In Istanbul’s Grand Bazaar, Demand for Gold and Dollars Soars

ISTANBUL—Deep in the stone warren of Istanbul’s 560-year-old Grand Bazaar, a cluster of traders selling gold and dollars pace the alleyway, murmuring into phones and smoking. The tension rises as demand grows. A shout comes from the crowd: “I’ve got it ready!”

Turks are pouring money into foreign currency, gold, cryptocurrency, jewellery and other assets that they see as a safer bet than the Turkish lira, which has lost more than 80% of its value in the past five years.

“There’s an atmosphere of panic,” said Mustafa Demiray, 39, a currency trader standing on the edge of the crowd and clutching two phones. “People think the price [for dollars] will go up, so there’s a higher demand right now.”

The collapse of the lira is the result of an era of economic mismanagement by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, economists say. The Turkish leader in recent years has pressured the central bank into cutting interest rates despite the country’s high rate of inflation—the opposite of what central banks would usually do.

Erdogan has attempted to adjust course since winning a close election in May in which his opponents attacked him over Turks’ purchasing power, with many people cutting back on meat, fish and even vegetables.

The country’s newly appointed central-bank governor, Hafize Gaye Erkan, and Finance Minister Mehmet Simsek have raised interest rates, but too slowly to get inflation under control, analysts say.

The Turkish lira continued to slide after the central bank’s July meeting, in which officials decided to raise interest rates by a mere 2.5 percentage points, a move that slowed the pace of the rate increases and put the lira under further pressure. The decision disappointed some economists and investors who hoped Simsek and Erkan would be more aggressive about tackling inflation.

Erkan on July 27 raised the bank’s year-end inflation forecast to 58% from 22.3%, while predicting that price increases would slow next year. Analysts said the upward revision was an acknowledgment that the bank’s current stance was unlikely to tame inflation, which is running at 38%.

Erkan said the bank would lift rates further, and would adopt a holistic approach to tackling inflation, including using other policy instruments such as quantitative tightening.

Investors and analysts are concerned that Erkan and Simsek don’t have a genuine mandate from Erdogan to do what is needed to stabilize the Turkish economy. Erkan pushed back on those questions on July 27.

“The central bank of the Republic of Turkey is an independent institution,” she said. “We will continue the increases in interest rates alongside the quantitative tightening alongside the selective credit tightening because that’s what the current situation demands.”

Turkey’s economic turmoil has put pressure on the traders at the Bazaar, who have played a central role in the economy since the vast covered marketplace was built during the days of the Ottoman Empire, more than five centuries ago. The small and midsize shops in the Bazaar are part of a sprawling global network of businesses and banks dealing in gold and currency.

Mehmet Akif Turker, a 44-year-old gold trader, sat in his office at the Bazaar on a recent morning, his phone and two slabs of gold on the desk in front of him. The high demand for gold should be good for his business, he explained, but the turmoil in the Turkish economy isn’t.

Turks and other traders must contend with a complex web of rules imposed by the government in recent years to scare up foreign currency and keep the country from tipping into insolvency. Those include a rule that forces businesses like Turker’s to convert 40% of their foreign-currency earnings into lira, traders say.

“In general, in our line of work, crisis makes money,” Turker said. “But when the dollar fluctuates so much and the market is so unstable, it can bring us profit or it can bring us losses. We are exhausted.”

Despite the government’s efforts to bring gold and other assets out from “under the mattresses” of the country’s citizens and into the financial system, Turks continue to pour money into precious metals, traders say. Industry groups estimate that between $200 billion and $300 billion worth of gold is in Turkish citizens’ private possession.

“We are a country that loves gold as a financial instrument,” said Ercan Doner, 39, who owns a shop selling gold coins and jewellery. “In order to stop their money from melting away in case of inflation, people are trying to make use of their gold investments by continuously buying and selling.”

Volatility in the economy isn’t the only driver of gold sales, vendors say. The pandemic also increased business, said Metin Kocatepe, 54, a salesman from another jewellery shop.

“After corona, people’s mentality changed. They’re more relaxed in their shopping. They say ‘maybe tomorrow I’m gonna die, I’ll buy something nice.’”

It’s go time for the highest-stakes mission at NASA in more than 50 years.

On April 1, the agency is set to launch four astronauts around the moon, the deepest human spaceflight since the final Apollo lunar landing in 1972.

The launch window for Artemis II , as the mission is called, opens at 6:24 p.m. ET.

National Aeronautics and Space Administration teams have been preparing the vehicles to depart from Florida’s Kennedy Space Center on the planned roughly 10-day trip. Crew members have trained for years for this moment.

Reid Wiseman, the NASA astronaut serving as mission commander, said he doesn’t fear taking the voyage. A widower, he does worry at times about what he is putting his daughters through.

“I could have a very comfortable life for them,” Wiseman said in an interview last September.

“But I’m also a human, and I see the spirit in their eyes that is burning in my soul too. And so we’ve just got to never stop going.”

Wiseman’s crewmates on Artemis II are NASA’s Victor Glover and Christina Koch, as well as Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen.

Photo: NASA’s Artemis II SLS rocket and Orion spacecraft being rolled out at night. Miguel J. Rodriguez Carrillo/Getty Images

What are the goals for Artemis II?

The biggest one: Safely fly the crew on vehicles that have never carried astronauts before.

The towering Space Launch System rocket has the job of lofting a vehicle called Orion into space and on its way to the moon.

Orion is designed to carry the crew around the moon and back. Myriad systems on the ship—life support, communications, navigation—will be tested with the astronauts on board.

SLS and Orion don’t have much flight experience. The vehicles last flew in 2022, when the agency completed its uncrewed Artemis I mission .

How is the mission expected to unfold?

Artemis II will begin when SLS takes off from a launchpad in Florida with Orion stacked on top of it.

The so-called upper stage of SLS will later separate from the main part of the rocket with Orion attached, and use its engine to set up the latter vehicle for a push to the moon.

After Orion separates from the upper stage, it will conduct what is called a translunar injection—the engine firing that commits Orion to soaring out to the moon. It will fly to the moon over the course of a few days and travel around its far side.

Orion will face a tough return home after speeding through space. As it hits Earth’s atmosphere, Orion will be flying at 25,000 miles an hour and face temperatures of 5,000 degrees as it slows down. The capsule is designed to land under parachutes in the Pacific Ocean, not far from San Diego.

Water photo: NASA’s Orion capsule after its splash-down in the Pacific Ocean in 2022 for the Artemis I mission. Mario Tama/Press Pool

Is it possible Artemis II will be delayed?

Yes.

For safety reasons, the agency won’t launch if certain tough weather conditions roll through the Cape Canaveral, Fla., area. Delays caused by technical problems are possible, too. NASA has other dates identified for the mission if it doesn’t begin April 1.

Who are the astronauts flying on Artemis II?

The crew will be led by Wiseman, a retired Navy pilot who completed military deployments before joining NASA’s astronaut corps. He traveled to the International Space Station in 2014.

Two other astronauts will represent NASA during the mission: Glover, an experienced Navy pilot, and Koch, who began her career as an electrical engineer for the agency and once spent a year at a research station in the South Pole. Both have traveled to the space station before.

Hansen is a military pilot who joined Canada’s astronaut corps in 2009. He will be making his first trip to space.

Koch’s participation in Artemis II will mark the first time a woman has flown beyond orbits near Earth. Glover and Hansen will be the first African-American and non-American astronauts, respectively, to do the same.

What will the astronauts do during the flight?

The astronauts will evaluate how Orion flies, practice emergency procedures and capture images of the far side of the moon for scientific and exploration purposes (they may become the first humans to see parts of the far side of the lunar surface). Health-tracking projects of the astronauts are designed to inform future missions.

Those efforts will play out in Orion’s crew module, which has about two minivans worth of living area.

On board, the astronauts will spend about 30 minutes a day exercising, using a device that allows them to do dead lifts, rowing and more. Sleep will come in eight-hour stretches in hammocks.

There is a custom-made warmer for meals, with beef brisket and veggie quiche on the menu.

Each astronaut is permitted two flavored beverages a day, including coffee. The crew will hold one hourlong shared meal each day.

The Universal Waste Management System—that’s the toilet—uses air flow to pull fluid and solid waste away into containers.

What happens after Artemis II?

Assuming it goes well, NASA will march on to Artemis III, scheduled for next year. During that operation, NASA plans to launch Orion with crew members on board and have the ship practice docking with lunar-lander vehicles that Elon Musk’s SpaceX and Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin have been developing. The rendezvous operations will occur relatively close to Earth.

NASA hopes that its contractors and the agency itself are ready to attempt one or more lunar landing missions in 2028. Many current and former spaceflight officials are skeptical that timeline is feasible.

In Istanbul’s Grand Bazaar, Demand for Gold and Dollars Soars

Turks are pouring money into foreign currency, jewellery and other assets as the lira weakens

The lunar flyby would be the deepest humans have traveled in space in decades.