AA Photo
The Istanbul leg of the Türkiye Culture Route Festival, organized by the Culture and Tourism Ministry, kicked off with a range of cultural and artistic events.
Culture and Tourism Minister Mehmet Nuri Ersoy officially opened the festival at the Atatürk Cultural Center (AKM).
More than 400 events will take place at 23 venues and over 50 locations across the city. The program includes 40 concerts and 15 exhibitions and installations, as well as talks, recitals, modern dance performances, musicals, theater productions and workshops for children and adults.
The main stage will host concerts by Özcan Deniz, Oğuzhan Koç, Murat Boz, Kıraç, Simge, Poizi, Bengü, Ceza and Bayhan.
During the opening, Ersoy visited exhibitions at AKM, including “Three Painters,” featuring works by Alaeddin Aksoy, Mehmet Güleryüz and Komet from Mustafa Taviloğlu’s collection.
He also highlighted “The Faces of Colors,” which explores emotions, thoughts and experiences through colors and human faces.
The “A Vision for an Advancing Future” exhibition by ASELSAN, previously presented in Eskişehir, Bursa and Ankara, has also moved to Istanbul. It features works in which international artists reinterpret discarded electronic and industrial waste.
The festival’s gastronomy program features more than 200 selected food venues and five culinary routes. Ersoy noted that Istanbul has 86 restaurants included in the Michelin Guide’s selection and cited a 2025 Travel Trends report by the Mastercard Economics Institute, which identified Istanbul as the world’s top gastronomic city based on international dining expenditure.
The five routes are “Beyoğlu-Galata-Karaköy,” “Historic Peninsula-Fatih,” “Beşiktaş-Istinye Bosphorus line,” “Kanlıca-Beykoz-Şile” and “Kadıköy-Moda.”
This year’s festival is being held in 26 cities. Ersoy said Balıkesir, Denizli, Hatay, Kocaeli, Muğla and Tekirdağ would join in 2027, bringing the total number of host cities to 32.
The international program includes concerts by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and the National Arab Orchestra. The Stanislavsky and Nemirovich-Danchenko Ballet, one of the longstanding representatives of Russian ballet, will also perform in Türkiye for the first time.
The festival program also features pianist and composer Büşra Kayıkçı’s new project “Beyond Wall” and “Legacy of a Gaze,” an exhibition showcasing more than five decades of work by Yann Arthus-Bertrand.
