Another shot that shows the view from her building.

This is basically all we get to see from her house in the movie (from the outside). There are a few other scenes, but they basically show the same thing and they are less clear. Now let’s analyze these pictures and what other information we have at our disposal.

We know that the beginning of the story takes place in Istanbul and that it was presumably shot there. How do I know that? Well, for this you need to watch it first. Secondly there is another scene which shows one bridge that is easily identifiable and located in a particular area of Istanbul.

This is a big bridge and of these there are very few in Istanbul. There are two that extend over the Bosporus and a few others that connect Beyoğlu with Fatih and Eyüp or other neighborhoods around that area. If you go to Google Maps and check each bridge using Street View you will notice that the bridge from the movie corresponds with the Golden Horn Bridge (a.k.a Haliç Köprüsü). So now we know on which side of Istanbul we can focus. Which is the European side of Istanbul, more specifically the area near the Golden Horn. This is the easiest part though, as it only takes checking the major bridges that exist in Istanbul.

The scene from the movie.

As you can see the structure is the same, the background corresponds as well. The only difference, the scene was shot from the other side of the bridge.

Another thing we know and that actually works in our disadvantage is that the movie was released in 2006 and filmed either in 2006 or a year or two before. How is this bad news? Well, back then we didn’t have Street View and many buildings might have changed, have been demolished and so on.

Which tools to use, how to find it?

Now we must spend time thinking about the method we want to use to find out where it was filmed. We must find out which online resources we can use to identify where this building is located.

Let’s start thinking about the usual, most frequently used tools by geolocation enthusiasts worldwide:

Google Maps. Pros: has street view that covers most neighborhoods and areas of Istanbul. You can also see historic street view. It is easy to use, you have a 3D tool that you can enable to see some buildings and you can analyze the terrain (to use this enable hardware acceleration in your browser settings).

Cons: doesn’t have historic satellite images.

Cons: doesn’t have historic satellite images. Google Earth. Pros: historic satellite images, which is important in this case as we’re investigating an area based on video material that is more than 10 years old. Many of the pros I already mentioned for Google Maps.

Cons: but you can’t see older street view panoramas and it is a bit less comfortable for you to use compared to Google Maps in my opinion.

Cons: but you can’t see older street view panoramas and it is a bit less comfortable for you to use compared to Google Maps in my opinion. Yandex maps: has street view for Turkey as well. Even before Google launched its street view, Yandex already had this service. In other words it also has older panoramas. When I started investigating you couldn’t toggle between the latest panoramas and the older ones, now you can.

On the other hand you cannot see old satellite images with it.

On the other hand you cannot see old satellite images with it. Google search including reverse image search.

Yandex search including reverse image search.

Google Translate. After all, I assume most of you don’t speak Turkish. Don’t worry you can use it to translate just very basic things.

The tools listed above are the most typical tools that people use no matter the location or country, but we might also want to use sites that provide Open Source data that are more specific to Istanbul.

If you Google for street view services in Turkey and Istanbul you might find out that the Istanbul municipality has its own site with Istanbul maps, historical maps and satellite images, street view and terrain analysis.

At this moment we can limit ourselves to the tools above.

What I am going to tell you now isn’t the way I found it myself. Often you will find something and realize that it was right under your nose the whole time. In my case it was no different, I found it by trial and error just trying every likely position on the map until I found it. But I will focus now on a much more efficient way of finding it.

In the movie we see numerous other places that are probably easier to identify and that were probably shot in the same area. Easy targets are those that have a clear, legible name. E.g. the scene where one of the main characters stands in front of a jewelry store. The name of the store is clearly visible.

Topaloğlu jewelry store somewhere in Istanbul

This is a much easier target than the apartment as there is a name and we might get lucky if we Google the name of this store. After all, we know what kind of store it is, the city and its name, and most importantly, we know an approximate date of when this scene was taken, 2006 or a little bit earlier.

Still the same scene but a different shot, another name is visible. This time it’s probably a restaurant, called Ceren. Those two places are probably on the same street or close to each other.

Another place, Ceren.

Let’s try googling Ceren first:

If you look closely you see that Ceren is a Börek Salonu, it is almost illegible but I was still able to make it out. So here goes my Google query:

And let’s click on the first result. If you look at the first three results you see they are all in a district called Kağıthane.

The first site

The second

Third

There are some contradictions. Some sites say it’s on Ergün Sokak 43, some sites say it’s on Sokullu Caddesi 43. If we look on the map we see that Ergün Sk. 43 doesn’t exist but Sokullu Caddesi 43 does, moreover it is on the corner with Ergün Sokak. We can check the panorama to see if the location looks similar, but I will skip this part for now.

Next let’s see if there is a jewelry store called Topaloğlu kuyumculuk in Nurtepe. Check my Google query, below:

There is/was a Topaloğlu jewelry on the same street in the same neighborhood that was robbed in 2006. What a coincidence, huh?

Let’s see where Nurtepe is on the map and how far it is from the Golden Horn bridge we found earlier. As shown below, it’s not too far.

Not too far, it would take just a few minutes by public transport.

Further proof can be found when Uğur is seen crossing the street.

Take a look at the street furniture I have marked with red and the tree on the left.

If we use the street view functions of Yandex and İstanbul Şehir Haritası on the street we previously found, Sokullu Caddesi, we can double check our findings.