On 13 February 2026 Recep Tayyip Erdoğan came to Boğaziçi University to open a dormitory. To receive him, the university shut its own campus. Classes went online. Students living in the dormitories were told to leave their rooms in the morning for security screening, and only…
For most of Istanbul's history the only way across the Bosporus was a boat. The first bridge opened on 30 October 1973, timed for the 50th…
The Ottoman sultans moved down to the water in the 19th century. For nearly four hundred years they had ruled from Topkapı, a cluster of pavilions on…
On 13 October 2026 Turkey's transport ministry said it wanted to put Canal Istanbul out to tender and start building "as soon as possible". It gave…
Ships entering the Bosporus from the Sea of Marmara pass under a skyline that has hardly changed in five centuries: Topkapı Palace on the point, and…
On 14 October 2026 Ekrem İmamoğlu stood up in a courtroom inside the Silivri prison complex, west of Istanbul, and began a four-day defence. He had…
Every warship that wants to pass the Bosporus is governed by a treaty signed in a Swiss lakeside town in July 1936, before radar, before aircraft…
On 6 January 2026 the tanker Elbus, flagged in Palau and heading for a Russian port, sailed north through the Bosporus past Dolmabahçe, Bebek and…
In Beykoz, on the Asian shore near the Bosporus's northern end, Turkey has set up the headquarters for the navy of a peace that doesn't exist yet. On…
