The Most Boring Capital City Ever: Ankara

May 10-12

I travelled to Ankara, the capital of Turkey with a Dutch exchange student for a project on disability in Turkish universities. We went to Ankara to interview a prominent disabilities rights activist who lives there.

There are many options for someone who wants to go from Istanbul to Ankara or vice versa. You can take a bus, fly, or take the train. We chose to take the overnight train where we got a room with two pull-out beds. It actually was surprisingly comfortable, I would recommend it to anyone who doesn’t feel like flying and is less than 6’ 4” (I’m 6’ 3” and just barely fit in the bed).

We left Istanbul at 10:30 pm Friday and arrived in Ankara around 7 am. Ankara is not a very aesthetically pleasing city, some people would call it soulless, I would not disagree. Wherever you are in Istanbul, you get this sense of energy and excitement that is missing in Ankara. We asked several Turks in Ankara if they liked it and all of them said no.

Since the interview was not until later in the afternoon, we decided we wanted to see the sights. The most famous attraction in Ankara has to be the mausoleum of the founder of the Republic of Turkey, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk. Turks have a (obsession) love of Atatürk that puts America’s love of the Founding Fathers to shame. That is exemplified by the mausoleum which dominates the Ankara skyline and is meant to resemble an Ancient Greek temple. The complex is on a hill and surrounded by forests and gardens. Admittance is free. Both the mausoleum itself and the grounds around are massive and imposing. Anyone travelling through Ankara has to see it, not so much for its natural beauty but because of the tremendous importance Atatürk has played in Turkish history and psyche.

We then travelled to the Anatolian Civilization Museum where we were meeting our interviewee, Claire Ozel. She is an expat who married a Turk and then became the head of disability services at Middle Eastern Technical University in Ankara. She insisted on giving us a tour of the Museum before the interview, which was a good thing because although the museum has an extensive collection of Ancient Anatolian artifacts, there is a real lack of labeling to let you know exactly what you are looking at.

Ironically, the best thing about the museum wasn’t the exhibits (though they were interesting to a history buff like me) but the tour group of little kids that was also visiting the museum while we were there. At first they stared at me, then they pretended to take photos of the exhibitions I was standing next to, then they worked up the courage to ask if they could take my picture, and by the time we were leaving they were posing with me. I swear, there was one point where I had about six twelve year old Turks having their picture with me at the same time!

This little event is a good example of how different Ankara is from Istanbul. In Istanbul, you see all kinds of people who are blond, or Central Asian looking, or fair skinned and who are all Turks. The Turks in Ankara, on the other hand, look much more Anatolian or stereotypically “Middle Eastern” and they are not as used to seeing foreigners. I definitely felt more like a foreigner in Ankara than in Istanbul, though I’m sure I stick out in both cities.

Anyway, Claire took us through the Old City of Ankara, which overlooks most of the newer city and is where you get some authentic culture. We had lunch and discussed with her the situation of disabled Turks in universities. It was really interesting; it is easy to tell that the U.S. gives disability inclusion much higher importance than Turkey does.

I will say that after leaving Claire, I felt really good about the trip. We planned to take the fast train early Sunday morning and be back in Istanbul before dinner time. Sadly for us, all the fast train tickets were sold out, so we had no choice but to take another night train for Sunday night, meaning we wouldn’t be back in Istanbul until Monday morning and would have to spend another day in Ankara!

 This was where the trip went downhill for me. We spent an hour looking for a restaurant to have dinner in; apparently they like to keep their restaurants hidden in Ankara. The next day we had to check out of our (shitty) hotel by 10:30 am, so we then wondered around the city for the next few hours looking for sites that we hadn’t already seen. There were no good ones. We spent about two hours sitting at a park bench doing homework, because that was the most fun thing we could find to do. You cannot understand the relief that I felt when we finally we able to board our train around 10:30 pm and finally leave Ankara behind. I would only recommend going to Ankara for a day trip, trust me when I say that that is more than enough to see all that is worthwhile.

The one truly redeeming quality that Ankara has going for it is how nice its people are. From the student who paid for our bus fare and refused our money, to the guy barbecuing chicken in the park who unprompted brought us some of his food, to the Kurd who insisted on buying us tea and practicing his English with us, the people of Ankara showed us some great Turkish hospitality!