Kuzguncuk kept its synagogues, its Armenian and Greek churches, and its mosque on a single short street, and still does. For centuries this pocket on the Asian shore of the Bosphorus was one of Istanbul's most mixed neighbourhoods, home to Jews, Armenians, Greeks and Turks who lived door to door. Its Jewish community was large enough that some called it a little Jerusalem, and a hillside cemetery still climbs behind the houses. The name may come from a dervish, Kuzgun Baba, said to have settled here.
Today Kuzguncuk feels less like a district than a village the city forgot to swallow. You walk İcadiye Caddesi past painted wooden houses in ochre, rose and faded blue, low enough to read the shutters. Cats sleep on café chairs, small galleries open onto the pavement, and a rare surviving market garden, the bostan, still grows vegetables between the buildings. At the bottom the street meets the water, where fishermen and ferries share the view of the European shore. It is quiet, lived-in, and unhurried.