Winds of Change and Seagulls

Walk twenty steps, now turn right, go fifty steps, now turn left and go forty steps.

Do you see the red pole?

Yes, now turn left past the red pole and go another fifty steps.

You will see a big door, open it and enter.

Today I was looking out the window and saw a seagull. Don't ask me why there are seagulls in Moscow, they fly along the river and come here too.

First it pretended to land on a chimney, then it flew timidly, each time pretending to land on a rooftop, and then it landed on a rooftop behind, a little further away.

After playing with its wings there for a while, it flew back this way and landed on the same roof it had pretended to land on before. 

Today the sun came out for a while, and after sunbathing here for a while, it flew back to the roof behind, but suddenly descended and landed on another roof.

Sometimes I come across migration maps of migratory birds on the internet with a transmitter attached to it.

As far as I know, falcons are not migratory birds, but I keep coming across a map showing the route of a falcon released from South Africa, maybe a hawk, I can't be sure now, but it's definitely a bird of prey, which first flew north across Africa, then flew north through Egypt, Israel and Lebanon to Turkey, then flew a little west in Turkey, then turned north again and went to Finland.

It's very interesting really, since they don't have a GPS system or anything like that, one is amazed at how they can fly along such a route, which can almost be called a straight line.

They don't have a map of the whole world in their minds.

They cannot be following the north star like the old sailors. 

At least there is no indication that they understand astrology.

But it is as if a program has been installed in them to orient themselves to the north and fly all those kilometers every year.

As in the seagull example I gave at the beginning, they do not know the earth inch by inch. 

According to the researches, they do not have anything like magnetic sensors in their nature.

But somehow, they somehow determine their direction and fly all these distances every year.

Our nature does not have a similar navigation system.

Although, if I have seen a place once, I don't easily forget it. However, my wife is a complete disaster when it comes to directions. She can't even find where we parked the car at the grocery store on her own.

Let me tell you about one of my good memories from the old times related to these directions.

When I first came to Moscow, one day the company took a decision and canceled overtime work. For some reason the company management said that everyone would work only 8 hours a day.

We engineers don't work for an hourly wage, but after the workers left, maybe one more hour and the work we had to do for the day was over.

It was right in the summer. I mean, I've written before, the sun sets quite late in the summer here. In late June, it would be bright even until 11 o'clock at night.

I was in my teenage years, a bit flighty, a bit crazy.

A friend of mine and I started to visit Moscow's bars every evening.

I don't know if it exists now, but back then there was a magazine called "Moscow Times", and in that magazine there would be a list of famous entertainment centers, restaurants or bars. Along with recommendations, there would also be directions on how to get there and from which metro.

Back then, there were no navigators on cell phones like there are now. There were maps printed on paper, but they were usually in Russian. So maps were not very useful.

Of course, at that time, our Russian was quite inadequate and we didn't have any cars. I would say 1995-1996.

We had to take the subway wherever we went. The entire subway map of Moscow was engraved in our minds. Without even looking at the subway map, we would find the place we decided to go that day on foot, without even looking at the subway map, by taking whichever subway we were going to take, then walking this many meters in that direction as described in the magazine, and then this many meters down that street.

I knew the metro map very well, but I actually had no idea about the layout of Moscow. In fact, one cannot perceive distances on a map that well.

Years later, when I bought a car, it dawned on me while driving on the streets, how close this metro exit and that metro exit were to each other, that this place we were going to was actually just two streets away from this place we were going to later.

I mean, sometimes you have to learn to look at things from a different perspective in order to perceive them better. As soon as you can overlap your old experience with another experience, you understand things much better.

If you just keep doing the same thing, no matter how experienced you are at what you are doing, the big picture doesn't sink in.

Don't say it's the same topic again, but I think it's long past time for people in Turkey to experience life from a different perspective.

Let's see what free life is like, and let at least those who were born during this period of power, or those who are trying to find their identity during this period of power, benefit from these winds of change.

Maybe it will also help those who grew up a little more conservative. This is especially true for those who have settled in our coastal cities. 

Perhaps everyone will say, look at how similar we actually are. 

It is raining in Istanbul today, but let me end this article by saying that the end of March will be spring.

However, I was really amazed once when I saw how close the subway exits were, especially in the center of Moscow.

Love and respect to everyone from Moscow