Sunday Feature

Since the siege of Troy, the Turkish Straits between the Dardanelles and the Northern end of the Bosphorus have been of vital strategic importance. The water has been both a source of prosperity and the cause of political battles for Istanbul. Tom de Waal takes a journey up the Bosphorus and talks to writers Orhan Pamuk and Elif Shafak, Professors Gun Kut and Edhem Eldem, and Captains Rajiv Kumar and Mete Kocar to present a portrait of Istanbul as seen from its seaway.