Beer and lotteries: how Russians celebrated the New Year in Turkey

One of the most popular areas of Istanbul – near the Sultanahmet and Hagia Sophia mosques – is crowded on New Year’s Eve. Restaurants and cafes are completely packed, the queue for shops starts at the entrance. A huge crowd lined up near a small building where they sell lottery tickets, spilled onto the road and blocked the street.

It turned out that in Turkey on New Year’s Day it is customary to play “tombala”, a traditional game originally from Italy, a variation of the usual lotto. They play, just like in the home circle, for “interest,” and also participate in television and state lotteries with paid tickets and fairly large winnings.

My Turkish friends advised me not to appear in tourist places at this time or to avoid such lottery offices – such a large number of people can lead to a crush, and scammers will intensify their activities.

If you choose slightly less popular places, for example, in the Kadikoy area, you can have a great time: buy from street vendors selling sweets, chat with tourists and local residents, and watch the annual fireworks display.

There is significantly less decoration in the city than in Russian or European capitals. In Istanbul, people often make do with only common winter symbols: snowflakes, garlands, lanterns. However, sometimes you can see a decorated Christmas tree, although in Muslim countries this is usually not very approved.

The situation is similar in the center of the most “Russian” city in Turkey – Antalya. Shopping centers and squares are decorated rather modestly, but you can find an analogue of a New Year’s fair: tents with souvenirs, sweets and non-alcoholic mulled wine.

Of course, all this creates a certain image of the New Year’s mood, especially for local residents. But personally, this all seems to me rather like some kind of parody of the holiday. Still, the New Year without traditional snow is not very clear and rather causes sadness.

December 31 in Turkey is only one of the significant days, but certainly not the main holiday of the country. The Muslim holidays of Ramadan and Eid al-Adha, for example, are celebrated on a much larger scale even by not very religious Turks.

Chimes in Turkey

We celebrate the New Year, as we are used to doing in Russia – with an obligatory feast, we congratulate our family and friends, and put up a Christmas tree. This year I had to try hard to even find an artificial spruce. The main symbol of the New Year can be found in large chain stores, but the quality leaves much to be desired.

As a result, we bought a crooked, oblique one with falling needles. It cost the family budget six thousand rubles, and that’s without decorations and garlands.

In Turkey, it is quite problematic to find high-quality and inexpensive things that do not belong to standard Turkish life, and our “beauty” is proof of this. It gets to the point that immigrants from Russia ask to rent or sell a Christmas tree in local chats, or to help with toys.

In Antalya, there are quite common shops with products familiar to Russians: locally produced doctor’s sausage (of course, only from chicken), crab sticks imported from Russia or Belarus, herring, caviar. However, you will have to pay a fortune for such a treat; prices are 2-3 times higher than in Russia.

Nevertheless, these products are sold out before the New Year – the shelves are empty. Last year we made a mistake: we went shopping for food for the holiday table on December 31 and discovered that the “Russian stores” had sold out everything long ago. In addition, around eight in the evening all Turkish shops closed. I had to celebrate with the food that was in the refrigerator.

We were unable to find a Turkish analogue of Champagne; all that remained were imported drinks at exorbitant prices – the reason for this was high excise taxes on imported alcohol. A bottle of average Italian Prosecco can cost from three to five thousand rubles (versus one or two thousand in Russia).

As a result, it was one of the worst New Year celebrations – without the usual and favorite foods, snow, cold, New Year’s “magic”. I can state that last year’s holiday was not a success and my family missed their homeland especially strongly on this day.

Turkish customs

New Year is a public holiday, but the day off is given only for one day – January 1st. Moreover, if it falls on Saturday or Sunday, then it is not transferred to a weekday. Despite the fact that people in Turkey are much more relaxed about the New Year, the enthusiasm for lotteries during this period suggests that people here are also expecting pleasant changes in the New Year.

Life in Turkey has become, as in many countries, much more difficult in recent years, take, for example, record inflation in 22-23. On New Year’s Day, Turks, like visitors, begin to have hopes for the coming year. The holiday has some therapeutic, calming and confidence-inspiring effects.

Many establishments offer themed parties. For an additional fee, they organize live performances by artists and prepare a special menu. The average price for admission to such a party is from 600 to 2000 liras (2000-6000 rubles). Food and alcohol usually need to be paid for separately.

Of course, in Turkey they don’t cook “Olivier” or “Herring under a fur coat,” but many families began to cook turkey stuffed with rice and spices on New Year’s Eve. On holidays you can meet groups drinking beer or raki, a local aniseed vodka. You can meet drunk people, but usually everyone is more or less calm.

For Russian tourists, hotels organize celebrations according to “all the rules” – with Father Frost and Snow Maiden. My friends even saw improvised snow next to the hotel. An impressive sight – snow and sea in three minutes. At this time in Antalya, some daredevils even decide to swim, although the water usually does not warm up more than 15-17 degrees in December-January.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan does not make a speech on TV, but traditionally publishes a message in major Turkish newspapers, and messages are sent to the leaders of friendly states. As the president of a predominantly Muslim country, he could ignore this holiday, as his colleagues from the UAE or Egypt do, but out of respect for the traditions of other nations and a relatively secular agenda, congratulations are sent.