Turkey lost against Team USA at the 2010 FIBA World Championship Final
Turkey vs USA World Championship Basketball Final Game in Istanbul
Turkey and USA played the final at the 2010 FIBA World Championship in Istanbul today and the U.S. team captured the gold medal by defeating the host team 81-64. After this result, Turkey finished with a silver in its home field in front of over 15,000 passionate Turkish fans. The Turkish team started the year with a FIBA ranking of 18th, but has showed an outstanding performance in the World Championship. Today’s game with Team USA was Turkey’s first loss ever in the tournament after eight games. Before playing with the U.S. team for the gold medal, Turks have defeated Ivory Coast, Russia, Greece, Puerto Rico, China, France, Slovenia and Serbia.
The Turkish team seemed capable of sticking around with the U.S. team, however Kevin Durant was unstoppable in the U.S. team, torching Turkey for 28 points and he is named tournament MVP at the closing ceremony after the game. In Turkey, Hidayet Turkoglu, the only Turkish player, who reached double digits, went for a team-high 16 points on 5-for-8 shooting.
The Turkish crowd saluted both the Turkish and the U.S. teams after the game.
Turkish Soap Operas Draw Thousands to Istanbul
- Turkish Gümüş became a hit in Bulgaria
The staggering popularity of the Turkish soap operas in Central Asia, the Middle East, North Africa and the Balkans draw thousands of Arab, Bulgarian, Iranian and Greek tourists to Istanbul. Tour operators organize special tours to the venues in wealthy neighborhoods of Istanbul, where the series are filmed.
The overwhelming popularity of the first Turkish soap opera ” Yabancı Damat ” (Foreign Groom) in Greece in 2005 was followed by Dubai-based MBC’s interest in Turkish soap operas. Now, 18 different Turkish series are watched by millions in 22 different countries from Kazakhstan to Algeria, increasing the interest for Turkey and the Turkish culture.
“Perla” (i.e. “Pearl”) – the name of the most popular Turkish soap opera in Bulgaria so far (known in Turkey as Gümüş) – was the number one word Bulgarians entered in Internet search engines in 2009.
Istanbul: From the Orient Express to European 2010 Capital of Culture
Published in Daily Mail on February 14, 2010
The most expensive gin-and-tonics in Istanbul, the crown of Turkey, are served in a poorly-lit hotel bar unchanged since Greta Garbo, Agatha Christie and Ernest Hemingway haunted the Pera Palas.
The quirky Palas opened in 1892 as the first hotel built in Istanbul for Europeans. Its horse-drawn carriages would meet the Orient Express as it steamed in below the Turkish sultan’s palace at Topkapi.
Spies such as Graham Greene and Mata Hari also out in the bar with dispossessed Russian emigrés and professional intriguers.
Today, the Turkish city has expanded rapidly to become an economic and cultural powerhouse - and now it’s being honoured as European 2010 Capital of Culture.
In the backstreets of Pera, less has altered. As I dive between the time-blackened houses that line the streets of the old diplomatic quarter, there are still puddles in potholes and housewives hoisting home deliveries up in rope baskets, the smell of sweet apple tea wafting from their doorways.
The Crimea Memorial Church (built to honour British soldiers who died despite Florence Nightingale’s best endeavours) is still hidden away behind a mosque in Serdar Ekrem Sokak.
This very British church, designed by George Street, architect of London’s Royal Courts of Justice, was only rediscovered in the Eighties. And yet it’s just off Istiklal Caddesi, the trendiest shopping street in Istanbul, the fashion powerhouse of modern Turkey.
The artSumer Gallery, which opened in September, is the place for cutting-edge contemporary Turkish painting while 360 Istanbul is one of the city’s most fashionable restaurants because of its uninterupted 360-degree view over the whole city.
You get the same panorama from the 200 ft-tall Galata Tower that dominates this side of the Golden Horn, the famous inlet of the Bosphorus that cuts into the European side of this city.
It was built by the Genoese who held Pera as an independent colony until 1453 when the Ottoman Turks conquered Constantinople and renamed it Istanbul.
Istanbul has a ‘Big Five’ - Topkapi Palace, the Grand Bazaar, Hagia Sophia, the Blue Mosque, and the Great Cistern - and these should not be missed.
Then there are the Lesser Five - Galata Tower is one - the Crimea Church and the restaurants under the Galata Bridge and others.
Until recently, Galata Bridge was on of the few places you could eat in Istanbul and get a view of the Bosphorus.
The old city turned its back on the water but now there is Aqua, the restaurant at the new Four Seasons Bosphorus. There’s also Angelique further north along the Bosphorus, which serves the best Asian fusion food in this city.
But I head past the colourful, musty Spice Market, another 16th-century structure where visitors should call in to shake hands with a caviar salesman called ‘Al Pacino Turco’.
On a side street called Bahcekapi, in 1777, an immigrant to Istanbul called Haci Bekir created the dish that was to make him famous.
Bekir called his soft, sweet cubes lokum and they proved so popular that Sultan Abdulhamid appointed him Royal Confectioner. When we English discovered lokum in the 19th century, we renamed the heavenly product ‘turkish delight’.
Haci Bekir’s family still runs the shop, and always offers you a taste as you enter. I’m unable to resist. A delight indeed.
Istanbul: The New European Capital of Culture
Turks are ready for the big party starting at the Halic Congress Center of Istanbul today, marking the new status of Istanbul, Turkey’s cultural and financial center, as the 2010 European Capital of Culture. The Turkish festivities started with an official ceremony, attended by high-level diplomatic representations from 40 countries. during which the Turkish President Abdullah Gul and the Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan will deliver the opening speeches. Special firework and light shows and simultaneous cultural events in seven different spots of the city will be performed throughout the night.
Istanbul, the capital of three great empires in the last 2000 years, is one of the world’s leading cultural and historical centers today, thanks to its enormously rich and diverse cultural and historical heritage. Istanbul will keep its status of European Capital of Culture throughout 2010 together with the cities of Pecs in Hungary and Essen in Germany. There will be several hundred cultural events, ranging from concerts to dance shows and art exhibitions, celebrating this new prestigious status of the Turkish city. Hundreds of monuments and historical sights have been restored and 18 cultural centers were built throughout Istanbul to host the cultural celebrations.
As the only city in the world that lies in two continents, Istanbul is expected to attract thousands of new visitors in 2010. With a 6.5% increase compared to 2008, over 7.5 million foreign tourists visited Istanbul last year. Germans formed the largest group with 14.8%, followed by Brits (5.7%) and French (5.1%). This number is expected to increase significantly in 2010 because of the city’s new title.