Aiming to celebrate the three films that were filmed there including The World is Not Enough and Skyfall, it was by way of homage to From Russia with Love that the tour was named Operation Krilencu.
As the brochure’s introduction informed, Istanbul is the only city in world to sit astride Asia and Europe, is one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world, was once known as Constantinople, is a city which had been built on seven hills, and with a population of 15 million, is the largest city in Europe. Actually, this last is not quite correct because as mentioned above, half of the city sits in Asia. While not the capital of Turkey – Ankara holds that title – Istanbul has served as the imperial capital for over 1500 years for the following empires: Eastern Roman, Latin, Byzantine and Ottoman.
Continuing the historical and cultural introduction before matters were wholeheartedly turned over to the Business of Bond, over 90% of the city’s residents are Muslim and whom are served by 2691 active mosques in the city; the Grand Bazaar is one of the oldest and largest covered markets in the world which caters to over 90 million annual visitors; below the city there are hundreds of water cisterns and above the city there are hundreds of thousands of street cats who live in little houses as built for them by the city’s human residents.
The group’s base of operation was the Wyndham Old City Hotel. Possibly the hotel could be accused of favouring form over function, it offered a funny little bar to the rear of the ground floor which boasted one group sofa and an officious looking dining table and high-backed chairs that, once populated, was reminiscent of a rarely, if ever, held SPECTRE meeting where everyone survived the evening’s agenda.
In much same way as the touring and publishing entity’s books are written, so too was the tour carried out in the same way; geographical sequence superseded film sequence, efficiency trumped sense.
Day 1
Home to From Russia with Love, The World is not Enough and Skyfall, the history and culture of the city might for some be better served by From Russia with Love. After a hotel breakfast, the group commenced the day with a spring in their step, crossed the road to Dedeefendi Cadessi and came to temporary rest. The group found themselves in front of the filigree iron work of a water cistern that was home to the telling scene in From Russia with Love where Kerim Bey ‘had to take the shot’, and kill Krilencu as he exited from the mouth of Marilyn Monroe on the poster of Call Me Bwanda.
Martijn Mulder of On the Tracks of 007 had prepared the group for a solid day’s walk. Similar to times past and for similar tours whereby his modern-day pathfinders had been instructed to attend the trips with strong shoes, day packs, water bottles, salt tablets, GPS phones, carabiners, snake poison antidotes, insurance, ice picks, energy bars, hi vis jackets and hard hats, this trip was to be marginally less fearsome to life and taxing to energy. The proximity of locations for the first and the last above-named films were such that, even in the searing heat and in clothing to assure respectful passage into mosques, the distances would be arduous only to nonagenarians of physically minimal disposition. Henceforth and thereafter a short walk led us to the to-this-day, quirky little path up which Tatiana Romanova walked on her way to the KGB / SPECTRE boss, Rosa Klebb. A little stony path, it seemed now to be either disused or at least lesser used than the little road immediately to the side and below the stony path that could accommodate modern day vehicular transportation. The little corner at which Tania asked for directions was adjacent to the same path.
Walking the bustling streets and pavements, the city’s skyline in every direction was decorated with the many mosques’ minarets that pierced the sky’s deep blue. With the 2691 mosques purveying from one to six minarets, the horizon was much decorated. The proud male citizens displayed the productivity of the famed Turkish barber and the scent of the sinus-clearing aftershave. The marketeers and restaurateurs all hailed from the same school of the hard-sell even if the evidence suggested that a quiet smile might offer easier welcome and profitable business.
The group were led to a self-contained area for the Skyfall chase that ensued in the pre-credits sequence after Ronson had been left to his own arrangements for painful passage into the afterlife. Focussing on an expanse of space in Eminonu Square in front of the Yeni Cami Mosque, we saw how the area had been set decorated with market stalls in and around which Bond’s Land Rover would tussle with Ola Rapace’s character’s Audi; machine guns and bullets causing mayhem to both shoppers and oranges alike.
The door out of which Bond exited after leaving Ronson and not finding the film’s Macguffin hard drive is now home to the Orient Bank Hotel. Found on Hobyar, Fındıkçı Remzi, the trapezoidal building is reminiscent of New York’s Flatiron building on 5th Avenue. On the last night of the tour, it was made known by one of our group passing the hotel in the evening that the bank is fully aware of its heritage as the establishment was that night holding a Skyfall screening party.
Continuing the tour, the group was introduced to all the immediately surrounding streets around Findikci Remzi and Buyuk Postane which had been used to pick up Bond, set off and give chase to Ola’s character before heading to the aforementioned market square. Reenactment shots, poses and the ‘then-versus-now’ shots were recorded.
The Marmaray Sirkeci Istasyonu train station was a revelation. Standing in for three train stations in From Russia with Love including itself and stations in Belgrade and Zagreb, focus was made first on where Britain’s secret service agent is hoping to meet Bond but is fatally first met by Red Grant through the use of the ‘Have you got a match / lighter’ line.
Greeted at the entrance by the facial bust of Ne MutluTurkum Diyene, the café where the introductions were effected was the first of many points to consider. Built in 1890, the café had been untouched by progress and time. Of paramount importance to the rarefied group, while there may undoubtedly have been modern technological advancements to within the toilets where Grant took the position of the now defunct agent to meet Bond, they were still situated in the same geographical spot of the station to the left of the café. You know you are on a unique sort of tour with quite special people when the photographing of the washrooms takes precedence over and above the history, culture and beauty of a country’s imperial capital city.
As previously used as the stop point for the Orient Express, the station’s plaques remind one of the era in more glorious times before. The stained-glass circular windows, the café’s highly polished wooden counter, the station’s clock and the platform’s bell stand in defiance to the efficient electronic and plate glass and cold steel.
Heading irrevocably toward an easy lunch, the group saw an equally lovely and still completely identifiable road in Russia with Love outside the Sarayi Muzesi. A short scene to merely show the Bulgar’s car descending a cobbled road, the area is also closely associated with the film, Topkapi.
There followed three exquisite locations pertaining to From Russia with Love. Bond and Bey descend in the city’s Basillica water cisterns to locate and use a periscope to spy into a KGB’s office. Built to supply water to the Great Palace of Constantinople, as Istanbul was then named, the cistern is 138 meters long and 64 meters wide. It received the water from the Belgrade Forest via aqueducts. Today the water level is less than what it was in the film, the cistern is beautifully lit and steel walkways guide one in and around the enclosure. Used in times past to store the city’s water that had been transported by aqueduct, aside from the identifying of the stairs down which the two protagonists descended, it was the detailed architecture to the supporting pillars that stunned and amazed. Bearing in mind the structure was purely functional and not designed to be visited by tourists, the intricacy of the ceiling rose detail confounded and amazed. This location was supposed also to be home to the scurrying rats that surrounded Bond and Bey as they navigated the subterranean passages. Discounted to be filmed in Turkey, they were later filmed as white rats covered in cocoa in a Pinewood Studios set. As the sweet-toothed rats licked the powder off of each other and confounded the film makers, rats were later bought and filmed in Spain. However, a few of the white rats made it into the finished film.
There followed a visit to the Hagia Sofia where Tania left the microfilm behind a column, where from a professional distance Bond followed, and where a Bulgar was killed by Grant. A nonetheless monolithic mosque, it suffers in comparable aesthetics to the prettier and neighbouring Blue Mosque, of which more later. In recent times past, everyone was allowed to visit the museum mosque on both floors; the film action occurred on the ground floor. Today, the building has reverted to full mosque duties whereby only certified Muslims can gain admission to the ground floor, and where for a princely E50 fee, the unaffiliated can gain access only to the second floor.
Standing in for an entrance to the Hagia Sofia, a film’s aesthetic considerations saw Tatiana coming round the corner of the 1491, Firuz Aga Mosque; the shot’s beauty thus being demonstrated by the backdrop of the aforementioned more picturesque and more photogenic Blue Mosque. While now difficult to see the Blue Mosque from the vantage point of the film’s camera angle due to the growth of foliage and trees, the column against which Tania leans and around which someone follows her are all as in the film.
Such hard work deserved a lovely dinner. Even though the hard sell appears not to work, it is still exhausting to withstand. Instead, confuse the merry hell out of the shillers and walk straight up to a table and sit down. With every restaurant along the main drags offering very close variants of the same fare, there is little to choose between them. I chose, or maybe I was in this case in fact sold, a Claypot kebab, the serving of which the was stuff of theatre. Upon the rest of the table having had their plates served, the clay pot was brought out to a small table in front of the main entrance and equidistant from far right and far left of the restaurant’s width. There then ensued furiously cooking flames, music, dancing and clapping before the pot was brought over to our table, cracked open and the contents therein poured into an equally steaming hot clay or steel ware plate. The dinner was unreservedly delicious.
Day 2
The group was led to Gate 1 of the Grand Bazaar. Just outside the gate and in a little square frontage to the mosque is where a publicity photograph had been taken of Ian Fleming. It is home also to a shot of Red Grant’s car driving away from the Bazaar and through the arched entrance / exit, and a further shot of the Bulgar who stares at the retreating car from under the pointed arched doorway to the Bazaar. Again, everything was satisfyingly untouched by the intervening 62 years. Entering the Bazaar, the initial mission was to find the correct marble water fountain against which the Bulgar leans when tracking Bond and Kerim Bey, and the correct little shop that stood in for Kerim Bey’s office. Today the Bazaar’s interior is much more brightly lit than in 1963, but the dimensions, and the hustle and bustle remain exactly the same.
The next stop, and that which became one of the absolute highlights of the tour’s offerings was to find the little square within the Bazaar where Tatiana goes to meet Rosa Klebb at her office, and where Red Grant follows and watches from behind a stairway pillar to ensure that Tania does indeed enter the office. Bearing in mind the Bazaar’s dimensions, this little space would be unlikely to be normally stumbled upon. A non-descript and uninviting little entrance pointed to Zincirli Han; a han being one of many little resting spots, or inns, where traders of old and from afar could stay, rest and continue their travels the following morning. Gorgeous, unchanged, dark and filled with trees in the bijou courtyard, it was the door to room 122 through which Tania entered in the film. The contrast between the bright and noisy of the Bazaar, and the peace and quiet of the Han was incredible to observe and experience. Today, the Han’s rooms are now home to residences and little artisan offices and studios.
Refocusing momentarily on Skyfall, we navigated to the arched entrance to the Grand Bazzar, Kalapalicarsi, which had been blocked off for both a publicity shot of Craig seemingly to slide the bike around in front of workers and baggage, and to later have fitted a ramp along which the motorbike as ridden by Robbie Maddison would crash through the window and on to a dampening ramp inside the Bazaar. We followed on to the entrance to Buyuk Valide Han through which the chasing motorbikes sped and again toward an adjacent area where they sharp right-turned up a flight of stairs. Today, the aesthetics of the Bazaar’s architecture was marginally slighted by the hanging array of the store holder’s football T-shirts.
Ascending the stairs to capture both camera angles of the bikes’ ascents, we were introduced to another very quiet and less travelled area of the Bazaar. Although not seeing a light at the end of a tunnel, nor having anything encouraging to walk towards, walking along these upper floors and along the hallways, one could see further artisan studios and little offices. Walking with just one other member of our tour, our collective inquisitiveness paid off to land upon a little café that offered stunning views of and over the city’s rooftops, mosques and the Bosphurus. Called the Rooftop Buyuk Valide Han, thin rugs abounded, rough chairs were few and small, quiet music emanated from a hi-fi receiver of 1980’s vintage, and the peace reigned us in. We ordered, of course, Turkish coffee medium sweet. I was corrected as apparently the term is ‘medium sugar’. Follow on Instagram at #rooftopbuyukvalidehan.
As highlight after highlight ensued, the group was treated to a tour of the Skyfall bike chase on the rooftop of the Grand Bazaar. Costing 35 Euros per person, our 40-person group was subdivided into 10-person groups for the half hour tour. Our guide took us through another narrow little entrance to some offices from within the Bazaar, we signed some forms and were then met by another guide; the two guides would then top and tail the group. As large and as expansive as is the Grand Bazaar, when translating that space to the needs of two chasing motorbikes, the space seems comparatively small and it was the use of different and reverse camera angles that would ‘expand’ for the viewer the thrill of the chase. Frankly, it was stunning. The elevation, the views, the tranquillity, the time to allow the mind to replay and wonder; it was a privilege to be up there, no matter the expense. Regarding this, we were told the expense would cover us for ‘insurance’, but then we signed waivers to agree that if you fell off, then it was your own stupid fault and there would be no liability held on behalf of the Grand Bazaar or the tour guide. Perhaps the insurance was to cover the breakage of a tile on the just recently fully refurbished roof. Another thing to note is that the tour stopped at a window that appeared to be suggestive as the window through which the bike crashed into the Grand Bazaar. But as mentioned above, this stunt and window had been created elsewhere.
The last visit of the day was actually that which had been planned for Day 1 but had had to be postponed due to 3rd party filming within. Reverting to From Russia with Love, the group headed for Binbirdirek Sarnici and the water-free, or dry cistern through which ran Bond and Romanova after the explosions in the Russian Embassy. Again, beautifully lit, peaceful, the area was stunning. Of the many pillars within closest to the stairs up which the couple ran, screen shots were compared to the columns to identify beyond all reasonable doubt which numbered column had been closest to the two actors. It’s the little things…
Day 3
Day 3 was a day for the cognoscenti, the endlessly inquisitive, the desirous to become intimately acquainted with the last little detail of every film location. We commenced with a nighttime shot to establish that Bond and Bey were heading towards the fortified gypsy camp in From Russia with Love. A castle called Yedikule Kapsi on Yedikule Cd had been located by the film makers with the necessary and meaningful parapets. It had been deemed perfect by the film makers to provide wider context to the scene before filming reverted to studio backlots for the gypsy fight. This little visit set the standard for the majority of the day ahead and served to illustrate the lengths that some people go to identify film locations from decades past, no matter their apparent inconsequence to the larger story.
Going one step still further, intrepid leader Martijn Mulder had deemed it necessary to include an area of the world where there had once been a location but was now just An Area. The one airport as seen in From Russia with Love has since moved from its then current location to what is likely to be a combination of the city’s three other airports. There now stands in its place a conference centre which is attached to civilisation by a road. The same road as along which was driven James Bond? Who knows, but this is the detail to which these tours go. A sense of humour is required, and the location is swiftly dealt with.
Moving further into the country, two locations covered the train track scenes where in From Russia With Love, quickly dismissed but perpetuating urban legend had Ian Fleming standing to the side of the passing train, and where the truck straddling the track stopped the train to meet Red Grant and afforded Bond and Romanova some opportunity for subterfuge. Situated next to the Mahzer restaurant, the neighbouring trees have grown to obscure the waterside view as seen in the film.
Standing at 161 Halaskargazi Caddesi we were introduced to the gates to the walled residence that in ‘Russia’ was the Russian Consulate. Adjacent to a bus stop, the little pavement quickly filled with a concentration of Bond fans who to the stupefaction of the awaiting travellers, commenced to shoot, film and pose in front of the otherwise innocuous gates.
To be sure, behind the gates stands an impressive residence but it again brings to focus just what must be going through the minds of the onlookers and indeed the coach drivers who take us to these non-descript areas of the world that nonetheless are the cause of such manifest excitement. While the world’s average tourist heads straight for the stately homes and the crown jewels, a photographing of which is completely justified and understandable, the intensely focused intra niche OTTo007 tourist gets jittery over a dusty train crossing and a random gate; which is as it should be.
And if this does not provide sufficient description for the unaffiliated or uninterested, a similarly random location, but this time for a deleted scene, provides equal reason for unmitigated excitement. A scene for ‘Russia’ had been filmed whereby a tailing Bulgar’s car had been stopped and sandwiched between two cars on the right-hand side of the road. Kerim Bey and one other exited their cars to confront the Bulgar but, as the story goes, Terrence Young’s grandson noticed in a preview showing of the film that this Bulgar had in fact been killed earlier in the film. The scene had to go. Close to the Dolmabahce Mosque, the deleted scene was filmed on Dolmabahce Gazhane Cd. Another little observation is that in 1963, the road was two-way and the three cars were driving north. Today, the road is assigned one-way properties and everyone drives south. In case deleted scenes are not one’s thing, in a scene featuring Klebb and Grant being driven in a car, the Dolmabahce Mosque is seen through the car’s windows in backdrop.
A swift lunch hour was programmed into the day’s events to conveniently time with the one bout of rainfall and thunder during the four days of otherwise unadulterated heat and sunshine. What could have dampened clothing and spirits during the largely outdoor walking tour, that this little climatic anomaly occurred when we were inside dining only added to the overall perfection of the tour.
The remainder of the tour took place on a boat on the Bosphurus. The boat undertook a leisurely and circular route around the sea to allow us to consider the Dolmabahçe Palace as seen in backdrop to Bond’s and Romanova’s boat-borne talk ‘into the camera’; the Maiden’s Tower as seen in The World is Not Enough and very briefly as a backdrop in From Russia with Love; and latterly Elektra’s Azerbaijan-based house. The Maiden’s Tower is now the Kuledebar café and restaurant that only takes in bookings, and Elektra’s house as transported to the middle east in ‘World’ is the Kucuksu Pavilion, otherwise Littlewater Pavilion.
This last concluded the tour. People were left to their own devices; some retreated to the hotel, others sought liquid refreshment before returning to the tour base. The tour manifested a happy mix of culture, luxury, the quixotic and the fabulous. That 90% of the conversation circled around the world of Bond was entirely enjoyable; that the remaining 10% of conversational options surviving any meaningful duration was entirely minimal.
Photos courtesy of Andrew Muskat
Simon Firth’s latest book is available now, JAMAICA – On the Tracks of James Bond
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Last modified: 13 January 2026
