Goldfinch (Greek: καρδερίνα; Turkish: saka)

Minas was born in 1948 and moved to Athens in 1973. By that time, only he and his aunt’s husband remained from his immediate family. Although he spent periods of his life in different parts of Istanbul, he considers himself to be from Eğrikapı, a neighbourhood alongside the Land Walls on the northwestern edge of the Historic Peninsula, to which he remains deeply attached. His mother was from Eğrikapı, and his grandmother lived there. When Minas was four years old, his family moved into his grandmother’s house.

One of Minas’s stories about Eğrikapı concerns bird catching, a practice associated with the Land Walls since Ottoman times. Near Tekfur Palace (τὸ Παλάτιον τοῦ Πορφυρογεννήτου), the thirteenth-century Byzantine palace situated within the walls, Minas and his father would catch birds in the open spaces beyond Eğrikapı. The story also recalls the aftermath of the Istanbul Pogrom of 6–7 September 1955, during which Greek Orthodox homes, businesses, and institutions were among the principal targets of violence.

You walk from Tekfur Palace to Eğrikapı… Gates are usually straight, but not this one. That is why it is called the ‘Crooked Gate’… When you went out, on the right-hand side, there was a Greek Orthodox cemetery, and opposite it was a football pitch called Bozkurt Club. Behind that was a large open space where my father and I went to catch birds. We caught goldfinches—colourful birds with a red stripe on their heads, white bellies, and brownish-yellow feathers. They were good singers… We took one home, though its belly was not white but more pink.

In 1955 [during the Pogrom], the first thing I did was have a little talk with the bird. As a child, I used to tell all my secrets to it. This time, I carried the cage to the window and released it. I told the bird that I now understood we had done a cruel thing by capturing it, because now I felt imprisoned too.