We went to bed at half past one, got up at 7. If anyone doesn't know, check-in for international flights starts two hours before departure, and the airport highly recommends that you arrive exactly like that – well in advance. Basically, everything depends on the number of queues and checks. We showed up at the airport early, so we killed time eating sandwiches, a whole mountain of which had been made for our journey. (I won't say by who, so I don't get it wrong, plus you don't know anyone yet anyway).
As for check-in, we got lucky – it went very fast, there were no queues. No special bureaucracy regarding the bikes – they didn't even weigh them, just asked for the weight and wrote down the same one for everyone.
The only tricky bit – when transporting bicycles, you have to let the air out of the tires – I knew about this, but forgot to do it. That's why when they asked us: “Is the air let out?”, I boldly lied “Of course”. Viktor, who was standing next to me, figured out that he should repeat the exact same thing – because our bikes were already tightly packed, and getting them out to deflate the tires is an unpleasant chore.
Sergey also managed to ask me why it's even needed in the first place, and what he should say. I'm no great expert in physics, but I remember that an airplane's cargo hold is not isolated from the environment, unlike the cabin, and therefore, when the plane climbs to its cruising altitude of ten kilometers, the tire pressure will somewhat increase. That is, theoretically, they could burst. I wasn't worried about mine – I have a hybrid with thin, expensive tires and sporty inner tubes – it routinely withstands 6 atmospheres, and I have no more than 4 pumped in. Actually, even the worst-case scenario – an inner tube popping – isn't all that terrible. So I told Sergey not to worry, and in the end, he lied even smoother than me to the question about deflated tires: he answered “as required”.
I didn't know this back then, but later I read up on how much the pressure difference grows during the climb. If I understood correctly, a maximum of about 0.6 atmospheres gets added – and this can only cause damage if your tires are pumped right up to the absolute limit, which you shouldn't do anyway.
There is another interesting question regarding cabin pressure. Why do your ears pop on takeoff, if the cabin is hermetically sealed from the environment for obvious reasons? Try to answer without Google, and I will reveal the correct answer in the next episode.
We breezed through security, had to wander around the tax-free zone, sipping coffee. Also, in tax-free, “Absolut” vodka is sold in cool aluminum bottles, although starting from a liter in size.
For the trip, the only clothes I took were a thin cycling jacket and windproof pants, which, due to their ultra-compactness and thinness, in light of current trends, I dubbed the “nanojacket” and “nanopants”. However, I put them in the luggage, so I boarded the plane in shorts and a t-shirt. It's a very pleasant feeling – you're flying to the ends of the earth, and you're traveling light.
We were supposed to fly for 2 hours and 55 minutes, but following the airBaltic tradition, the flight was delayed for about half an hour. The destination – Atatürk airport. I read somewhere that there are 6 international airports in Istanbul. Turns out that's not true – there are two. And the number 6 came from the Great Soviet Encyclopedia, which I also had on my iPhone. The data in it is from around 1974, and despite the overall awesomeness of the GSE, it's still better to quote up-to-date information from Wikipedia.
As for Atatürk, it's worth clarifying for those who, like me, had only heard this word in passing before.
In 1881, Mustafa Kemal was born, the man who dragged Turkey by the ears out of the Middle Ages into the modern world. Turkey was a remnant of the Ottoman Empire, basically a backward and disrespected country. First, during World War I, Kemal successfully defended against the forces of the Entente (those are like the good guys), never letting them capture the Dardanelles (that's like a strait from the Mediterranean Sea into , thereby earning himself a reputation. After the existing parliament was dispersed by the British and their occupation of Istanbul in 1920, Mustafa created the independent "Grand National Assembly of Turkey” and spearheaded the struggle for independence, and Mustafa did not shy away from using any methods. His words are famous: “I don't order you to attack, I order you to die!”. Part of the Armenian genocide of 1877-1923 also took place with the connivance of Kemal Pasha. This, however, in no way stopped the Soviet government – to help in the revolutionary struggle in 1920, the Kemalists received from it more than 10 million rubles, ammunition, weapons and so on. I wonder if the Turks remember this now, at least those interested in history.
Not surprisingly, Mustafa got his way - on October 30, 1923, the first republican government was created, and the national assembly (that is, the parliament) dubbed its benefactor an atatürk, meaning the “father of the Turks”. From now on, Mustafa is president, and he is called none other than Mustafa Kemal Atatürk (officially he was given this name only in the 30s)
During his rule, Atatürk carried out a simply gigantic amount of very important and profound reforms, so I will list only the most relevant ones for us.
- Granting women equal rights with men (1926—34).
- Banning the activities of religious cloisters and orders (November 30, 1925).
- Introduction of the international system of time, calendar, and measurements (1925—31).
- Abolition of the Mecelle (a code of laws based on Sharia) (1924—1937).
- Adoption of a new Civil Code and other laws, as a result of which the transition to a secular system of government became possible.
- Adoption of the new Turkish alphabet (November 1, 1928).
Atatürk made Turkey secular, modern, and European, and it is thanks to him that we go there to calmly vacation, and don't expect Islamic terrorists from there.