Traveling to Istanbul to Find My Greek Ancestors
Just how Greek am I, really?
While I was living in Beirut in 2012 I took a trip to Istanbul to go to the neighborhood my Greek great-grandparents came from. All I knew was my Grandpa, Lefty, or Elefterios Leonidas Leviticus Lavrakas, told me that his parents called the neighborhood of Constantinople they came from “Mega Revma” - Greek for big current. Back when he told me this Google wasn’t all encompassing like it is now and the helpful nerds editing Wikipedia were still working on the obvious subjects like “Paris, France,” “George Washington,” and “Pythagorean Theorem.”
It wasn’t until I was planning to go to Beirut and looking for trips to take from there that I tried another google search for Mega Revma, and this time something came up! A Wikipedia article told me that the old name for the neighborhood of Istanbul, Arnavutköy, was Mega Revma. This now gave me a reason to go to a neighborhood of Istanbul that I never would have thought to visit. I had no plan other than to wander the streets once occupied by my great-grandma, who I only remember as a little old lady in a black shawl who just sat in a corner and if approached she would angrily say something in Greek, and great-grandpa, who died when I was too young to have any memories of.
It was really just a reason to explore. I had no expectations. I left the neighborhood feeling even more confused about what it means to be attached to your ancestry.
Am I Really Greek?
My partner likes to make fun of me for saying I’m Greek. I now say it was the proudest part of my ancestry - my Greek grandfather was the only one who talked about their ancestry. He told us how to “eat like a Greek” - he gave me plums and peaches and told me to enjoy every bite, “let the juice run down my throat before the next bite.” He took us to Greek Orthodox Church on occasion even though I was raised Christian Scientist. He even bragged about how many words came from the Greek language as he picked us grandkids up from watching My Big Fat Greek Wedding where we had just watched the Greek dad do the exact same thing. The other grandparents never really talked about their Norwegian, French, Irish, or Scottish backgrounds.
Where I grew up in the suburbs of Portland we were surrounded by Greeks. They all knew each other and told us that half of a Greek village moved to Beaverton. I went to high school with their kids and saw them at the Greek festivals we attended. They were always excited to include us, but it was clear we weren’t full Greeks like them. Surrounded by people born in Greece we never really declared ourselves to be Greek, we just had some Greek flavoring on our Americanness.
Recently I took a DNA test out of curiosity. These tests have their problems. The percentages they give you aren’t saying you are X% of Y group. They tell you that you share X% of genes with what they currently find in Y group. It turns out, I share 15% of my genes with the Greeks, and 10% with Turks. So should I stop saying I’m a quarter Greek? I didn’t grow up with a tenth of my upbringing influenced by Turkish culture.
Does any of this even really matter? It’s often said only Americans really care about their ancestry. I think anyplace with a lot of immigrants will have this phenomenon, though. I don’t know how much it really matters, but I do think it’s a fun motivation for traveling.
Arnavutköy
A friend I met in Beirut who happened to be from Portland also happened to be visiting Istanbul at the same time so she joined me in seeing what my family’s old neighborhood was like.
To get to Arnavutköy from central Istanbul we caught a bus from a central station. It was a big open lot full of buses heading to different suburbs. I had looked up the route number ahead of time and wandered the lot until we found it. We were the only foreigners taking the bus to the suburbs. It was fun to spend a day away from the tourist crowds. This quest gave me a reason to go somewhere most tourists weren’t going, to take a bus ride with commuters and little old ladies off to visit friends, not people like me there to see the Blue Mosque and Hagia Sophia.
Arnavutköy is right on the Bosphorus strait on the European side. It’s full of old wooden buildings stacked on a hillside going up from the water. Fishing boats seemingly take their catches straight to the restaurants lining the water. I saw beautiful old homes for sale and imagined a world where the Lavrakas side of my family owned a home back in our homeland.
Close to the water I found a beautiful old Greek Orthodox church. I went through the big blue gateway and walked around the courtyard until an old Turkish man showed up to unlock the church for me. Inside the large, church with ornate carvings, marble, and gilded detailing I sat and imagined my great-grandparents sitting in the same spot praying about whether or not to move to America. I got emotional. I felt a connection with them. It felt spiritual.
After talking about it with my friend over lunch overlooking the water, we wandered the neighborhood some more. Up the hill I found an old Greek graveyard. I could read the Greek alphabet and looked for anyone who could be in my family. While walking around I noticed another Greek Orthodox church. This one looked older and boarded up. Maybe it was being refurbished. It appeared more humble than the other one, it looked like the church someone would attend who was planning to leave to find a life of opportunity.
All the feelings of being spiritually connected to the place I was walking dropped. The fact that my great-grandparents walked the same streets suddenly became more of an exercise of imagination than some deeper cosmic connection. While I think letting my imagination take the lead was healthy, I was initially disappointed.
I could be wrong, always, but I now don’t see my own ancestral connections as this big aspect of my life. There are religions and cultures where this connection is a strong factor in their belief, but this moment in my life made me realize it wasn’t a part of mine. Who I am now and who I surround myself with in the present are more important to me.
Do you like to travel to see places your ancestors came from? Do you think this is an uniquely American thing? Let me know your thoughts!