Tag #127354 - Interview #98039 (Izak Sarhon)

The house I was born in was on the main street.  There was a street that went to the pier.  I remember the times when there were fires in the district.  When there was a fire, the “tulumbadji”s [water pumpers] came.  They came all the way from Eminönü or Kasımpasa [two districts that are at least half an hour’s drive from Ortaköy today].  Wherever the fire was, they used to come running.  4 of them would be holding and pulling the water pump, and the others would just come running shouting and screaming.  They would ask: “Where’s the fire, where’s the fire?”.  At that time, they used to put up notices on the walls of the police stations about the locations of the fires if there were any.  These water pumpers always went by the main street in front of our house to go to the places along the Bosphorus where there were fires.  They got wind of these fires somehow and then the groups of water pumpers would fight amongst themselves : “Our group will put out this fire, don’t interfere” one group would yell at the other.