Even if you don’t see them, the sound is inescapable. Mammoth cruise ships have become so familiar to those living near the Istanbul port that some local people have taken to studying the arrival times to avoid having to look at them. But they can’t escape the noise: a booming horn that ricochets over the surrounding hills. Ships from one particular cruise line even honk the theme to the television show The Love Boat as it pulls into port.
“They’re huge,” says a waiter, who gave his name as Ali, at a municipal cafe on a hill that directly overlooks Galataport, the purpose-built dock and luxury complex for cruise ships. “It completely obscures the view when they arrive.”
His cafe has become a popular haunt recently due to its prime position for a perfect view out over the Golden Horn and the Bosphorus; on a good day, you can see all the way to the historic Maiden’s Tower. But with up to three large cruise ships docking at once – sometimes so big their arrival makes headlines, like the 4,000-person capacity Splendida that pulled up in late May – even one is enough to blot out the vista. The Bosphorus is no stranger to marine traffic, and the cruise ships must cross ferry and even tanker routes to reach port.
For some local people, the cruise ships have become an irritating reminder of how a prime stretch of Istanbul’s coastline has been privatised. When it opened two years ago, the sleek €1.5bn (£1.2bn) Galataport project symbolised the transformation of about 1km of coast – turning a stretch of warehouses, an old post office, and a ferry terminal built in the 1940s, into a manicured shiny dockside complex of high-end restaurants, a hotel, luxury watch and perfume shops and an outdoor mall.
The megaproject’s ability to attract tourists and investment from Turkey’s powerful construction firms has long been touted as a success story by the government of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who in 2021 declared it a “worldwide project with the potential of drawing 25 million visitors, 7 million tourists, and 1.5 million cruise passengers”.
Originally conceived in 1994, the project faced fierce opposition long before construction began. Opponents cited a clause in Turkey’s constitution that says when it comes to the coasts, “public interest shall be taken into consideration with priority”, despite the authorities rezoning the area for tourism as a workaround. The Union of Chambers of Turkish Engineers and Architects (TMMOB) fought local authorities in court for almost two decades to try to halt the construction, citing environmental and other damages to the social fabric of the area.
Galataport’s supporters champion the project as benefiting Istanbul financially, claiming that it has created 5,000 jobs, welcomes wealthy tourists from Mediterranean cruises, and spurs wider redevelopment of the neighbourhood. A year before it opened, Ferit Şahenk, the chairman of Doğus Holding, a major investor, said: “This 1.2km-long coastline had been closed to the public for over 200 years. Now, we are opening it.”
However, critics point out that the ring of security around Galataport gives the lie to the claim that the coastline is now open. Metal walls rise between the cruise ships and the dock, further obscuring the Bosphorus for those above ground. A labyrinth of underground passport control booths and passageways lead cruise ship passengers to tour buses that spirit them across the city on day trips, mostly to major sites far from the port.
“Even if I want to go out and get a coffee, I check the cruise ships’ schedule first. Once they’re in port, they put the walls up and you don’t have access to the coast. They’re like big apartment blocks sailing in, five or six storeys high. They block everything,” says Nazlı Eğinlioğlu, 43, who lives close to the development.
A longtime member of the local residents’ association who has lived here for most of her life, Eğinlioğlu says the project has created a blast radius of gentrification, increasing her property taxes and causing rents to rise even faster than they had been already during the recent economic crisis and rapid devaluation of Turkey’s currency, the lira.
She sees the area as a gated community that is unwilling to communicate with its neighbours. “It’s become a part of the city I try to avoid, as there’s so much traffic and it’s so expensive. It’s a very nice space, it’s clean and well run, but it’s like a closed circuit, walled off from all the public space around it, detached from the local area,” she says.
As rents rise and people are forced to leave the area, many apartments are being converted into businesses, selling expensive goods and services that are out of the reach of many.
“I call it ruthless tourism,” says Eğinlioğlu. “So much of the city, businesses and state resources are directed towards tourists, but local are unable to afford these things. They become unaccessible as they’re so expensive.”
Galataport did not respond to repeated requests for comment.
Still, the project has proven so popular with Erdoğan’s government that even the administration in Istanbul, run by the main opposition party, is considering its own version of the development. The Haliçport redevelopment plan further up the Golden Horn aims to turn a historic industrial port into a vast mall and luxury hotel complex, with a marina designed to accommodate yachts. While construction is still in the early stages, the project is already drawing criticism for the destruction of historic buildings.
For Istanbul residents such as Elif Refiğ, who has lived near the port for almost two decades, seeing the cruise ships from her balcony and hearing the music that blasts from their top decks at night are constant reminders of how much the port development has reshaped the neighbourhood.
“[Now] I get lost in places I’ve been going since I was 12 years old,” she says. “In the end, the cruise ships are not a major problem, but just the latest extension of one.”
