Search Results for: bayram

Kurban Bayram – My first Feast of the Sacrifice
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Kurban Bayram – My first Feast of the Sacrifice

I can vividly remember the first time I came face to face with the results of the feast known in Turkey as Kurban Bayram. It’s the traditional religious holiday when all Muslim are expected to commemorate the strength of Ibrahim’s faith by sacrificing a cow, sheep or goat (read more about the meaning of Kurban…

Turkish National Public Holidays 2024

Turkish National Public Holidays 2024

On Turkish national public holidays, banks, post offices, schools, government departments and many private businesses are closed. If the weather’s good it feels like everyone is on the road, headed somewhere, and waterfront walks and breakfast places are jampacked with mums, dads and kids plus all their relatives. During two of the longest breaks in…

Liberation of Istanbul

Liberation of Istanbul

When I studied history at high school we learned about World War I from an Antipodean perspective. Heroic Australian Johnnies fought local Mehmets at Gallipoli, the Germans were eventually defeated and everyone went back home again. What we weren’t told about was what happened next, the Liberation of Istanbul and Turkey. Even before the war…