The Carpet Men of Istanbul – Istanbul, Turkey

The Carpet Men of Istanbul
Istanbul, Turkey

“Hello, my friend. Yes, please. Carpet?”

Forget the muezzin’s hollow-voiced call from the minarets that spear the city skyline. Istanbul’s merchants herald the loudest calls across the city. Their shouts to passers-by reverberate along the streets and alleyways. Here, everyone has something to sell. Carpets in particular.

Istanbul’s tourist suburb of Sultanahmet boasts a plethora of carpet shops. Turn a corner and there is yet another to be found, even in the shadiest side street. Each is as fantastical as the next. Large rectangular rugs hang in shop windows and outside, next to the doorways. Expensive carpets drape across the walls and floor inside these shops in an incredible display of colour and pattern. Plastic-bound rolls slot snugly onto shelves, awaiting a flick of an expert hand to unroll them in all their glory.

The carpet men stand patiently outside, ready to hawk their wares. The ‘Grand Bazaar’ in the heart of Sultanahmet is home to the most exquisite of carpets and the most garrulous of merchants.

“Hello. Yes, please,” offers a well-dressed man from the doorway of his shop. He indicates that I should step inside. I politely decline but hover at the threshold, peering inside. I am curious as to the price of a carpet.

“Which one would you like?” he asks me, waving at the array of colour and carpet before me. It is an impressive display.

Would I prefer the carpet with the red and green threads or this one with its intricate patterns in blue and cream? Would it be for a large room or small? A long rug to run along a hallway, perhaps?

“Just an average price,” I ask, slightly overwhelmed at the selection. My would-be salesman immediately adopts a business-like tone of voice.
“In dollars?” He asks, with calculator in hand.
I nod. He ponders for a moment then taps some figures.
” Average price�eight hundred dollars,” he announces.
I balk at the figure.

“Eight hundred U.S. dollars is your average price?” I ask.
“Yes. Of course!” He replies with the air of one who does not joke about money. “My carpets are high quality,” he remonstrates.
“Of course.”

These carpets are priced far beyond my meagre backpacker budget. He shrugs and raises his hands in a gesture of, “What can I do?” This salesman is unperturbed. I am just another shopper with a shallow pocket. He will still make a profit today.

I sidle away from his doorway and into the crowd that moves slowly through the narrow aisles of the bazaar. Moments later my attention is snared by Mario, confident carpet-seller extraordinaire, who plants himself directly in my path.
“Hello, lady. Hello,” he greets me, “A carpet for you, perhaps?” The banter begins.

“Come, come. I will show you my carpets. How much you spend? Where you from?” I assure Mario that I am only curious and really have no need of a carpet. Especially those at his jaw dropping prices.

“Okay, no carpet but you come with me. We will sit inside and drink apple tea together.”
I refuse politely on the grounds that once inside the shop, it will be difficult to escape. The conversation would begin innocently enough but would eventually return to the topic of carpets and how much I really should buy one of his. For a special price, of course.

Not that my refusal to purchase or play dampens Mario’s enthusiasm.

“Okay, okay. No carpet, no apple tea, okay.” Mario shrugs, adding, “You will wait here a moment.” He steps back into the shop, returning moments later to thrust a small photo album at me. “Look, please,” he encourages.

I turn the pages of his album. His collection is comprised of photographs of himself, only of himself. His poses flex his tanned biceps and chest to ludicrous proportions.

“You like? I am handsome, yes?” Mario leers over my shoulder, “You know, many girls like me. Perhaps you like me also?”

Mario could be described as attractive in the ‘too much’ sense of style – too much tan, too much muscle, too much hair gel. His ego certainly wasn’t lacking in amplitude either.

“You like? ” He asks again, ready to bask in the glow of my effusive and lustful praise.
“Mario, you’re not even vaguely tempting,” I reply, snapping his album firmly shut.

Mario-of-the-unquashable-ego grins and tries once more for a sale of a carpet. Or apple tea, perhaps? “Mario, no!” I laughingly escape with neither carpet nor hot date with this Turkish Lothario.

I walk further along the crowded aisle of the bazaar. Turning back, I see Mario and his carpet-selling neighbours accosting two girls strolling by them.

“Hello, hello, pretty ladies. Yes, please. Carpet?”

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