A typical turkish family. Or is it really?

In Greece , Turkish TV series have started to become more and more popular. This is something not only about Greece, but it is about marketing strategy of Turkish TV channels.

The Turkish TV industry actually made their initial sales to Arabic countries. The most of the TV series are like old fashion soap operas and stories of meaningless lives of rich people. Nevertheless, only 2 TV series (that I am aware of) had been shown in Greece TV; one about the Greek and Turkish couples life (3 years ago) and a soap opera style bull$hit (1 year ago).

Till now that was it and to be fair, these two TV series were somewhat on interest of Greeks.

BUT, things are getting worse. Now there are two new soap operas (1 hour per episode) are coming to Greek TV and this time they have no connection with Greek people. So, they are just like another soap opera bought from Brazil or Argentine.

In Turkey, most of the national channels are covered with Turkish TV series on prime time and everybody “follows” 2-3 TV series in detail. Fan groups, water machine discussions are all about them. The series are extremely long (1.5 with commercials) and repeated maybe 4 times a week. Industry employees so much “wanna-be-actors” and the competition is very brutal. Every second month we hear about a death of an actor or actress because of heavy working conditions. Of course, they work too hard, otherwise how can you deliver 1 hour episode each week.

Therefore, I believe Greek Nation is under threat of Turkish TV culture. I am aware that Greek TV culture is not any better, but if what happened to Turkish TV happens to Greek TV; you will miss the current situation, that I can give you the guarantee.

Greek Kourabiedes / Κουραμπιές

by Irine Mina
Run time: 00:06:29

Editors Note: Kourabiedes is a Greek butter cookies which is made mostly at Christmas time. There is a misconception about the name, Kourabiedes, in Turkish; which you might read here…

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Greek Kourabiedes / Κουραμπιές

Turkish Un Kurabiyesi

Now, that is an easy one. Kourabiedes (Κουραμπιές) is a Greek butter cookies which is mostly done in Christmas time. It is kind of a must-have things of Christmas.

When I heard the name for the first time I was confused about it.

So, I calmly ask,
- “Which one?”.
The reply was more confused,
- “The Christmas one ??!”

After a couple of hours when I started to eat them, mistery was unleashed.

The reason is; Kurabiye, which is clearly the same word in Turkish, means Cookie; BUT any kind of cookie. You can use the word “kurabiye” and make any cookie name like “Cikolatalik Kurabiye = Chokolate Cookie” or “Un Kurabiyesi = Flower Cookie”.

But in Greece it clearly means a specific type of cookie. Most closest kurabiye I know to Kourabiedes is UN KURABIYESI which my mom used to do a LOT when I was a kid so I like Christmas

Turkey has different types of passports for their citizens. Which is very ugly thing to do, but whatever I think about it, it did not change till now and it does not look it will change in near future.

There are 4 colors of passports. Navy color is the common citizen passport, Red is diplomatic passport, Gray is for special government officers and Green one is the most unusual and special one. People who work in government more than 10 years can get Green passport (including army members, and union registered business men etc.), moreover their unmarried kids can have green passport too. This passport is like European passports, it allows you to enter many countries in the world up to 90 days without visa (which is very unusual for the rest of the Turks).

Till today Green passport holders were also HAVE TO get visa from Greece. But, today Greek and Turkish governments announced that from now on Green passport holders can enter to Greece.

The main follower of the topic was the business men from Turkey. Most of them hold green passport after being registered in a business union and owns a stable business in Turkey. Because they travel abroad a lot and green passport is very useful for them. Turkey is increasing business relationship with Greece since 1992 and Aegean cost cities are the main importer-exporters.

What is next?
Now the same people who ran after entering Greece without visa are trying to convince Greek government for 2 days limited entrance for ALL Turkish citizens to Greece. The main idea is to increase number of Turkish tourists visiting Greek islands and make more business with Greeks.

What about Greeks?
Till now, any Greek could enter Turkey without visa and stay 90 days in a period of 6 months. But, Turkey also passed another law and in very near future Greeks will be able to enter Turkey with their Greek identity card or driving licenses, which is very friendly I think.

For more information:
Hellenic Ministry of Foreign Affairs
Republic of Turkey Ministry of Foreign Affairs

I live in Denmark; one of the most expensive IT market of the Europe. The prices are high because of taxes. Even worse, products for each peripheral is so limited to couple of models and brand names; IT shopping is NOT fun at all. So, what I do is to shop when I am in Turkey or in Greece and try to save some money and enjoy the shopping with variety of products. The truth is Turkey is the best to find different brand names or models. You can nearly find what ever you want.

In recent years, after some shopping in Athens I decided to compare the prices. Turkey has the best variety but does it have best prices?

What I did is, I used two well-known online shopping websites from each country and try to find whatever I want.

Greek website is www.plaisio.gr. I trust them, they have good prices, nice service and (some) level of vareity in their products. Turkish website is www.hepsiburada.com; which is also a good website with good service. They only work online and they sell nearly whatever Amazon sells (in scale of Turkish market). I selected these sites because this is actually what I would do in real life, to shop in Greece or Turkey.

Here is the list of products, I have recently buy or I am planing to buy in next 6 months. All prices are in Euros*:

Product	Greece	Turkey
Western Digital Media Player TV HD (WDBABG0000NBK)	120,90	82,41
Kodak P825 Digital Photo Frame ( 8” )	69,00	107,76
HP Officejet 4500 Desktop	132,10	93.94
Asus P6T Deluxe V2 Motherboard	280,00	168,91
Htc HD2	599,00	774,40
Blizzard Starcraft II : Wings Of Liberty	59,00	70,67
Transcend 500GB Extrernal HDD (TS500GSJ25M)	75,01	96,23
Symantec Norton 360 Version 4.0	82,50	31,07
Philips 241E1SB TFT Monitor 23,6”	202,00	248,83
TOTAL	1619.51	1674.22

The result is similar but in most of the important products for me, Athens is cheaper. Maybe I should shop from Athens after all.

Moreover, actually we are talking about a great un-equality here. Gross yearly income per person in Greece is 3 times higher than Turkey; so how the fuck Turks buy so much IT products?

* The exchange rate for Turkish Liras was (1 EUR = 1.96677 TRY)

Turks looked like they could never give up from smoking habit just a year ago.

Do you remember the article I have written about smoking ban comparison between Greece and Turkey. You may read it here.

On Saturday, there was an article about smoking ban in Turkey at Greek newspaper Ta Nea. The article was written by Anna Andreou, of course, in Greek. I read the Google translate version of it. It says:

On July 19 ended a year since implemented a ban on smoking in enclosed public places in Turkey. The Government celebrates that smoking has been reduced by 20%. “Smokers were 26 million and decreased to 22 million. Four million have quited. We predict that by the end of the year smokers will decrease to 17 million, “said the deputy governor Ahmet Aydin Istanbul.

Do not think that, all Turks are interested in their health. One of the major reason that number of smokers reduced is that the price of the 1 package of cigarette increased nearly 100%. Actually, now it is more expensive than Greece; around €3.5. If you think that Turks gross yearly income per year is 3 times less than Greek average; actually price story tells it all.

The comments by the readers on the website are quite interesting. Read all if you have time…

UPDATE 2010-July-27
I read this at Kathimerini today:

Harvard to help in smoking ban
Greece is gearing up for a blanket ban on smoking in public places by enlisting the help of Harvard University, with which it signed an agreement yesterday to provide help developing the government’s anti-tobacco policies and mounting publicity campaigns.

The Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) will also help Greece conduct research, organize conferences and train all the officials who will be involved in imposing the ban as well as developing strategies to foster an anti-smoking culture, particularly among children. The smoking ban, which will prevent Greeks from lighting up in bars, cafes and restaurants, will come into effect on September 1.

Julio Frenk, the dean of the HSPH, which has some 300 teaching staff and 950 students, signed the memorandum of cooperation along with the Health Ministry’s general secretary, Antonis Dimopoulos, and the president of the Hellenic Cancer Society, Stavros Besbeas.

UPDATE

2010-Aug-02 : According to the latest statistics Greeks are the (officially) number 1 in smoking. See below numbers.

World's Biggest Smokers: Greece is the winner !

Cover of the album

Ajda Pekkan is a Turkish singer. For many years of her career is the period where the European soft pop risen up between mid 60s to 80s.

This week she has released a new special album. The songs are not new, they have been sang in mid 70s, but the importance of them are that she was singing in Greek and they have never been published before. I will try to order one, it might be interesting to hear…

You might also wonder what is the relevance of the album with this site. Well, to be honest, I just published here, because I never heard a Greek singer sing in turkish in mid-70s. Am I right?

A Tavla from Lebanon

In last years I had many discussions about, Tavla or Tavli or even Backgammon if you like, in Greece. People in Greece are also very into Tavli as in Turkey. In this article, I am unrevealing the immortal discussion about where the Tavla comes from and what the frack we are talking about when we say TAVLA or TAVLI…

The lingo of the game
Tavli is a set of games played in Greece. There are many different types to play in one set of game. A game can finish when a player reach 3-5-7-9 points. You decide before you start for the necessary points and the type of games you will play. Most common types of games are Portes, Plakato and Fevga. The first one, Portes, is the original version of Backgammon which British totally massed it up with new rules (if you want to know what is Backgammon, go somewhere else).

Tavla is a well-known game and continues challenge between “men” in Turkey. Women also plays very good but we even call the game “Men Tavla / Erkek Tavlasi” so you might imagine how important it is for Turkish men. BUT, Tavla means only Portes in Turkey. The exact same one with the Greek Portes and not much people know Plakato or Fevga.

I met Greek Tavli when I met my Greek wife many years ago. After playing Portes one round, she asked me which one I want to continue with ! I was surprised, I asked what she meant and we unrevealed the fact that most of the Turks, including me, are not aware of those two other games. After I learnt Plakato and Fevga, I remembered that my father was playing Plakato (we call it Hapis/ Jail) with his friends but never cared to play with me. The reason was “it is an elderly game, not for kids (amateurs) like you” he said.

Where does it come from?
Well, you will be surprised but series of websites that I look into gives me the impression of “blame the eastern one” trick. What does it mean? It means, (some) Greek believe it comes from Turkey, Turks believe (mostly) it comes from Persia and Persians believe it comes from India. Indians has no idea about the game !

But in over all, which made the game famous all around the world was Ottoman Empire; which includes current day Persia, Turkey and Greece. In the famous movie “Topkapi (1964)” Melina Mercouri which was the ex-culture minister of Greece, says “It is a Turkish game, you know”…

There are also other approaches to the origin.

For example, have a look at the Greek Vaze picture in the logo of this blog; the brown and black one from ancient Greece on the left. There you will see two men playing a “game” on a board. Most of the Greeks I met, who believe Tavli is a original Greek game, points out these kind of ancient figure to prove that the game is Greek.

Persians do not even discuss where it comes from. As a nation with lot of clever games (for example Chess) they without discussion say that, the game is Persian.

Turks, including me, are more relax on the topic. We do not simply care what the origin is, we just try to play the game as good as we can. And, I do not want to be snob, but I can at least go head to head with my Greek, Iranian and Turkish friends in the game what ever the type we are playing.

At WikiPedia English edition, there is a fantastic article about the origins and names that used for the game. For more info read that page !

The album has a very nice cover

The best clarinet player of Turkey, Hüsnü Şenlendirici, made a new album with Trio Chios from Greece. The album has been published last month and we happened to see it in a shop in Turkey. The title of the album is “Ege’nin iki yani – Both sides of Aegean”. I believe, there is no “bad” song in the album, it is a MUST have for Aegean music lovers !…

Here is a nice song from the album…