Hakan’s Flying Carpet Shop

Today Stan and I braved the tourists and touts and walked across the Galata Bridge to visit our friend Hakan Evin’s carpet shop, Imperio Otomano, in the Grand Bazaar. We are on a mission: to acquire a 9x12 foot carpet for our living room without breaking Stan’s bank.

Hakan is a hoot. I mean the guy is a real carpet salesman. But he’s an honest one, best as we can tell. He must speak at least five or six languages, and he’s studying American Cultural Studies, however, his real claim to fame is he is the Turkish carpet seller to the stars.

Our friend Pam, from Dubai introduced us to Hakan. I believe she met him through her friends at the American Consulate here. Hakan’s father is also a carpet seller, but Hakan has it down. One of the smartest or luckiest moves he could have possibly made was to hook in with the American Consulate. It’s not so much that the American’s working in the consulate are buying tons of carpets, although they probably are, it’s that the American politicians, dignitaries, and stars who visit here all want to buy a carpet. They inquire at the consulate and voila. Hakan has a steady stream of the rich, famous, or just plain notorious customers. His walls are lined with photos of him with various presidents, congressmen and even Demi Moore.

The other intelligent move Hakan made was to institute a no-haggle policy. Typically, to buy anything in the Grand Bazaar, you are forced to endure a two hour long bargaining session, where you should expect to pay less than half of the first price you are quoted. Now some might find this fun, but I’d rather spend my time sitting in a café drinking wine. You know what you are buying with Hakan, and how much you are paying for it, from the first cup of chai.

Upon our arrival, we were of course offered a drink. I chose a glass of portukal nar juice (a tasty combo of fresh orange and pomegranate) and Stan had straight up orange. If you are there at lunchtime, Hakan orders in lunch. Cappuccino from the Fez Café? No problem. I think if you wanted your shoes shined, Hakan would have you take them off and send them out to be shined. A good 30 minutes will pass before you even think about talking about carpets. We cover our stay in Istanbul, yoga, Hakan’s recent marriage, and his last trip to the White House where he ate in the Executive Dining Room and met with President Bush, which excites him way more than it would me – meeting the president, that is.

Then it’s business time. The carpets are unfurled one after another. He shows you ones you might like along with several he knows you won’t. There is always has a reason for showing you the ones you won’t like. Hakan truly knows, cares about, and loves carpets. We learn so much every time we visit him. Did you know there are carpets made by prison inmates? Carpets are made as dowries. Imperio Otomano sells carpets from all regions of Turkey (we tend to like the ones from Kayseri), Iran (Turkey borders Iran), Afghanistan, even India or China. But he won’t sell you those last two unless you are a stupid tourist.

As usual, the carpets we viewed were beautiful. We narrowed it down to two or three; an extremely expensive Turkish one from the Harikye region Stan will never let me buy, a Persian Tabriz and another Harikye that’s not so pricey. We’ll see.

As fun as all this was, the best part of the two-hour visit was the short walk through the massive bazaar (over 4000 shops!) to Hakan’s newest location. He has four total. Once inside, it was just another rug shop. But then we climbed four flights of stairs and exited on the roof. The view took my breath away. A huge mosque stood directly to our right, and to the left were the rooftops of the sprawling bazaar complex. The famous Turkish architect Sinan designed the original bazaar complex in the 1500’s. I can’t even begin to describe it so I won’t, but I’ll hope my picture shows you. Sometimes, when you arise from the chaos that composes this city, you are struck with beauty beyond compare. I’m not sure what was more beautiful this afternoon, the craftsmanship and colorful design of the intricately woven carpets, or the magical sight from the roof of Hakan’s carpet shop.
www.imperiootomano.com