The Tarlabasi Sunday Market

There’s this neighborhood you’re not supposed to go to in Istanbul.

It’s poor, full of drug dealers, bums, and (interestingly) the highest concentration of transvestites in the city.

It’s right next to Taksim, and some brave expats take advantage of the cheap housing and swell location—but you shouldn’t live on the ground floor if you don’t want your valuables stolen, and you shouldn’t walk alone at night if you’re a woman.

This neighborhood is called Tarlabasi.

Once upon a time, Tarlabasi was actually a wealthy neighborhood of Greeks. When they were driven out of the city in the ‘50’s, the buildings were abandoned and migrants from Eastern Turkey moved in—as did the drug dealers and other squatters. The district’s reputation precedes it—I heard about the necessity to avoid Tarlabasi before I even moved here—and I’m still constantly warned against it.

But there’s one really GREAT reason to go to Tarlabasi: The Sunday Market.

Tarlabasi’s Sunday market is epic. The whole winding main avenue is full of the cheapest produce in the city, including fruits and vegetables not often seen in Istanbul’s supermarkets. There’s also stalls and stalls of cheap clothes, scarves, toys, kitchen utensils… all of it for sale at whatever price you are able to haggle for.

It sounded too good to pass up. So Lucy and I decided to explore the forbidden neighborhood one sunny Sunday afternoon.

The market was packed full of people buying vegetables and olives and cheese. It was an unseasonably hot day, so we were both dressed with bare arms and legs—perhaps not the wisest choice for a neighborhood known to be a little sketchy, but we didn’t encounter any problems that we were aware of. We followed the crowd through the long winding market, sweating and taking pictures and buying bags of oranges to snack on.

Look at those scandalous bare arms!

Neither of us are great at haggling, but we were honestly so overwhelmed by the scope of the market that neither of us ended up buying much—we just soaked it in.

I highly recommend experiencing the Tarlabasi Sunday Market at least once. It’s a legitimate excuse to visit an intriguing neighborhood, and the sheer scope of the goods on display is worth seeing—plus, if you want delicious, organic, and cheap produce, there is no better place to get it than here.