Guide to Istanbul: Azerbaijani journalist presents five facts about city

Taking into account the love of many of my compatriots for travelling and the fact that the holiday season is not over yet, I offer you some interesting facts about the life and lifestyle of the inhabitants of Istanbul - one of the most visited foreign cities by the Azerbaijani citizens.

1. As I have already mentioned, our people love to fly to Istanbul and despite the prices, they often do not just travel as couples but as families. So firstly, decide on your luggage.

The less stuff you take with you on your trip, the more you can bring, fitting it into your legal 23kg of luggage per person, so you don't have to overpay for every extra kilo.

And there is a lot to buy in Istanbul - from all sorts of sweets in the form of various kinds of baklava and rahat-lukum (at prices 2-3 times lower than those in Baku) to household items and clothes.

And if branded things are even more expensive here than in Baku, the prices of local producers such as "Waikiki" and "Cotton" are not in any comparison with ours. Therefore, the best way to buy good quality children's or casual clothes is to go to Istanbul.

2. To say that Istanbul is huge is to say nothing. Almost 18 million inhabitants, hundreds of thousands of people arriving and departing from the city at the same time (the number of flights is up to five per minute), and the intertwining of many cultures and manners of behaviour. They are not very gracious with tourists here, whether in hotels or in taxis.

So be careful and assert your rights. Some exorbitant rates in the service are specially made for Russians and Ukrainians. However, if the Istanbulian can see that they are not dealing with a simpleton, the cockiness disappears in a flash.

Speaking of Russians, there are countless of them here, both working and on vacation. When meeting Ukrainians, they try not to notice each other.

But there are practically no Armenians, no matter how hard I tried to spot them, although only some 3-4 years ago Armenian tourists in the central part of Istanbul could be found almost at every step. Compared to the pre-pandemic period, there are many more Central Asians, in particular Uzbeks and Kazakhs.

3. One of the features of Istanbul is... cats. They are on practically every object here, be it a restaurant, a clothes shop or a building materials shop. Cats can be found lying on the windows of the most prestigious shops, sitting on the chairs of the coolest restaurants - nobody touches them or chases them away.

It is not surprising, because in Istanbul there is even a small monument to the famous cat Tombili, who used to be one of the most popular internet memes. Cats, it must be said, take full advantage of this love of the locals and behave like masters of the city, attacking even large dogs without fear.

4. Istanbulians dress in a variety of ways. Here you can see couples bravely walking around in shorts, women in hijab, and men in long-sleeved shirts, despite the heat.

But, unlike, say, Poland, there are a lot of stylishly dressed people here, and I would compare Istanbul not even with Paris, which shocked me with its unkemptness and the smell of unwashed bodies (Warsaw is clean and orderly), but with Milan, where there is also a lot of intertwined cultures.

5. I can't help but warn you about the machinations of tax frees (a system of value-added tax refunds - VAT is refunded on purchases made by foreign citizens when they leave the country in which they were purchased).

It seems that Turks do everything possible not to pay it. And obstacles are seen not only at the airport, but also on the spot, i.e. in shops, almost always incorrectly drawing up documents: either the citizenship is incorrectly indicated, or the stamp is missing, or you will even be told that the desire to get tax free should have been mentioned before the purchase, and not after.

So read the papers carefully before rushing with them to the airport or shopping centres, where you can also be reimbursed a percentage of your purchases.

Taleiran Bakikhanov, specially for Caliber.Az.