Thursday, November 06, 2008

Maksim Gazinosu

















This post is actually in "response" to M. Serdar K.'s post on the Maksim Gazino. Serdar and I park our car in the same parking lot, which is in the heart of Taksim behind the Marmara hotel, in the Beyoglu district, inside the building falling apart.

This "old" building or what's left of it used to be the Maksim Gazino, the last surviving large gazino, owned by the “king of gazinos” Fahrettin Aslan. One of the trendiest place of Istanbul (if not the trendiest), the Turkish "Olympia" for the connoisseurs. All the big Turkish stars performed or/and were discovered there.
If you read/speak Turkish I would advise you to read Serdar's post to learn more about it.

Since I didn't grow up in turkey, gazino is a strange concept for me. I never really understood what it was or what it meant. I just thought it was the Turkish way to say "Casino", but it's not. It's a kind of night club/music hall.

Anyway, I'm always out taking photos and I realized (Serdar made me) that I never cared (or dared) having a look inside that "building". So I went and took a few pictures.
All the gazinos in Turkey were forbidden* a few years ago (probably because of the unauthorized gambling going on - anyone knows ?) so they all shut down and ended like this one, waiting to be turned into a hotel or a mall.

*I've just been told that they weren't forbidden but they had to close because of the lack of interests after the advent of private TV. It was reopened back in the mid 1990's with great performers like Ibrahim Tatlıses, Bülent Ersoy, Sibel Can, Emel Sayın and many more only to struggle and finally close forever.

To learn more about gazino, go here.




























The ropes holding the lusters are still there.












I even dared going inside the pitch black staircase to see what was inside. The bad smell and the dirt kept me fro, going further.




























The old fake ceiling is still in place.

4 comments:

Unknown said...

Looks like it used to be a beautiful place! Such a shame that they've turned this place that had such an impact in the entertainment history into a parking lot. If this place was in the U.S. they would've turned into a great museum. A classic turkish way of thinking, we don't know or care about conserving what's important to us. It pisses me off!...

Djouls said...

Calm down man ;)

Unknown said...

Waw.. Thanks for the photos..

Beyza Boyacioglu said...

Hi, I'm a documentary filmmaker and I'm working on a project related to Maksim. If possible, I would like to talk to you about your shooting process, can you send me an email at beyzabo@gmail.com? Thanks!