İstiklal Avenue - Istanbul, Turkey. walking tour. May 2022 [No Commentary]

İstiklal Avenue (Turkish: İstiklal Caddesi; English: "Independence Avenue"), historically known as the Grand Avenue of Pera, is one of the most famous avenues in Istanbul, Turkey, visited by nearly 3 million people in a single day over the course of weekends. Located in the historic Beyoğlu (Pera) district, it is an elegant pedestrian street, 1.4 kilometres (0.87 mi) long, which houses boutiques, music stores, bookstores, art galleries, cinemas, theatres, libraries, cafés, pubs, nightclubs with live music, historical patisseries, chocolateries and restaurants.

The avenue, surrounded by late Ottoman era buildings (mostly from the 19th and early 20th centuries) that were designed with the Neo-Classical, Neo-Gothic, Renaissance Revival, Beaux-Arts, Art Nouveau and First Turkish National Architecture styles; as well as a few Art Deco style buildings from the early years of the Turkish Republic, and a number of more recent examples of modern architecture; starts from the northern end of Galata (the medieval Genoese quarter) at Tünel Square and ultimately leads up to Taksim Square.

During the Ottoman period, the avenue was called Cadde-i Kebir (Grand Avenue) in Turkish or Grande Rue de Péra. It was a popular spot for Ottoman intellectuals, European and the local Italian and French Levantines. When 19th-century travelers referred to Constantinople (today, Istanbul) as the Paris of the East, they were mentioning the Grande Rue de Péra (İstiklal Caddesi) and its half-European, half-Asian culture. With the declaration of the Republic on 29 October 1923, the avenue's name was changed to İstiklal (Independence) for commemorating the triumph at the Turkish War of Independence.

In September 1955, during the anti-Greek Istanbul pogrom, the Avenue was pillaged in one night, while it was covered with pieces of glass, clothes, smashed white goods, rolled down and burned automobiles and other goods, all belonging to the wrecked shops.

The avenue briefly fell from grace in the 1970s and 1980s, with its old Istanbulite inhabitants moving elsewhere, and its side streets (back then stereotyped with their bars and night clubs with live music and shows, called pavyon in Turkish, derived from the word pavilion) being populated by migrants from the rural areas of Anatolia.
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