Gold Istanbul 2010 took place on 18-21 February, a cooperation with Jewellery Association of Istanbul and the TUYAP Fair, Convention and Congress Center is expected to see 20,000 people from 60 nations attend. It will showcase a wide array of gold rings, earrings, bracelets and watches, among other items, that reflect the latest design trends in the sector. Almost 400 firms from 15 countries are displaying their wares at Gold Istanbul 2010. Turkey’s jewellery market is estimated to be worth $7 billion (£4.6 billion).

Gold has always been an intrinsic part of Turkish and figures from the Turkish ministry of energy and natural resources suggested that the country’s gold production will rise to 38 tonnes by the end of 2010 compared with 11.1 tonnes in 2008. Whilst Gold Istanbul 2010 showcased the products, gold and jewellery have been traded and produced for hundreds of years in Istanbul’s gold market in the Grand Bazaar ( Kapali Çarsi or covered market), constructed between 1455 and 1461 and is largest in the world. Considerably more gold pours through this Bazaar in a year than the total held in the UK’s gold reserves.

Here is how it works, a report by Arnaud Blin for France3:

8am. The banks are still closed.  However, one financial centre is already welcoming its first customers of which there are many.  Each year, 22 billion Euros pass through here, either through direct sales or via its exchange.

But there are no computers or luxurious offices here.  At the heart of Istanbul’s Grand Bazar, only a telephone is needed to buy and sell gold all over Turkey.

A merchant « It’s very stressful to be next to them, it’s not easy.  What’s more, we cannot live to be old in our bazar because of the stress.  But anyone who breathes the air of the bazar cannot live anywhere else afterwards. »

Gold galore, gold that is sold, bought and displayed.  In the largest covered market in the world, hundreds of items of jewellery sparkle like Aladdin’s lamps.  All of Turkey, all classes mixed together, have walked around here for more than five centuries.

A merchant: “It’s a tradition for us, we buy this gold to give away at weddings and circumcision ceremonies.  It depends on people’s wealth but I know people who buy 50000 dollars worth of gold for a wedding. It varies between 500 and 50000 dollars.  For our marriage, we received roughly 300 grams of gold, which is worth about 3000-4000 dollars today”

“It depends on each individual’s desires, but generally in Turkey, the weight in grams is a lot more important than the beauty of the jewel.”

In the grand bazar, gold determines everything, even the sale or rental price of stores.

A merchant: “For the bride, gold is a guaranteed resource if she gets divorced.  She can bury it and get it out again if necessary.  Gold never loses its value.  During times of war, paper money burnt or mice ate it.  It therefore lost its value but gold never lost its value.  Personally, I don’t have a bank account, I keep gold to hand and if a bank goes bankrupt I don’t have any problems.”

Few countries are so devoted to gold and not one has a place dedicated to it like the Grand Bazaar.  Before, it came from Sudan and Egypt.  Now it comes from South America and Russia.

A store with a visible front, has displays in flashy windows and trades out in the open.  But there is another type of store which is strictly forbidden to the general public, where secrecy and discretion are the golden rules.

To gain access, you must pass through the door of warehouses where caravans on the Silk Route once went.  There, in these tiny workshops, merchants are giving way to artists.

Each year, more than 400 tons of gold pass through their fingers.  A third goes abroad making Turkey the second biggest exporter of worked gold in the world behind Italy.

A craftsman: “Each piece of jewellery has its own value.  We create very different pieces.  As such, each piece of jewellery has a place in my heart.  When I see a woman in the street, I look straight at her neck and her hands to see if she is wearing one of my pieces.”

An old Turkish proverb states that Istanbul is paved with gold.  In the 3000 workshops which surround the grand bazar, it is true that it permeates everywhere.

A craftsman: “I take the piece of jewellery that I am working on and I clean it well so that I don’t lose any of the dust.  We always have a brush in our hands to push the dust into our leather apron, because gold is precious’.  We don’t need to wash our shoes because there are grills on the floor which the dust slides through.”

A collector of gold dust: “A whole sector has been developed around dust collection. Eight to ten companies take care of it.  They come, sweeping, picking up dust from the pipes and the buildings.  They then take it to refineries, burn it and finally recover the gold.  For each kilo of gold that we work on here, fifty to seventy grams leave as dust.”

“We process around three to four tons of dust per week.  We use old techniques and chemical products.  We process the dust from each customer separately.  This customer will have this dust and that customer that dust.  Therefore we can send each customer their ingots separately.  Today we processed a ton of dust and look at what we got: 90 grams of gold.  That’s pure gold.”

Whilst the Turk’s attachment to gold remains as strong as ever, some things have changed.  By filling more and more windows, gold seems to have lost some of its magic.

A craftsman: “When I was little, jewellery was made differently, but now there is no master who knows his art.  There are no customers either who pay attention to this work.  In the past, the master carried out his work with the greatest of care.  Now it has to be finished as quickly as possible so that it can be sold as quickly as possible.”

“You must have seen walking round here that there is tons of gold here and there, its a bit like the tip of an iceberg, in fact it’s just like that.»

830pm.  The doors of the Grand Bazaar close on one hundred tons of gold.  It’s the biggest vault in Turkey.

Transcription:  ABW for goldcoin.org

Tags: Gold

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