استانبول/İstanbul, april 2025
İstanbul Patchwork
The wandering of color





استانبول/İstanbul, april 2025
İstanbul Patchwork
The wandering of color

یا بن بیزنطینی آلورم یا دا بیزنطینی بن آلیر
Either I will conquer Constantinople, or Constantinople will conquer me.
— Mehmed the Conqueror

It will conquer you. Raw, vast, crowded, fresh, wild, mixed, luminous - that's Istanbul. It has always been there, but it is never the same. The light of Asia seems to come to Europe through this place. It's a light of a different quality, defined by a vast space. That light was there when it was Constantinople and it will be there when we are all gone.


The light remains, it just meets a different patchwork. Cities with history always keep the old and the new, the special and the ordinary in a kind of patchwork, of which Istanbul is a perfect example.


Andrey Gordasevich

It will conquer you. Raw, vast, crowded, fresh, wild, mixed, luminous - that's Istanbul. It has always been there, but it is never the same. The light of Asia seems to come to Europe through this place. It's a light of a different quality, defined by a vast space. That light was there when it was Constantinople and it will be there when we are all gone.


The light remains, it just meets a different patchwork. Cities with history always keep the old and the new, the special and the ordinary in a kind of patchwork, of which Istanbul is a perfect example.



Andrey Gordasevich
A page from the Cedid Atlas ("New Atlas"), the first modern atlas produced in the Muslim world, printed and published in Istanbul in 1803 and containing 24 hand-colored copper engraved maps.
A page from the Cedid Atlas ("New Atlas"), the first modern atlas produced in the Muslim world, printed and published in Istanbul in 1803 and containing 24 hand-colored copper engraved maps.
A 1927 map of Turkey, published before the alphabet reform.
A 1927 map of Turkey, published before the alphabet reform.
Everything we see in the world is the creative work of women.
— Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, “Father of the Turks”
Evening at a train station | Early morning near Hagia Sophia
A column in the harem section of the Topkapi Palace | A talismanic shirt of a sultan
A man with a parrot near the Galata bridge
At the Sultanakhmet Mosque
Hagia Sophia: 19th century Ottoman calligraphy medallion | The Virgin hidden behind strips of fabric after the conversion of the museum into a mosque in 2020.
Old house at the Golden Horn
An old bus near Sultanakhmet | A seagull on a small market roof near Sirkeci
A book decoration in the Topkapi palace treasury | A wall fragment in the Topkapi palace
Divan Yolu street in the morning with Hagia Sophia in the background
Dolphin telephones in Ortaköy | Antiquity shop in Balat
A carpet shop in the city center | A door in the Topkapi palace
Small market fridge in the morning | Cafe in Ortaköy | Abord the Golden Horn ship
Ships cleaning near Eminönü station
Fisherman feeding the gulls on Galata bridge | Topkapi palace treasury | Bosphoros ship passenger
A cat at the Suleymaniye Mosque cemetery | A street scene at Nuruosmaniye
Cinematic underpass, Ayvansaray road
Light on a carpet in Suleimaniye Mosque
بر نفسلك حضور، بن یللك ساواشتن یغدر
A single breath of peace is better than a thousand years of war.
— Suleiman the Magnificent
All images on this website are available as fine art prints.

Contact me for photography education and individual consulting:
general, documentary, street photography, analog & digital, storytelling, websites, longreads, book production, photowalks. Ask me when in doubt.
See more and follow me on Facebook and Instagram
If you like what you see and want to support my work...
The author is grateful to Alla Nikitina for refreshing color discussions
and to Max Shushakov for the technical support.

Made on
Tilda