Flags and Cats

The night we arrived in town for the FotoIstanbul photographic festival, I was so dead tired that I didn't want to take pictures. Something, however, caught my eye immediately. Two things, actually — cats and flags. I was amused by the unprecedented amount of both on streets of all Istanbul quarters. In Istanbul, flags of various sizes were hanging from balconies, shopfronts, public buses, — in short, from everywhere. The locals' obsession with flags seemed strange to me, and interesting at the same time. As for the cats, they owned this city, fearless and replete creatures. And just as flags, they were everywhere. It was actually a very interesting city, a city of extremes. I left it while thinking of visiting once again.