As Istanbul slowly emerges from lockdown, elderly couples are strolling the Bosphorus once again

We are still not allowed to leave our homes on weekends but mosques are reopening and there are a plans for the return of travel and tourism, writes Borzou Daragahi

Mosques are reopening as Turkish lockdown restrictions are eased (Reuters)

In the parks, squealing children ventured outside to play for the first time in weeks – albeit wearing medical masks over their faces. On a normally busy high street, pedestrians were trickling back to gaze at the store displays – after having police squirt sanitiser onto their hands at makeshift checkpoints. At the entrance to a shopping centre, customers queued up to run their bags through a scanner for weapons – and to submit to temperature checks.

Across much of the world, a tentative easing of weeks-long coronavirus lockdowns has begun, giving all of us a taste of a new normal. Social life can resume, amid social distancing, but personal hygiene and health concerns reign over life the same way security worries dominated the public after 9/11 nearly a generation ago.

In Istanbul, where I live, the pandemic lockdown is far from over. We still are not allowed to leave our homes on weekends. Public transportation has been severely curtailed. Restaurants and bars remain shuttered.

But the rules have been eased somewhat. Mosques and shopping malls are reopening. Plans for the return of tourism and air travel have been announced.

For weeks, children were not allowed out of the house – an attempt to prevent asymptomatic kids from seeding coronavirus in close-knit extended families. Those above the age 65 have also been barred from leaving the house unless they face extenuating circumstances.

Over the last week and a half, however, both kids and the elderly have been permitted out separately one or two times a week for four-hour stretches. Istanbul’s parks turned into glorious scenes of kids playing gleefully in the grass after being stuck in front of screens and devices for weeks. The elderly could be seen strolling along the Bosphorus on a majestically sunny Sunday afternoon.

Presumably they were smiling – behind their surgical masks.

Yours,

Borzou Daragahi

International correspondent