Already known the world over for its baths, coffee and sweet Turkish delights, Turkey is on the way to adding another item to its roster of specialities: the mustache.
Mustaches remain a highly sought-after symbol of masculinity in Turkey and the Middle East — to the point that the less hirsute are increasingly seeking out transplants at the hands of Turkish cosmetic surgeons.
Among them is Selahattin Tulunay, head of a thriving private practice that once specialized in hair transplants, but has been adapted to cater to the increasing demand for mustaches.
“I’ve been doing mustache implants for around three years now,” Tulunay said. “A lot of men have come to see me saying: ‘I’m 40 years old, I’m the head of a large company and no one takes me seriously abroad. I want people to see that I have hair.’”
Engin Koc, 30, had long despaired of his clean-shaven face before he opted to go under the knife seven months ago and get the upper lip of his dreams.
“I wanted to look like ancient Turks, like the Ottomans, and since I’m a nostalgic soul with an admiration for that era, I got the implants,” he said, calling the mustache “a symbol of Turkish virility.”
Mustaches have long been a serious matter in Turkey, where a popular saying states: “A man without a mustache is like a house without a balcony.”
The shape of the specimen even holds political meaning.
“The bushy style, like [Josef] Stalin’s, is more the prerogative of the left or of Kurds,” said anthropologist Benoit Fliche from the French Institute of Anatolian Studies in Istanbul. “When neater, like that of [Turkish] Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, it becomes religious and conservative.”
“And when it shoots down on both sides of the mouth like fangs, it’s a mark of the extreme right,” he added.
Although the bewhiskered look is winning over fewer Turks from the big cities — who are drawn more toward Western fashion — a mustache and beard remain a must for men from Arab countries or the Turkic republics of Central Asia, who journey over to Istanbul to satisfy their need for hair.
“The Turkish television series broadcast in the Arab world wield a great influence,” Tulunay said, adding that “it’s upon seeing our actors that these patients called on us for the same beard or the same moustache.”
These clients constitute the core of the new market for facial hair. In Istanbul alone, about 250 practices are locked in fierce competition to sell their services.
The majority are linked to travel agencies and offer package deals that include the operation, a hotel stay and airport pick-up, with the most competitive offering package deals from US$2,700.
Hair tourism is in full swing, fueled by a constant uptick in the number of foreigners visiting Turkey, with more than 35 million visits estimated last year.
“Every week, we welcome 50 to 60 patients for a hair transplant and five to six for a moustache transplant,” Istanbul Hair Center surgeon Meral Tala said. “And as our results are now much better than before, we expect a large rise in demand.”
Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) is to visit Russia next month for a summit of the BRICS bloc of developing economies, Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi (王毅) said on Thursday, a move that comes as Moscow and Beijing seek to counter the West’s global influence. Xi’s visit to Russia would be his second since the Kremlin sent troops into Ukraine in February 2022. China claims to take a neutral position in the conflict, but it has backed the Kremlin’s contentions that Russia’s action was provoked by the West, and it continues to supply key components needed by Moscow for
Japan scrambled fighter jets after Russian aircraft flew around the archipelago for the first time in five years, Tokyo said yesterday. From Thursday morning to afternoon, the Russian Tu-142 aircraft flew from the sea between Japan and South Korea toward the southern Okinawa region, the Japanese Ministry of Defense said in a statement. They then traveled north over the Pacific Ocean and finished their journey off the northern island of Hokkaido, it added. The planes did not enter Japanese airspace, but flew over an area subject to a territorial dispute between Japan and Russia, a ministry official said. “In response, we mobilized Air Self-Defense
CRITICISM: ‘One has to choose the lesser of two evils,’ Pope Francis said, as he criticized Trump’s anti-immigrant policies and Harris’ pro-choice position Pope Francis on Friday accused both former US president Donald Trump and US Vice President Kamala Harris of being “against life” as he returned to Rome from a 12-day tour of the Asia-Pacific region. The 87-year-old pontiff’s comments on the US presidential hopefuls came as he defied health concerns to connect with believers from the jungle of Papua New Guinea to the skyscrapers of Singapore. It was Francis’ longest trip in duration and distance since becoming head of the world’s nearly 1.4 billion Roman Catholics more than 11 years ago. Despite the marathon visit, he held a long and spirited
China would train thousands of foreign law enforcement officers to see the world order “develop in a more fair, reasonable and efficient direction,” its minister for public security has said. “We will [also] send police consultants to countries in need to conduct training to help them quickly and effectively improve their law enforcement capabilities,” Chinese Minister of Public Security Wang Xiaohong (王小洪) told an annual global security forum. Wang made the announcement in the eastern city of Lianyungang on Monday in front of law enforcement representatives from 122 countries, regions and international organizations such as Interpol. The forum is part of ongoing