It’s 12:30 AM on a hot summer night, late on a Tuesday or very early Wednesday morning, depending on how you see it. The lights are bright and the street is bustling at the Atatürk Forest Farm in Ankara. The crowd is thickest around the kokoreç grills, where hundreds of customers, mostly young and male, wait in line for their sandwiches. Kokoreç is made from intestines that are flattened and packed onto a spit for grilling. When the meat is done, it is removed onto a cutting board and the sandwich maker uses a large knife to chop it into fine cubes. To make the sandwiches, he just opens an eight-inch long soft baguette and shovels enough of the cubes to make a thick carpet on the bottom piece. When he folds the top back down, the sandwich is done. Condiments or additions, if any are wanted, are not his province. As far as I can see, most customers take their kokoreç plain.

    Atatürk Forest Farm was created in the 1920’s to provide a stable supply of dairy products to Ankara, which had recently become the capital of the new Turkish republic. And by dairy products we don’t mean milk and butter, at least not primarily. No, we would be talking mostly about yoğurt at this point. The farm still produces dairy products and in fact is famous these days for its own brand of ice cream. But kokoreç is the draw this night.

    Nearby are two artifacts of the Atatürk legend, one a full size replica of his childhood home and the other his favorite restaurant, the Central, where he spent many an evening. The replica house was needed because his actual childhood home was inaccessible at that time. After the breakup of the Ottoman empire, Salonika, his birthplace, had become part of Greece, Turkey’s most hated enemy at that time.

    Back here in the summer of 2008, the Turkish media are covering the funerals of the three police officers killed in an assault on the United States Consulate in Istanbul. All three were young, one having graduated from the police academy just two weeks ago, and another with a wife eight months pregnant.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

    I visited the Istanbul consulate last spring. It is certainly a fortress of sorts, but it is a tasteful one. The building itself is quite a distance from the gate where the battle with  police occurred. Inside it is a government office, basic rather than luxurious, but not spartan, with open spaces and artistic touches that reflect a sophisticated design. Behind its walls, it is a faraway place, faraway and a little sad I think.