In 1991 I lived for three months in Üsküdar, a suburb of Istanbul on the Asian side of the Bosphorus, with a residency grant from the Berlin Cultural Senate. In order to reach the culture and beauty of Istanbul and to see colleagues and friends, I often crossed to the European side by boat and back to Asia. Image 01 üsküdar 28 november 1991 ... I think about my journeys, about the experience of this city, about the calling, so plaintive, so wistfully sounding voices praising allah or vegetables or the boat trips to beşiktaş – everything changes into a rhythmic chant, where the words are provided with melodious endings to better flow from the tongue into the ears of the others / / everyone knows where the small boats leave for beşiktaş – nevertheless, an old man is screaming shrilly "beşiktaş, beşiktaş" at some distance from the boat jetty and waves with wild, almost desperate hand movements in the direction of the boat – maybe it is the last boot to beşiktaş, are there no more passages across the water in these gray, lost days – maybe he is only expressing his poverty, complains that he stands in the rain and wind and hopes that he gets a few lira more when he screams very loud - in front of the boat, next to the sign with the inscription "beşiktaş", stands a young man and repeats tunefully "beşiktaş" when the old man breathes in – and then these leaden rides in boats, that seem now in winter to sink deeper into the water, so that i have to hold up my nose to let my eyes wander over the water surface to see the many large and small boats that slide magically towards and past each other ... / / at midnight, when i came to the port, the small boat was already waiting for me and slid across the pitch-black water like on ice... images 02-15 üsküdar 12/3/91 breakfast with a soft-boiled egg and fresh walnuts – i break them open with a hammer and get a slight fright when they open like a head and reveal two beautifully twisted, symmetrical halves of the brain. // several times i went to the window when i heard longing calls or the clattering of horses' hooves - bakkal adem sokak is like a stage where all groups of istanbul's heterogeneous society perform: scrap dealers and rag collectors push flat carts - gypsies collect rubbish in garbage cans on wheels – a small, stable horse pulls a nomadic family past ; they sit amidst junk on their wooden wagon, the young woman like a flower with her flowered skirt spread out - trucks with coal, with gas, with pepsi-cola, expensive cars, rotten cars, yellow taxis - a street vendor with bananas - a street vendor with fish – well-dressed children, poor children and the veiled black women – there is everything from everything…