INSA EDEL MIŞTIR”, which means ‘This Fatih Bazaar was built as a part of the Hagia Sophia Foundation’. So, the building was constructed as a bazaar, and is still used as such. Like the rest of the street, only machine tools and spare parts are sold in the edifice.

The above-mentioned foundation was founded soon after the Ottoman conquest of Istanbul. Its function, along with other foundations, was to restore and restructure Istanbul, which had deteriorated badly during the last years of Byzantine rule. I have not yet been able to find out when the bazaar was constructed.

On one of the external walls of the building, a selection of rubber car tyres was on display. An elderly man, who was running the stall, greeted us, and began trying to guess where we were from. My wife told him that she is Indian. Hearing that, the old fellow rushed back to his collection of tyres, and we started to walk away. A few seconds later, he rushed towards us. He was holding a tyre in his hand, and pointing to it, and he kept saying “India”. We stopped, and then he rotated the tyre until he found the words “Made in India” embossed on it, and showed then to us.