"Istanbul’s culture blues
The ancient Turkish city’s tenure as a European Capital of Culture has been underwhelming to say the least. What went wrong?
By Andrew Finkel | From issue 219, December 2010
Published online 15 Dec 10 (Features)
Declaring a millennia-old city that had been a capital of both Christian and Islamic empires as a European Capital of Culture (Ecoc) is akin to calling Venice a place with good water features or commending Paris for its decent museums. Istanbul (population upwards of 13 million) has, nonetheless, shared this Euro-accolade for the last 12 months with Essen, Germany (population 600,000) and Pécs in Hungary. Not only is Istanbul close to a hundred times more populous than Pécs, it has a larger population than all of Hungary, and even a larger GDP. So why, as its tenure draws to a close, has the city’s year seemed so much less than it might have been."
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