Turkey: a bridge between two worlds


 

As someone that has been outside of Chile just one time, my “for visit” list it’s still quite large. Being the history and cultural nerd that I consider I am, one of the countries that interest me the most it’s Turkey.

One of the very special things of this country it’s its location, between Europe and Asia, but unlike other Eurasian countries (like Russia or Kazakhstan) that location plays a key role on Turkish history, culture, economics and global importance even today. What I personally love about this fact, it’s the cultural mix generated between European Christian (Orthodox mainly) world and the Asian Muslim world, especially near to the Dardanelles and Bosporus straits. Right on this last Strait it’s located the biggest city of Turkey and actually the biggest of Europe, with almost sixteen million population: Istanbul, Known before as Constantinople. I’m studying sociology and I have a great interest on sociology of religion, therefore, I would love to visit this city known for the importance for de Orthodox and Muslim faith, and even work there on a research or something like that. By the way, a common misconception about this country is that Istanbul is the capital. It’s not. The Capital of Turkey is Ankara, located in Anatolia.

If that’s not enough, this place was the heart of the Eastern Roman Empire, and later the Ottoman Empire, and lots of the old structures remains until this days. Added to this, Turkey has beautiful natural places, like Cappadocia and Antalya.



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