IBE- Istanbul (Turkey): Europe’s cultural capital

My next destination after Dubai was Istanbul, one of the most important cities of Turkey. The capital of Turkey is Ankara.

Our first visit was to Sabanci University, where we attended the lectures given by some of the renowned Turkish-US faculty, expert in Turkish political-social-cultural areas. The quality of the lectures was so high that we learnt about the past and the current geo-political situation in Turkey just in a day. I was very impressed. Later on we went to Kordsa factory, Arkas, Grani Bank and HSBC. In all these organisations we were given presentations about different aspects of doing business in Turkey.

The best feature of the presentations was that I could relate all my learning and theories studied in MBA to the practical aspects of business and economy that were shown to us during these presentations. The OBPPD course, which continues throughout the MBA, helped a lot in understanding the culture of the new countries that we visited.

The presentations by the financial director of the Kordsa factory and by Granti and HSBC banks were in line with our finance module.

Apart from the official visits, we went out to explore Turkish markets that I found very similar to the one in India. I did not go to any shopping mall as I had already explored a lot in the UK and Dubai. I just went to traditional markets such as Grant Bazaar, Spice Bazaar and Taksen junction.

Turkey is vibrant and full of life. It is actually a very nice blend of Asia and Europe. You would find bazaars (markets) and ancient monuments just like in Asian countries of India and Pakistan. At the same time you would find European style of living in concepts such as work hard throughout the week and party hard on weekends. It was amazing to see people coming out in thousands on streets on Friday and Saturday evening and partying around till 3 or 4 in morning.

Thanks to the clean and blue sea, there were many restaurants offering nice views and I even went to a day long boat-tour around Bosphorus and it was fun. I enjoyed dinner at one of the most expensive restaurants of Istanbul-360°; this place was amazingly cool.

We all were surprised by the cost of living in Turkey as it was no less than what we have in the UK; may be slightly less. We wondered how an ordinary man would be surviving in such a costly city.

The hotel where we stayed offered steam, sauna and traditional Turkish hamam baths and needless to say we enjoyed all the stuff.