The world’s most ancient cities of Istanbul gona loot. The city’s cultural heritage Old Pera is being destroyed by council, UNESCO has to do something.

One Square Mile chose the old European diplomatic district of Pera, because it embodies Istanbul’s new confidence and energy, but also its complex history.

Those same buildings are now being renovated at a startling pace. Pera, or Beyoglu as it is called today, is bursting with new cultural and entrepreneurial life. New bars, new clubs, new galleries, new shops.

In part this is a reflection of Turkey’s tremendous economic performance over the past decade. This has given its people new wealth and new confidence – and they have begun exploring, and reviving, once neglected areas of the city.

Pera is now one of the most dynamic and fashionable districts in Europe. It is a joy to wander its steep, winding streets and make new discoveries. There is impressive diversity here too. Youth culture and artistic expression as adventurous as anywhere in Europe, but also the Islamic piety and heritage that is such a big part of Turkish life.

But there are darker sides to Pera’s gentrification we explored in our programme. One is the marginalisation of poorer communities who made Pera their home for decades, but are now being driven out by rising prices.

And I think there is a sadness that hangs over the whole area, because of the lack of any reference to its multi-cultural past.

Most of the magnificent buildings now being restored were built and lived in not by Turks, but by the ethnic Greeks and Armenians who dominated the commercial life of the Ottoman Empire.

This was in fact a very un-Turkish district, a reflection of the ethnic diversity of the empire. But the Armenians have dwindled to a fearful, embattled community following the mass slaughter of 1915, and the Greeks were driven out after a pogrom in Pera in 1957 destroyed most of their businesses.

There are plenty of Turks living in the district today who know that history, and want to acknowledge it. But Turkish islamic nationalism is still a brittle, intolerant force in the country, and there is no official move yet to commemorate the lost communities of Istanbul.

Last victim 80 years-old landmark of Old Pera Inci Patissiere

On the one hand, what we might call  global integration. Thus, what we are seeing is the development of new spaces of consumption and of tourist  commodification; the implication of the city in new financial flows and the rapid expansion of the real-estate and  service industries; and the proliferation of gated communities and the gentrification of living spaces.

The prevalence of neo-liberal values within the Islamic AKP (Justice and Development Party) government, over the last decade or so, is associated with this more assertive, globalising, and entrepreneurially-minded Istanbul.

As global processes increasingly, and seemingly irreversibly, affect the daily life of the city‟s fifteen million residents, older modes of urban living and established forms of public culture are damaged, if not devastated.

This represents one contemporary variant of world-openness – the neo-liberal articulation. Openness to global economic forces is associated with escalating social divisions, existential loss of control, and cultural vulnerability.

‘ İnci Patisserie [Pastanesi]’s place is here, in Beyoğlu. Shall we lose the court case, we do not intend to open anywhere else,’ manager Musa Ateş, who has been working at the shop on İstiklal Avenue for 51 years, had told one month ago.

The fate of the historical shop, which has been operating at its central location in Istanbul’s Beyoğlu district for 67 years and retains its original atmosphere, was resting on a local court decision set to be made Feb. 9.

But the Turkish high court of appeal approved the eviction rule for the patisserie and the sweetshop is being emptied as of now, among protests from owners, workers and a group of activists.

Emekli Sandığı (Retirement Trust), the owner of the building where İnci Pastanesi is located, has decided to rent the entire building for 49 years to a single firm – identified by Ateş as Tamer İnşaat – which will also undertake work to restore the building. All shops renting space there have been asked to vacate the premises.

Though the sweetshop managed to keep the court from executing a decision, İnci then received a second notification, this time saying the patisserie had ‘ caused losses to the trust, ‘ according to Ateş. “We have regularly paid the rent for 67 years; I do not see what losses the trust refers to,” he said. “We will make use of all our rights, but will in the end respect the court decision, whatever it is.”

One of the oldest shops on İstiklal Avenue, İnci Pastanesi remains an authentic slice of old Istanbul. Its low tables are packed with customers in the evenings, when it is difficult to even find a place to stand within the patisserie’s wooden walls. Residents and tourists alike acknowledge the shop as home to the city’s best profiteroles and expressed distress at its possible closure.

Protesters called on various times on the Beyoglu municipality run by AKP ( the ruling Justice and Development Party) and the Culture Ministry to take immediate action to save the patisserie. It is sick that this place is not be thought of as a commercial one. It is a living cultural heritage.

‘ İnci Patisserie [Pastanesi]’s place is here, in Beyoğlu. Shall we lose the court case, we do not intend to open anywhere else,’ manager Musa Ateş, who has been working at the shop on İstiklal Avenue for 51 years, had told one month ago.

The fate of the historical shop, which has been operating at its central location in Istanbul’s Beyoğlu district for 67 years and retains its original atmosphere, was resting on a local court decision set to be made Feb. 9.

But the Turkish high court of appeal approved the eviction rule for the patisserie and the sweetshop is being emptied as of now, among protests from owners, workers and a group of activists.

Emekli Sandığı (Retirement Trust), the owner of the building where İnci Pastanesi is located, has decided to rent the entire building for 49 years to a single firm – identified by Ateş as Tamer İnşaat – which will also undertake work to restore the building. All shops renting space there have been asked to vacate the premises.

Though the sweetshop managed to keep the court from executing a decision, İnci then received a second notification, this time saying the patisserie had ‘ caused losses to the trust, ‘ according to Ateş. “We have regularly paid the rent for 67 years; I do not see what losses the trust refers to,” he said. “We will make use of all our rights, but will in the end respect the court decision, whatever it is.”

One of the oldest shops on İstiklal Avenue, İnci Pastanesi remains an authentic slice of old Istanbul. Its low tables are packed with customers in the evenings, when it is difficult to even find a place to stand within the patisserie’s wooden walls. Residents and tourists alike acknowledge the shop as home to the city’s best profiteroles and expressed distress at its possible closure.

Protesters called on various times on the Beyoglu municipality run by AKP ( the ruling Justice and Development Party) and the Culture Ministry to take immediate action to save the patisserie. It is sick that this place is not be thought of as a commercial one. It is a living cultural heritage.

Now you do not have one at a time as a UNESCO cultural heritage in the city of Istanbul while the audience I think they should not be more than

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