Last dance? Istanbul nightlife in peril as 100% inflation hits

It's 11pm at a rooftop restaurant overlooking Istanbul and the patrons are ready to party. In a corner, neon lights illuminate a DJ pumping Turkish pop music to long tables of patrons loose on raki, Turkey's aniseed-flavoured national drink.

- Ruth Michaelson and Deniz Barış Narlı

Some have already got out of their chairs to dance, when the music shifts: the belly dancers have arrived.

A male bellydancer in a pink crop top dances, followed by a blond bellydancer in a rhinestone bra, and then Aslı Can, who enters the room in a storm of high kicks and hair flips.

It's a typical meyhane night - the name for a traditional restaurant where people spend hours drinking, listening to music and watching bellydancing, a staple of Turkish social life for centuries.

As the trio move between the different tables, they begin their tricks -Can at one point does a full backbend over a table as she dances. Within half an hour, her top is stuffed full of 100 lira notes.

But while the notes look like a lot of money, they are declining in value even as Can dances. Turkey's currency is hitting historic lows amid an economic crisis that is battering Istanbul's nightlife industry. In 2021, the lira lost half its value against the dollar, and it has slid to previously unseen levels in the weeks after the re-election of president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.