Tour Guide Sinan Tortum's Brochure About Turkey - Part III ( Turkey As I Conceive It)
REAL ESTATES
In the past, when we had high inflation, most people could not rely on turkish currency. One of the alternative means of investment were foreign currencies ( USD, German Mark). Even when people borrowed money from friends and other people, they borrowed in foreign currency. The lender simply wanted to secure himself. An other means of investment was real estates. By buying real estate, the people believed they could maintain the value of their savings.
Real estate sector will be one of the sectors of the future. Beeing a real estate agent is much easier than in the West. It has so far been a sector which we have associated with the retired under officers and similar people. The laws for beeing eligible for becoming a real estate agent now demand that one should attend a real estate agent course for ca. 4-5 weeks. But, this is far away from increasing the qualities of a real estate agent. It is discussed that in the future only people with special university education will be a real estate agent. The real estate agent commision is usually 3% from the buyer and 3% from the seller, while, for example, the chamber of real estate agents in Ankara decided on 2%. Naturally, as a consequence of the competition and market situation, the real estate commission rates are negotiatable.
Turkish laws relatively recently have made it easier for foreigners to buy real estate in Turkey. The citizens of those countries, where the turkish citizens can buy real estate, can buy real estate in Turkey. But one should apply for permission from the military’s special section, which sees to that the real estate is not located in a strategically important area etc. There are also some restrictions; for example a danish citizen should also have a minimum of 6 months’ residence permit before he can buy a real estate in Turkey; and there are limitations on the size of the land which may be bought by one foreigner.
Naturally there are some groups of people who criticize the new law; they say the country is sold out to the foreigners. On the way to European Union membership and because of the ageing populations of the West, Turkish real estates are becoming more and more attractive for foreigners. The British is the largest group in purchase of real estates in Turkey ( Didim, Bodrum, Fethiye, Kusadasi).
I think that real estate is still reasonable in Turkey. There are big variations in the real estate prices. It is the location, neighbours ( We have a turkish proverb saying “Do not buy house, buy neighbour”) , standards of the house, the size of the house, the age of the house etc. which determine the price. If one hears that an apartment was sold for 40.000 USD, then it is probable that it has a bad location and/or it has low standards. If one wants an apartment with acceptable standards and an acceptable location ( but not the best), one has to spend 80.000-100.000 USD minus/ plus.
If one thinks of long-time investment, then it is advisable to invest in land. If the land, which is not not open to construction at the time of purchase , becomes an area of construction, the prices increase a lot.
When buying land in Turkey, one should check whether the area is a protected area ( ancient site, forest etc.).
The big foreign real estate investors have recently become interested in turkish real estates and construction projects. A Dubai-based company have newly bought a valuable land of 45.000 square meters in Istanbul for ca. 700 million USD.
The law on mortgage has recently been passed. But, since there will be strict rules on who can benefit from mortgage, and since the majority of people in Turkey have low/ instable income, it is very probable that in the first instance only a small segment of the society will be able to benefit from mortgage. Though it is stil discussed, the tax advantages with mortgage ( as one has them in the West) does not exist at the moment. Mortgage, on the other hand, will secure higher standards and conformity with the turkish construction laws.
At the purchase of a real estate, total 3/1000 of the sales value should be paid as sales tax. Real estate taxes paid yearly vary according to the city, location etc. For a normal apartment with an avarage size of 100 square meters, one may reckon with ca. 120 USD. We also have the “cleaning tax” paid to the municipalities. For the above-mentioned type of apartment an estimation would be 20-30 USD per year.
RE LIGION
99 % of the population are Muslims. Turkey does not have a state religion and all the non-muslims have now an increasing degree of religious freedom. When you visit a mosque, you should show respect for Islamic customs. You should take off your shoes before entering. Short slieved shirts or shorts are not suitable for such a visit. Women should completely cover their hair.
There are two main religious festivals. A three day Festival is celebrated after the Ramadan Month of Fasting. The Sacrifice Festival (Kurban Bayramı) lasts 4 days.
Majority of the muslims belong to the dominant “sunni” sect, while the alawis make up ca. 30%. Turkish alawis have such common points as emphasize on Saint Ali and twelve imams with the Shiites; but interestingly they are known as the more secular segment in Turkey. Though the alawi villages may have mosques too, their place for worship is “cemevi” where they have their rituals with dances.
Most of the christians live in İstanbul and the biggest christian minority is the Armenians. We find the second biggest armenian community in Ankara ( 1000-1200). The Armenians of Ankara use the French Catholic Church. There are some tiny groups of Christians all around in Turkey. Besides the relatively new apartment churches opened in different parts of Turkey, there are active old churches amongst others in Ankara, Izmir ( Some catholic churches, some protestant churches, dutch church, greek-orthodox church), Adana ( catholic church), Samsun ( catholic church), Trabzon
( catholic church), Kayseri ( armenian ahurch), Diyarbakır ( armenian church, syriac church, caldenian church), Mardin ( syriac churches), Midyat and its villages ( syriac churches), Vakifli-village in Hatay-province ( armenian church), Hatay Province with Antakya and villages ( arab-orthodox churches), Mersin ( catholic churches) , Konya (catholic church).
The Armenian Church in Kayseri
There are ca. 25 thousand jews, of whom the majority live in İstanbul. You also find jews with active synagogues in Izmir ( ca. 2.000), Bursa, Ankara, Adana, Antakya, Iskenderun and few jews with almost inactive synagogues in Canakkale and Kirklareli. It has become difficult to enter into the well-protected synagogues. You usually should contact the local community leader before a visit. In İstanbul, there are stricter formalities.
Whichever country it is, beeing a minority ( religios, social or sexual) is not easy. As for jews, we should remember that it was the otoman empire who received many sephardic jews from Spain, from where they were expelled. Except for few unpleasant events, compared to what happened in may countries, Jews had a relatively free life in Turkey.
SHOPPING : WHAT CAN BE PURCHASED IN TURKEY?
*Blue bead *cotton goods *fig( dried in packages) *gold * mohair clothes
* coffee or tea cups *spices * film slides of Turkey and antique cities
* meerschaum pipe *music cassettes * onyx *porcelain,wall ornaments
*statues of Artemis, Propilos, the Virgin Mary etc. ( of limestone)
*textiles * Turkish Delight (Lokum) * Carpets * Leather
Turkey is the ideal place for shopping, so far as leather goods, jewellery, carpets and handwoven kilims are concerned. There are also many shops with smart fashion clothing for reasonable prices.
Gold and Jewellery
Gold is a popular memory from Turkey. Gold on its own is not cheaper here, since the gold price is ruled by a world market price, which is the same over the world; but wage costs are lower. This makes the salesprice cheaper. Materials are as usuallly 14 carat; but also 18 and 22 carat gold is available. Price of jewellery is calculated on the basis of the weight of the gold, which is placed on the jewellery, and the work done for the production.
Price is calculated in the following way: Gram-unit x gold price x wage
Carpets
Knotted carpets and woven kilims are world-famous both because of its artistic work and quality. They are made throughout Turkey. However, each region has its own pattern and own colours. Handmade carpets are manufactured mainly in four categories:
1. pure wool 2. wool/ cotton 3. pure silk 4. silk/ cotton.
Hand-woven kilims is a seperate category.
Carpets are priced amongst others on the basis of the following factors:
A: Size of the carpet B: Number of knots per cm2 C: The material used
D: The age of the carpet
Remember to check that you have “certificate of authenticity” for your carpet, since all the important details are specified on that certificate. It is also of importance for the value of the carpet.
Those, who consider buying a carpet, can participate at a carpet information, which can be arranged by the travel agencies / tour guides.
Leather
Turkey offers good and reasonable selection of leather products.
Ceramics
Though menaced by the Chinese producers, turkish ceramics art distinguishes itself as a tradition-based art. Glazing and details in designs are what makes the difference in price.
TAXI
Taxies have day and night tariffs (night from 00.00 to 06.00) and all taxies have taximeter. Remember to make the driver turn on the taximeter. In Izmir there are ca. 3000 taxies and in İstanbul ca. 20.000 taxies. To get a so-called taxi line/ license, in some big cities you have to pay a great deal , depending on which taxi-terminal you belong to, this sometimes costing over 100.000 Euro.
TELEPHONE, MOBILE PHONE AND INTERNET
For telephone calls a card can be bought. These are of three different categories/prices depending on how long one shall talk. At the homes, Turkish Telekom ( recently bought up by the foreign Oger Group) made equal the prices for the telephone calls within the provinces and between the provinces ( ca. 9 YKR per minute). Compared to how it was in the past, international calls from home cost much less now, due to the competition provided by skype, msn etc. As of February, 2007, Turk Telekom has 19 million subscribers. Turk Telekom offers different types of subscriptions such as “reasonable line”, “standard line”, “talkative line” and “company line”. For these lines, there are different monthly fixed fees.
At the moment there are three GSM-operators: Turkcell ( as the biggest), Avea and Telsim-Vadafone. They have both subscribers and cash-pay cards. Because of the competition, they try to offer attractive packages. For example, Telsim-Vadofone now offers calls abroad for 25 YKR+ VAT per minute. What may be to complain about is high taxes on the calls : In addition to 18 % VAT, there is also 25% special communication tax ( what we unofficially call the eartquake tax, since this tax was imposed after the severe eartquake of 1999 in order to finance the reconstruction of the earthquake-hit areas).
An internett Access through ADSL at home with 4 GB limit costs ca. 15 euro per month. Alternatively, you have many internet cafes almost everywhere. Internet use at the internet cafes usually costs 1-1,25 YTL per hour. Internet is becoming more and more common. However, amongst the youth, it is observed that it is used usually for chatting and games, rather than having access to the sources of knowledge.
Child porno is now a big concern in Turkey. The government takes this problem seriously and may impose stricter laws on the internet cafes and internet-service providers ( with filtering systems imposed etc.)
TIME
Local time in Turkey is equal to GMT plus 2 hours during the summer months.
TIPS
All who work in the service sector appreciate tips. When, for example, you are in a restaurant and content with the service, you must leave a tip. How much? I would advise 5 to 10 % of the bill. In some restaurants tips are included in the bill under the name “service”.
TOILETS, TOILET PAPER
There are two types of toilets used in Turkey: the western type toilets, which are very common in the western countries and what I would rather call the oriental type toilets. With few exceptions one would find oriental type toilets in the rural areas. It is based on cleaning with water. As I also could see in childhood, the older generation had a small piece of cloth for drying purposes.The water is also used in the western type toilets: see the thin water pipe stretching out.
It is not guaranteed that you will find toilet paper in the public toilets. Therefore, for the sake of security, a tourist should bring toilet paper with himself. The comsumption of toilet paper is incraesing; however there are stil many houses it has not penetrated. There was a group of female tourists travelling around in Turkey as official guests in 50s. When they did not find toilet paper it became a scandal. After then the turkish authorities decided on the production of toilet paper, which would at least meet the demand by the foreign visitors to Turkey.
TOURISM
It is the Ministry of Tourism in Turkey, which has the responsibility for the tourism. Tourism has gone through a comprehensive development process in the 80s and 90s with the construction of high-quality touristic hotels. The number of the tourists have increased year by year except in the periods with such world phenomena as september 11, Iraq War etc.
The number yearly beeing close to 20 millions, most tourists come from Germany, followed by the Russians and the British. Americans are no doubt the most popular nation simply because of their generousity and high purchasing power.
The Turkish tourism needs to go through a new transformation. It should not be limited to the coastal touristic resorts. Diversification of tourism is a necessity. Cultural tourism should be given more attention to. Istanbul, declared as the world culture capital in 2010, should be developed as a touristic center competing with, for example, London and Paris, such that rather than attracting few millions of tourists, it could attract 20-30-40 millions of people. The Eastern part of Turkey has a great potential, but little exploited and there is needed a certain degree of security.
Anyhow, the number of tourists close to 20 million yearly, is far away from beeing satisfactory, when we consider Turkey as the cradle of civilizations, as a country with nice and varied nature.
TOURIST BUSSES
Tourist busses is a category of busses, which is used for transport of the tourists. There are certain rules concerning maximum how old they may be etc. Some of the big travel agencies have their own busses, while most of them hire the busses from the tourist bus companies. Tips are a very important source of income for those drivers, who do not own the busses.
TOURIST INFORMATION
All the big cities have a state-run tourist information office, where one can get information about and help for bus-times, flight times, opening hours at the museums etc. Maps and tourist brochures are available there. Shortly speaking whatever a tourist is in need of. At some tourist offices, the staff may have problems with expressing themselves in the major foreign languages.
TURKS ABROAD AND IN GERMANY
Turks are found almost everywhere in the world. The largest group of turkish citizens are in Germany. Starting from early 60s, Turks started to live and work in Germany. Most of them came from the rural areas and small towns with no experience of living in the cities. This is one of the main sources of the visible problems of their integration in the German society. In the beginning, turks had the intention of working in Germany, saving up money and moving back to their homeland. In the beginning they were called guest workers. The present day situation is that majority of them stayed on.
The first generation of turks seem to be stuck into their culture totally with little integration into the German society and language problems. The second generation seems to be somewhere between the two cultures, while the third generation is better integrated and almost germanized.
Whatever the degree of integration, Turks of Germany is of importance politically and economically. They have a key role in determining which party shall get the power. We can see Turks support SPD and Greens mainly. They have already started to have seats in the Federal Parliament and local parliaments. Few have been elected member of European Parliament.
Turkish entrepreneurs in Germany are expected to have a total turnover of 95 billion Euro in 2010. At the moment there are 60.000 entrepreneurs in Germany, creating employment for 370.000 people. Turkish people in Germany attract the attention of the german banks. A german bank started a campaign called “Bankam” ( Meaning my bank in turkish) whereby some branches shall be specially-designed with turkish-speaking staff for the clients of turkish-origin.
Similar problems and contributions are observable for turks living in other countries.
WAGES, SOCIAL SECURITY SYTEM , RETIREMENT, UNEMPLOYMENT PAYMENT AND HEALTH SYSTEM
There are big variations in wages in Turkey. Especially in the private sector, there may be such fringe goods as free dwelling, telephone and car. However, such fringe goods are granted less frequently than in the past. What you get as an employee depends on different factors, amongst others the level of demand in the sector you are in, education, experience, language skills, the wage policy of the firm etc. The minimum wage in Turkey is around ca.250 Euro per month. In Turkey, since the tax on wages ( with varying percentages according to your wage) is automatically deducted, people do not usually know their brutto wages.
Many people get quite small wages: ca.250-300 Euro is very usual amonst the uneducated manual workers. With increased qualifications there are usually better wages. Some examples:
*Ordinary state employee with the low seniority: ca.450 Euro
*Nurse : ca. 450 Euro
*General paractioner doctor in the public service: ca. 700 Euro ( Doctors with specialization get more)
In some hospitals, there are such arrangements as “revolving capital” and when a profit is made, it is shared amongst the employees. In Turkey, beeing a doctor meant in the past both a prestige and increasing revenues by time. In the past, it was unusual to be general practitioner; now it is difficult to become a doctor with specialization, with more doctors and more competition. This has led to that now many doctors suffer from remaining all their lifes as general practitioners. Those doctors who have specialization have better chances to make good money. If you are a well-known doctor, you can open your own office and earn a lot. Especially the well-known doctors with academic titles earn a lot. Half an hour’s visit at such a doctor may cost 50-60 Euro and if you are very popular, then you can earn thousands of Euro per month. In the rural and traditional parts of Turkey, beeing a female gynecologist may mean that you are preferred more.
*Underofficers-Officers : Starting from 600 Euro as underofficer to 1.200 Euro as colonel. If you are a pilot in the air force, you get additional payments.
*Teacher: Almost similar to what a nurse gets.
As for wages, we have the problem of not beeing registered in the social security system: You may work and get your wage but you may not be registered. Not beeing registered means that you do not gain any retirement points and you are not eligible for getting health services almost free of charge. There are some reasons for this. The employers do not want to or cannot afford to pay social security premiums and employer fee ( a minimum total of ca. 150 Euro per month) or the employees chooses to get more than what they would get if they are registered. I see this as a very big problem in Turkey. Many people complain that they were not registered for long time, which in turns affects when they can become retired and the pension amount if they may retire. The problem is quite big in the villages and also amongst those working on their own. Some cannot afford to pay the premiums. Beeing a registered employee or retired, you have acccess to public health services with some small contribution by you. The wife/ husband and children til a specific age have access to the same services through the registration. When you are without work, the same rights are valid within 6 months after you left. If you are unemployed or unregistered, then you have to rely on your funds for health services.
We have also a card called “green card” by which those without work have access to certain level of medical services ; but this is not easy to get issued : bureaucratic procedures etc. So far, the strong family traditions have been helpful.
It was for me funny to see that til late 90s, the women at the age of 38 and men at the age of 43 could become retired after 20 and 25 years of work respectively. Now the age limits and the number of years in work have been increased a lot. You usually get a pension corresponding to two thirds of your last wage.
Unemployment payment is a relatively new phenomenon; but at the moment one should work a certain number of months before one is entitled to get it. It is paid as a certain percentage of the minimum wage. Today’s 100-150 Euro per month is relatively unsatisfactory. But I see this as a start step and it is obvious that unemployment payment should be better both as amount and coverage.
As can be understood from the above paragraphs, the turkish health system does not cover the whole population, which I see as one of the major problems of Turkey. Those under the age of 18 are entitled to get public health services. The existing government aims at having a general coverage for the whole people. According to the plan, the unregistered people and the officially unemployed shall be required to pay ca. 35 USD per month; if they can prove that they cannot afford to pay this, this amount shall be paid by the government.
WOMEN
Though Turkish women got the right to vote and to be elected in 1934, even before some cantons of Switzerland, and though Ataturk had the intention of increasing the status of women, the present day situation is not as desired. However, the turkish women have obtained rights which the women in many countries do not have. When we look at the composition of the turkish parliament, the women make less than 5%. In such professions as teacher or pharmacist, the women have a condiserable share. However much needs to be done. Honour killings is stil problem, though less frequent than before.
The status of women is dependent on whether or not they have ecomical independence. The women who are dependent on their husbands do not exercise their rights easily.
We can see that majority of the divorced women have economical independence. Divorce is increasing in the urban areas and is becoming more spread phenomenon.
I would rather call the turkish society a man-dominated society. However, I imagine especially in the rural areas of some European countries, the situation is not much more different ( Italy, Greece…). It is also difficult to say that the women’s participation, for example, in the American Congress is very satisfactory.
.
Sinan TORTUM
Tour Guide- English and Norwegian
Mail : stortum@yahoo.no
Cell : +90.539.224 00 93
Web : www.izmirtourism.com
Sinan Tortum is the team leader of FELLOW GUIDES- a group of Turkish private tour guides with tour guide services in Izmir, Selcuk, Ephesus, Kusadasi, Istanbul, Cesme, Foca, Karaburun, Sigacik, Teos, Dikili, Pergamon, Ayvalik, Akcay, Pamukkale, Cappadocia ( Urgup, Goreme, Avanos), Antalya, Kemer, Side, Alanya, Bodrum, Marmaris, Didim and Urla in Turkey in English, German, French, Dutch, Italian, Spanish, Norwegian, Swedish, Danish and Polish.
We cooperate with the local agencies for tours in Izmir, Selcuk, Ephesus, Kusadasi, Istanbul, Cesme, Foca, Karaburun, Sigacik, Teos, Dikili, Pergamon, Ayvalik, Akcay, Pamukkale, Cappadocia ( Urgup, Goreme, Avanos), Antalya, Kemer, Side, Alanya, Bodrum, Marmaris, Didim and Urla. We offer private and group tours in Turkey.
Sinan Tortum is also team member of www.izmirtourism.com which is a modern, friendly and comprehensive website about Izmir ( Smyrna), Turkey.
Representative for Sun Dental Clinic in Balcova, Izmir, Turkey- Dental Treatment Services in Izmir Turkey