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Sunday 5 July 2009

Kum Kapi, Istanbul

I found this interesting info re Kum Kapi (or Kumkapi) via the Facebook events page on masterclasses by the artist photographer Georgios Katsengelos and the curator Maria Tsantsanoglou at Utopiana in Yerevan:

"Kum Kapi is one of the historical districts of Istanbul in the centre of the southern part of the city walls and traditionally it used to be the living area of the local Armenians and still houses the Armenian Patriarchate.

This area is now crowded with refugees, most of them coming from the countries of the ex Soviet Union. They are divided into national communities and their common language is Russian.

The old Armenian houses and small apartments of Kum Kapi, designed for one or at least two families, are today transformed into warehouses of people renting beds while looking desperately for job opportunities."

*photo - via Facebook events page by Utopiana

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