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A cat named Kanyon has become a minor celebrity at an Istanbul shopping center after his basket was stolen, prompting visitors and residents to bring food, toys and other gifts that have turned his corner into a neighborhood attraction.
Kanyon, a white cat with gray markings living at an Istanbul shopping center, has been "getting fat" after someone stole his basket, an incident that prompted a wave of sympathy and an outpouring of snacks, love and affection.
People delivered endless supplies of food, toys, a comfortable cat house and even an Instagram page run by a fan.
The scene around his toy-filled corner, described as resembling a child's bedroom, reflects a wider reality in Istanbul, a city where street cats are fed and fussed over by residents with what some describe as an almost religious devotion.
Kanyon is not alone in becoming a local fixture. According to City Hall, Istanbul has more than 160,000 cats living on its streets, regularly cared for by the city's 16 million residents.
Across both the Asian and European sides, and even on the ferries connecting them, cats are a constant presence, snoozing on restaurant chairs, wandering through supermarkets or curled up in shop windows. They are rarely, if ever, disturbed.
"Istanbulites love animals. Here, cats can walk into shops and curl up on the most expensive of fabrics. That's why they call it 'the city of cats'," said Gaye Koselerden, 57, as she looked at Kanyon's corner.
The city's relationship with cats is often traced deep into history. In Kadikoy, locals erected a bronze statue in 2016 to memorialize Tombili ("chubby"), a pot-bellied cat whose distinctive lounging pose became an internet meme.
Elsewhere, public affection for feline mascots has been widely noted. When Gli, the tabby cat associated with the sixth-century Hagia Sophia basilica-turned-mosque, died, an obituary in the Turkish press recalled that she was stroked by U.S. President Barack Obama during a 2009 visit.
At the neighboring Topkapi Palace, once the opulent home of Ottoman sultans, a centuries-old cat flap has recently been restored.
"Cats have always been here, no doubt because they are clean and close to humans," the site's director Ilhan Kocaman told AFP.
The enduring presence of cats in Istanbul has also been linked to religious and cultural tradition. Altan Armutak, an expert at Istanbul University's veterinary history department, said the city's cat culture is often explained with reference to "the deep affection the Prophet Muhammad had for them."
He added that when the Ottomans seized Constantinople in 1453, "they found cats waiting to be fed outside fish stalls and butchers' shops." Feeding them, he said, "was seen as an offering in the name of God."
Six centuries later, cats remain a defining feature of Istanbul, but authorities are also trying to manage their numbers. City Hall sterilized more than 43,000 cats last year, a figure it said was 12 times higher than in 2015.
Officials have also voiced concern about residents' often overgenerous feeding, warning it may encourage rodents. Regional governor Davut Gul recently cautioned that in some places "you can see the rats eating the food alongside the cats," adding, "We must tackle this."
Still, such warnings appear to have had limited impact. In Macka Park, home to at least 100 cats, Fatime Ozarslan, a 22-year-old student originally from Germany, said she had not encountered the problem as she laid out wet food. "I've lived here for four months and I've never seen a single rat," she said, arguing that with so many cats, rodents "must be afraid."
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