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Entrepreneurs in Laleli

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Opening Doors to the World

Alper Solakoglu’s Global Journey

Alper Solakoglu, a graduate of Galatasaray Lyceum and a Paris-educated professional, embarked on a unique journey in the world of business. Drawing from his experience in foreign trade operations with Kog Group in North African countries, known as Maghreb, he established his own company. His innovative approach involved procuring denim fabric from Indonesia, manufacturing in Turkey, and exporting the finished products to Europe. Fluent in English, French, and Arabic Laleli from the Ashes, Solakoglu chose Laleli strategically to tap into the Russian markets. He explains, “I decided to open a shop here after the change. I established a shop in Odessa to access the Russian and Middle East markets. Russia’s extensive railway system allows goods sent from here to reach the entire country and Central Asia. With a shop in Moscow, the consumption hub of Russia, I expanded my team of stylists and fashion experts. Laleli serves as the gateway for Turkish textiles and leather to the world.”

Sultanhamam’s Transition to Laleli

Akman Tekstil’s Story

Alparslan Akman, the owner of Akman Tekstil, relocated his shop from Sultanhamam to Laleli following the decline of the luggage trade. According to Akman, even renowned fashion specialists visit Laleli to purchase fabrics. He states, “Laleli learned the art of business and decoration from the people of Sultanhamam. Engaged in exporting to 52 countries Customized Private Turkey Tours, I have been in this sector for 15 years. Fluent in Russian, Serbian, and Macedonian, I faced financial challenges in Sultanhamam due to unpaid checks and bills. However, in Laleli, transactions are cash-based. Although Laleli’s official foreign trade figure is 4 billion dollars, the real strength of this region is evident when multiplied by five. If any issues arise in Laleli, cities like Gaziantep, Bursa, and Denizli will be significantly impacted. Laleli stands as the heart of the Turkish textile industry.”

Laleli from the Ashes

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Laleli A Phoenix Resurrected from the Ashes

Unveiling Unbelievable Tales

In the vibrant district of Laleli, where tales of resilience and rebirth unfold, one name stands out—Hakki Celik. Originally an architect by profession, Hakki’s journey took him from France to Algeria, where he engaged in restoring the famed Andalusian and Ottoman District of Kezbah. Amidst his adventures, he married and later returned to Turkey, driven by a desire for his children to embrace their Turkish heritage. Transitioning from official roles, Hakki, guided by his Urfa lineage, ventured into the trade business. Seven years ago, he acquired a flat in Laleli and initially delved into tourism, focusing on connections with Algeria. Subsequently, he expanded his horizons, engaging in foreign trade with Algeria, Morocco, and Tunisia. Fluent in French, English, and Arabic, Hakki Celik became a witness to the evolution of the luggage trade and the remarkable transformations in Laleli.

A District Resurrected

Reflecting on Laleli’s journey, Hakki Celik paints a vivid picture of its revival: “Laleli has undergone a significant transformation, rising from its supposed end in 1998, akin to the mythological bird reborn from its ashes. From here, one can embark on journeys to every corner of the world, surrounded by the symphony of diverse languages echoing through the streets Dreams Unveiling Potential. The people in this region embrace higher risks, a stark departure from Western companies that tailor catalogs based on orders. Here, companies compile catalogs for the season without prior orders, showcasing their offerings to clients.

The influx of millions of Russian citizens, initially drawn by the luggage trade, inadvertently became voluntary tourism ambassadors. What began as business visits has transformed into holiday escapades. Laleli’s trade has not only gained volume but also elevated in quality Customized Istanbul Tours. The district’s future shines brightly, fueled by a potent energy emanating from direct relations. Surpassing even Italy, a leader in leather fashion, Laleli thrives on realized dreams and an unwavering commitment to continual realization.”

Dreams Unveiling Potential

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Laleli’s Ascent to a Global Fashion Hub

Strategic Location and Accessibility

Nestled in the heart of Istanbul, boasting a rich history spanning 5000 years, Laleli emerges as a promising candidate for the title of World Fashion Center, according to Ayhan Karahan, President of the Association of the Industrialists and Businessmen of Laleli (LASiAD). Laleli’s geographical advantage, being just minutes away from sea, land, and air transportation, positions it as an accessible gateway. With a short flight duration, business connections spanning 22 countries are easily accessible within one or two hours Entrepreneurs in Laleli.

Unique Transportation Infrastructure

Karahan highlights the unique transportation infrastructure, emphasizing the convenience of reaching historic landmarks like Sultanahmet in just five minutes via the tramway system. This accessibility, unmatched by fashion capitals like Paris, Milan, or London, positions Laleli as an attractive destination for the global fashion community.

Showcasing Fashion Excellence

Laleli is set to make a significant mark on the global fashion stage with three fashion shows during the Istanbul Shopping Fest from February 15 to March 15 Customized Guided Turkey Tours. The introduction of the Laleli Festival, anticipated to become a tradition, further underlines the district’s commitment to fashion excellence.

Transformation through Dreams

Karahan stresses the importance of dreams as the catalyst for achieving ambitious targets and fostering success. Laleli’s recent transformation is evident in the restoration activities that have revitalized the district. Once covered with announcements for rent and sales, the facades of buildings are now adorned with silver, platinum, and milk white coatings. Shop windows gleam, interiors are immaculate, and streets boast intricate decorations. Fashion posters grace the facades, turning Laleli into a vibrant canvas that reflects the district’s newfound energy and aspirations.

Church of San Vitale in Ravenna

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We know him best from one portrait, made when he was in his sixties and shimmering in colored mosaic stone on the walls of the church of San Vitale in Ravenna, a building he never saw in a city he never visited. Middle height, ordinary-looking, round-faced, brown-eyed—without the purple cloak and diadem, he could be like any other soldier turned courtier. He faces across the altar in San Vitale an equally famous portrait of Theodora. He has a bishop, clerics, and soldiers with him; she has attendants and great ladies, much more purple, and a cascade of jewels. Together they are bringing the bread and wine for the liturgy to unfold among the living on the altar below. The portraits capture them at a moment of high ceremonial drama, atypical in a way, but not so far from the truth—for the trappings and ceremony of empire meant that few people ever saw them except on display, self-consciously dramatic and seeking to make a great impression.

Justinian similarly

Everything we know about Justinian similarly veils him in his robes of state and hides him in his palace. The scandalous stories that circulated about Theodora (we’ll whisper about them shortly) all point back to her forgotten early life, not to the palace days, when she was equally invisible—that is to say, equally on untouchable public display. They wanted to be known by the display. To know them as they were, we will have to circle around the palace and creep up on them unawares bulgaria vacations.

His city is easier to grasp first. Constantinople demands superlatives, and usually gets them. We’ll start there.

In 658 BCE, the legends said, a Greek colony, led by a man named Byzas, was sent out by the city fathers of Megara, a city a few miles west of Athens along the coast road toward Corinth. Its mission was to establish a settlement on a peninsula about 350 miles northeast of Athens, on the sea highway to the remote, chilling coasts of the Black Sea. Byzas already knew the legend of Jason and his Argonauts, who went that way on their quest for the Golden Fleece, venturing on a little-traveled sea, and then to the trackless and unimaginable waste of the lands beyond it. Some less legendary travelers doubtless had reported back about a unique site that Byzas now prospected along that route. From the water, it looked like a city made by the sea.

From Asia Minor

From the many-isled Aegean, Greek sailors entered the Dardanelles, a narrow passage separating Thrace and the Balkans on the left from Asia Minor on the right. Fifty miles on, the waters broadened into the Sea of Marmara, wide and daunting enough to compel ancient sailors to cling to the shore for 100 miles or so, until currents and winds brought them in sight of a modest hilltop jutting into the sea on the left. Creature as he was of the winds and the water, the typical sailor would approach the site at first gingerly, but then, once he knew the place, with delight.

For the peninsula stood at the mouth of another narrows, a thirty-five-mile passage broad enough for the most ambitious shipping but narrow enough today to be crossed, twice, with suspension bridges. That passage, the Bosporus, if you sailed up its course, led to the Black Sea, or, as the ancients called it with polite irony, the Euxine Sea: “the sea that is kindly to visitors” (its cold and currents were anything but kindly). Right here, where this hill rose on the left, a channel of water ran behind its peninsula. It was a few hundred yards wide and a couple of miles long, providing a weather- safe deepwater harbor that sailors welcomed. They called this route the Golden Horn, and it made the city from that day onward Mid-September for the feast of Cyprian.

In recognition of Byzas’s efforts, the city established there was called Byzantium. It claimed all customs duties travelers paid up and down the Bosporus, and thus had a steady prosperity during all the centuries when Greeks opened up the Black Sea and planted flourishing colonies around it—colonies that stayed in touch with their mother cities. Byzantium knew almost 1,000 years of that prosperity. Now and again it was drawn into the margins of Mediterranean political and military conflict.

Mid-September for the feast of Cyprian

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A market festival occurred there every year in mid-September for the feast of Cyprian, the martyred Christian bishop of Africa in the third century. This was the greatest market of the year, drawing merchants and buyers from Campania to Calabria and over to Apulia, virtually all of southern Italy. Some sellers erected stands and tents throughout the spreading meadows to display and protect their merchandise, while others cobbled together a temporary camp of shelters from tree branches to provide hospitality for all the visitors. It was a veritable city without buildings. Elegant clothes and handsome livestock, to say nothing of agricultural produce (it was harvest time, after all), were the great sellers, but the royal letter writer from whom we know of the event takes pains as well to describe and prettify something horrific: a brisk trade in children whose impoverished parents sold them into slavery. People could think it was better for children to be slaves in town than to live without food on their parents’ farms.

On the climactic night of the festival, we are told, when the priest or bishop began his prayers, the water in the baptismal spring sensed what was about to happen and rose exultantly to meet the prayers from above. A course of man-made steps led down into the spring, with the water regularly covering five of them, but the two higher steps remained dry, except when the prayers began and the water welled up spontaneously—miraculously—to facilitate the baptism mystical bulgaria tours.

And in the evening, songs were sung in the tents and shelters, songs we shall never hear, for the real life of ancient times always escapes us. This corner of the ancient world had changed little with the coming of Christianity or with the coming of Theoderic and saw little reason to change. People took prosperity and social order for granted. The only cloud in this sunny scene was the king’s concern at reports that such a throng with goods and money might also attract marauders. He commanded the senator to whom the letter is addressed to convene the local landowners and farmers to ensure the security and tranquillity of the event. In this moment, they succeeded, and the Roman empire still lived.

Justinian`s World (527 565)

The Empire That Couldn’t Help Itself

Act two: In which, at a time of relative peace and prosperity, we meet a young, ambitious emperor who began life on the Balkan frontier, not far from modern Skopje in Macedonia, following a path to power paved by his enterprising uncle. When his uncle died, he took the throne and revealed ambitions for his capital and his empire on a scale that had not been seen since Constantine 200 years earlier. He won many battles and built many monuments—but that was not enough, for such zeal to preserve civilization can also prove unimaginably destructive Danube frontier.

Being Justinian

Justinian Comes into history from out of shadows. We know how his uncle Justin came to Constantinople on foot to seek a military career and ended on the imperial throne. Justinian was the nephew who was the son Justin never had. Already in his thirties when we see him slipping into position next to his uncle’s new throne, he is a mystery to us until that time. At some point, he came down out of the Macedonian hinterlands to make his fortune, at some point he changed his name to emphasize his connection to the throne, and he acquired some of the skills of a prince. And he found himself a wife, Theodora.

Theodora haunts all the stories of Justinian, as virago, whore, mother superior, and great lady all at once. Hers is a character part, not a leading role, but she deserves an introduction separate from her husband. She was nothing by birth, in a world where birth was usually destiny. Her father kept bears in the circus at Constantinople, a world where shadows were dark enough to conceal a life of humiliation and sexual slavery for many a young woman. A prudent telling of her story has her use proximity to power as opportunity, leading her into a series of liaisons with powerful men, one of whom turned into an emperor. But the stinging portrait of her in Procopius’s Anecdota (“Secret History”) goes far beyond the facts we can confirm otherwise to tell of her rise to power as a fallen woman, so to speak, ascending from common prostitute to pop celebrity to great courtesan to domineering empress.

Her reportedly lurid sexual practices are so vividly reported in Procopius that Edward Gibbon congratulated himself on respecting his reader’s modesty by quoting them only in “the obscurity of a learned language”—the original Greek. The reader who wants to know the truth should read Procopius—did she really use geese to nibble the grains of wheat her handlers sprinkled over her nude body in her strip shows? Precisely what anatomical improbability did she imagine to expand her sexual pleasure? And there’s more. The effect of the public reputation of Theodora in Justinian’s lifetime and since is to give this humorless and indeed almost lifeless emperor a colorful and plausible counselor for his best and worst decisions. Her role is that of Nancy Reagan with a lurid past.

Danube frontier

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Saksagan
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This empire’s sway at the outermost boundaries of territory changed little in the eastern provinces. Though there had been military alarms and excursions in the Balkan provinces during the fifth century, at this moment the Danube frontier was no more and no less unsettled than at many other times since it had begun to be taken seriously as a boundary 500 years earlier. East of Constantinople, its boundaries with Persia were, if occasionally tested, mainly stable. South of Syria and around through Egypt and Cyrene, the long past of Roman dominion, which in turn continued Alexander’s heritage, now represented some 800 years of continual inclusion in the Mediterranean world.

The world of people who spoke Latin had seen some changes, but those changes must not be overstated. The traditional cities dominated the traditional landscapes. The economic bases of these societies had not visibly changed—the same crops were being grown in the same places; the same markets were doing the same business. Cross-Mediterranean traffic from Carthage to Rome had fallen off—a fundamental fact of the age, but invisible to many. The Africans actually saw this as good news, for it meant that more wealth stayed home, untouched by taxation. Populations shrank and the world was not so prosperous as it once had been, but it was recognizably the same.

In governmental terms, a conservative observer would say that the provincial lines had been redrawn a bit, and new chief local rulers were in place in Africa, Spain, Italy-Provence, and northern Gaul. Since Diocletian around 300, the empire had been officiously divided into a series of larger and smaller units of organization, where the more than 100 provinces were aggregated into dioceses of a dozen or so provinces, and those in turn into four or more prefectures whose alignment would shift with political and military needs. The arrangement under the rulers of the late fifth century and the early sixth century looked more like a rearrangement than a revolution. More authority had devolved on leaders such as Theod- eric and Clovis, but they in turn had recentralized at least some control from the multitude of smaller bureaucratic units of two centuries before. The chief variations from the imperial past were Italy’s power in southern Gaul and Rome’s abandonment of Britain.

In all respects, however, the provinces of the Roman empire from Gaul to Arabia, from Mauritania to Armenia, were in a better and more peaceful order than they had been for almost 100 years. What had changed was the scope, or scale, of Roman pretension and control. Theoderic, we have seen, praised the idea of empire but kept a firm grip on his own part of it. Had he been expressly offered an imperial crown by the soldiers, the senate, or Constantinople, he surely would have taken it, and he probably expected that either for himself or for his heirs customized tour bulgaria.

Reasonable observers in Constantinople

In practical terms, if you sat in the palace in Constantinople in the fifth century, you had less western tax revenue at your disposal than before, but you also had less responsibility for defending wide swaths of territory that had long been a plague to maintain. Reasonable observers in Constantinople would probably have had interesting discussions and disagreements as to whether the trade-off was positive.

It is true that something had been lost. The advantages of scale were real. The coherence of a culture and the freedom of movement and interaction of peoples were powerful by-products of the Roman Mediterranean hegemony. The world paid a real price for the violence that brought subjugation and discipline to peoples to secure that hegemony, but the victims of this imperialism had died 500 years ago and their suffering could reasonably if cold-bloodedly be written off against the benefits of empire. Whether the new world order of 526 could have, with different strategic choices, coalesced again into a more coherent Mediterranean community of nations is a question that cannot be answered.

Market day in Calabria

Can we grasp a little of what life in the Italy Theoderic created was like away from cities and palaces? Here is a story from a letter that Cassiodorus wrote in the name of Theoderic’s grandson.

At a place called Consolinum, on the inland road from Naples south to Reggio di Calabria, the locals took over a spring that had been the site of an ancient religious festival—the Leucothea—to use as the site for a Christian baptistery.35 Or at least that was the official version of what happened. We cannot know for sure whether the residents set great store by such a transformation or whether they continued to think of and frequent the site much as their ancestors had done for centuries. But the natural springs on the site gave abundant pure water, fish boldly frolicking in them unaware that hungry fishermen would soon capture them. Leucothea, the white goddess and aunt of Dionysus, was a patron of initiations into religious cults long before anyone heard of Christianity Church of San Vitale in Ravenna.

The Accession of Alexius and Interfamily Power Struggles part 28

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Therefore nothing of what had happened deterred Robert from the object he had set himself; and so with the remaining troops (for some by God’s almighty power had escaped from the peril) he reached Glabinitza on the seventh day. Here he stayed so that he and the other survivors from the storm at sea might recuperate, and that those he had left behind at Brindisi and others, whom he expected to come by sea from other places, might join him, as well as the troops who had started overland a short time before, the fury-equipped cavalry, infantry and the light-armed soldiers.

The Bishop of Bari to Robert

When he had collected his whole army from land and sea, he occupied the plain of Illyria with an his troops. In his company there was a Latin, an envoy, as he said, from the Bishop of Bari to Robert, and he it was who gave me an account of all this, and assured me that he went through this whole campaign with Robert. And next, huts were put up inside the ruined walls of the city once called Epidamnus, and the soldiers lodged in them by battalions. In this city the Epirote King, Pyrrhus, dwelt when he made an alliance with the Tarentines and began his fierce struggle with the Romans in Apulia.

And at that time such a frightful slaughter took place that all to the last man fell a prey to the sword, and the city was left uninhabited. But in later years, as the Greeks say, and to this the inscriptions in the town bear testimony, the city was rebuilt by Amphion and Zethus in the style that it still retains, and its name was changed to ‘Dyrrachium.’ These few words about this city must suffice, and here I will conclude my third book and continue the tale of Robert’s doings in the next.

Read More about Report of his Mission to Constantinople part 39

The Accession of Alexius and Interfamily Power Struggles part 27

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For a heavy fall of snow and the winds rushing down from the mountains churned up the sea violently. Then the waves rose and roared and the oars of the rowers were broken off as they dipped them; the winds tore the sails to shreds; the yard-arms were snapped off and fell on the deck, and the boats, crews and all, sank. And yet this was in summer when the sun had already crossed the tropic of Cancer and was hastening towards the Lion, just at the season which is called the Rising of the Dog Star. They were naturally all much disturbed and agitated and quite helpless to cope with such enemies.

Overweening presumptuousness

There was a frightful tumult, for men wailed and shrieked, called upon God to save them, and prayed to be allowed to see the dry land. The storm did not lessen meanwhile, it was as if God were pouring out his wrath upon Robert’s insolent and overweening presumptuousness, and shewing him from the very start that the issue would not be successful. Some of the ships were lost, crews and all, others were dashed on the rocks and broken to pieces.

‘Me hides covering the turrets became stretched by the rain, so that the nails fell out of their holes and the weight of the bides soon dragged down the wooden turrets which in their fall swamped the ships. However, the boat which carried Robert was saved with difficulty, though sadly battered; and some of the freight-ships with all on board were also miraculously saved.

The sea threw up many of the men and quite a number of pouches and other oddments which the sailors had taken with them and scattered them over the shore. The survivors buried the dead with due rites, and consequently they became infected with the horrible stench, as it was not easy for them to bury so many quickly. Now all the provisions had been lost and probably the survivors would have died of starvation, had there not been a luxuriance of crops and fruits in the fields and gardens.

Now the moral of all this was plain to all right-minded persons, but none of these occurrences daunted Robert, for he was quite fearless and only prayed, I believe, that his life might be spared long enough to allow of his fighting against his chosen enemies.

Read More about Report of his Mission to Constantinople part 31

The Accession of Alexius and Interfamily Power Struggles part 26

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XII In this way then affairs in the East were lulled to rest. On reaching Dyrrachium Palaeologus sent off a runner with the news about Monomachatus, which was that on hearing of Pal.Tologus’ journey he had hurriedly betaken himself to Bodinus and Michaelas. For he was afraid because he had not obeyed Alexius’ order but had sent back empty-handed the messenger whom the Emperor Alexius had sent with a letter asking for money before he commenced the rebellion he was meditating.

In reality the Emperor did not intend to punish him further than by dismissing him from his position for the reason just given. When the Emperor learnt what Monomachatus had done, he sent him a Golden Bull granting him full immunity, and as soon as Monomachatus received it he returned to the palace.

Palaeologus’ arrival in Dyrrachium

Robert: meanwhile, had reached Hydruntum and after delegating the rule over that town and the whole of Lombardy to his son Roger, he sailed and occupied the port of Brindisi. When he heaxd of Palaeologus’ arrival in Dyrrachium, he at once had turrets constructed on the larger vessels, built of wood and covered with hides. And he speedily had everything necessary for a siege packed on board the ships, and horses and fully-equipped cavalry he embarked on the cruisers, and with wonderful celerity he collected from an sides all the apparatus for war, for he was in a hurry to cross the sea.

His plan was to surround Dyrrachium, when he reached it, with battering engines both on the land- and sea-side so as to strike dismay into the hearts of the inhabitants and also by thus hemming them in completely, to take the town by assault. Consequently when the Islanders and the dwellers along the coast by Dyrrachium heard of this plan, great confusion fell upon them. When Robert had everything completed to his liking, he loosed anchor; the freight-ships, the triremes and monoremes were drawn up in the battle array of nautical tradition, and thus in good order he started on his voyage.

Meeting with a favourable wind he struck the opposite shore at Valona and coasting along it, came up to Buthrotum.[=Butrinrto] There he joined forces with Bohemund who had crossed earlier, and taken Valona by storm. He now divided the whole army into two parts, with the one he meant to sail to Dyrrachium, and commanded it himself, and Bohemund he put in command of the other half with which to march to Dyrrachium over land. After he had passed Corfu and was directing his course to Dyrrachium, he was suddenly caught in a most terrible storm off the promontory called Glossa.

Read More about Report of his Mission to Constantinople part 33

The Accession of Alexius and Interfamily Power Struggles part 25

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On being informed of this, the Emperor directed the soldiers to occupy the villages and buildings recently held by the Turks and to pass the night in them; and at break of day when for foraging or any other reason the enemy generally came out into the country, to make a sudden massed attack upon them, and be satisfied if they gained an advantage over them, however slight it might be, and not to risk restoring confidence to the enemy by seeking for further success, but to retire at once to the shelter of their forts. In consequence the barbarians after but a brief space of time again retreated to an even greater distance. Hereupon the Emperor gained courage, had the foot-soldiers put on horses and given spears to brandish, and made many cavalry raids upon the enemy, and no longer secretly during the night but in the daylight too.

The power of the Roman Empire

And those who had hitherto been decurions were now created captains over fifty and the men who had fought the enemy on foot at night with great fear now attacked them in early morning or at noon, and with confidence entered upon brilliantly successful engagements. Thus fortune now deserted the infidels and the power of the Roman Empire which had been temporarily obscured shone forth. For Conmenus not only drove them far back from the Bosporus and the whole seaboard, but also routed them out of the whole of Bithynia, Thynia and the province of Nicomedia and reduced the sultan to making urgent overtures for peace.

As Alexius was hearing from many quarters of the tremendous onset Robert was preparing and of the immense number of troops he had collected, and that he was hastening on his march to the coast of Lombardy, he gladly received the proposal of peace. For, if even the hero Heracles could not fight two men at the same time, as the proverb suggests, much less could this young ruler, who possessed neither forces nor money and had only just taken over a statealready corrupt which had for a long time been gradually diminishing and had sunk practically to the lowest depths ; and all its money had been squandered without any useful result. This was the reason he felt himself compelled to agree to terms of peace after, by various methods, chasing the Turks away from Damalis and its coasts, and further buying them off with bribes. He fixed the river called Dracon as their boundary, and compelled them to promise never to cross it or make incursions into Bithynian territory.

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The Golden Gate

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