Vefa Bozacısı

Boza, which has been part of our tradition for thousands of years, is now known by a limited number of brands. Vefa Bozacısı has been at the forefront for more than a century. Although named after the district in which it is located, Vefa Bozacısı is one of the products that make Istanbul more meaningful. Although its history began with the arrival of Sadık Ağa from Prizren to Istanbul in 1870, boza was already known and loved in different consistencies and flavours. With one exception (Misak Boyadjian’s Ahmediye Bozacısı, who was famous for his boza), Sadık Aga was a Muslim Albanian, just like the other famous boza makers of Istanbul. However, he added his own touch to the boza and with him the boza took the form and taste we understand today. In other words, Vefa Boza has become the standard for the quality and taste of boza today.

There are various rumours about Sadak Aça’s migration from Prizren. Apart from the wars and civil unrest in the Balkans, which made life difficult for a Muslim family in the Balkans in the 19th century, the attraction of Istanbul as a commercial and aesthetic centre, as well as the fact that the city’s boza makers have been predominantly Albanian for centuries, may come to mind… After Sadık Ağa came to Istanbul in 1870, he spent some time selling salep, apricot sweetmeat, corn-wheat boza on the road, depending on the season. After a while, he decided to make an innovation to Istanbul’s famous boza and turned the basement of a house near today’s Istanbul University into a workshop. In 1876, he placed the marble threshold in front of the shop in Vefa, which is now worn down by hundreds of thousands of steps. The shop, which opened that year, is known to have been the first in the world to sell only boza.

Sadık Ağa’s identity as a bozacı is also recorded in a book of the Registry-i Ahval Commission in the Ottoman Prime Ministry Archives. The first sentence of the document in the book reads as follows: “İsmail Hakkı Efendi: son of Bozacı Sadık Efendi from Prizren”. In the rest of the 1912 document, there is information about İsmail Hakkı Bey, the son of Sadık Efendi, to whom Sadık Efendi handed over his business. According to this, İsmail Hakkı was born in 1851, attended the Siddyan School and then studied at the Beyazıt Merkez Rüşdiyesi. He then received a diploma from Mercan Idadisi. In 1910, as a young man who could speak Bulgarian, French and Greek, he started working as a “clerk in the Postal and Telegraph Nezareti Postal Affairs with a salary of four hundred Turkish Liras”. He graduated from Mülkiye in 1911, which suggests that he either did not start his civil service in the ministry at all, or that it was very short. In the following years, he joined the Ottoman army for military service and took part in the Balkan Wars and the First World War. Despite his education, he did not serve the state after the war and took care of his father’s bozacı shop.

However, during the days of İsmail Hakkı Bey’s return, Vefa experienced another catastrophe after the First World War. In the fire of 1918, the neighbourhood was badly damaged and lost all its familiar features, and the former elite residents were replaced by other people. Sadık Bey had given up hope for the ruined shop, but with the encouragement of İsmail Hakkı Bey, who had returned from the Syrian front, they put it back on its feet. In the process, the bozacı, which did not leave Vefa, gained more meaning and showed that Vefa was not just a neighbourhood name. Vefa was thus honoured.

Hacı Sadık and his son İsmail Bey sold grape must, vinegar and Hamidiye water in their shops in addition to boza. In the 1920s, a glass of boza cost ten coins. Many people, like Cemal Kutay and his family, would buy buckets of boza. The famous bozacı also found its place in reputable trade directories and was listed in 1924-1925. In the Great Salname published in 1926, the names of father and son were written together: ‘Hacı Sadık and İsmail in Vefa’. In 1926, the newspaper Hâkimiyet-i Milliye published advertisements for the company for four months under the title ‘Meşhur Vefa Boza’. In one of the advertisements, the completion of the renovation was announced as ‘Vefa Bozası Starts Tomorrow’. The names of Hacı Sadık and İsmail Hakkı Bey returned in the 1929 Salnamesi of Turkey.

Another interesting detail is that boza was very popular as a Ramadan drink. In the old Ramadan nights described by Halit Fahri Ozansoy, the Kısas-ı Enbiya would be heard first, and then the servants would serve the guests Vefa Boza in elegant and large glasses. Peyami Safa, writing under the pseudonym Server Bedi, recounts that one Ramadan evening at a crowded Vefa Bozacısı, his friend said: ‘In the War of Independence, people did not show such a rush for the bread of the occasion’. Like many of Istanbul’s famous brands, Vefa Bozacısı complained about imitators and exploiters. In 1931, Hacı Sadık Bey addressed his customers with a newspaper advertisement: ‘I declare to the honourable people of Ankara that I have not opened a branch in Ankara because of the need I have seen, and that no one can profit from my name’.

Hacı Sadık, one of the two faces İsmet Kür remembered from the Vefa of his childhood, built like a wrestler, reassuring, serious and yet affectionate, died in 1933 and his brother Hacı İbrahim in 1944. After their deaths, İsmail Hakkı Bey, who took over the business, ensured the continuity and in order to eliminate the production difficulties, he had the first and special machines of boza production made on the lathes of Haliç Shipyard with a relative who was a lathe master at Haliç Shipyard in order to increase the standard and production. This plant has been in full operation since 1928.

By the 1930s, Vefa Bozacısı was a half-century-old business and a place of habit, where people found themselves involuntarily in front of it. According to his aide Salih Bozok, Atatürk was one of those who visited the place whenever he felt like it. This visit, on 18 November 1937, is still commemorated by the portrait of Atatürk on the marble walls of the shop and the glass from which he drank boza. In the following years, another president, Celal Bayar, visited the shop on 11 January 1953. Undoubtedly, Vefa was the only place for them and all those who longed for the old Istanbul boza. Both Vefa, boza and Vefa Bozacısı became part of the culture, life and language. From the ‘Bozacı Canto’ of Şamran Hanım, one of the canto singers of the Abdülhamid II period, to the idioms of everyday life, there were many elements that reminded us of boza. One of the dialogues of Ortaoyunu is as follows

Pişekâr: You’re very unfaithful, brother!

Kavuklu: Find someone more faithful than me and let’s drink boza!

With the surname law, the neighbourhood and the business were reunited and the family took the surname of Vefa. İsmail Vefa received a good education during his father’s lifetime, became well educated and became a respected member of society. He was a member of the Istanbul Municipal Council from 1946 to 1950 and the Istanbul Chamber of Commerce Council from 1952 to 1961. He founded the Fatih Wrestling Club and the Kumkapı Sports Club and was the president of the Wrestling Federation. He and his relatives, such as Nazif Bey, the teacher of the wrestlers, were also involved in sports. Sadık Vefa, the fourth-generation grandson named after his great-grandfather, talks about the efforts of his grandfather, İsmail Hakkı Vefa, during the years when Turkish sport was in great poverty. İsmail Hakkı Vefa, who took the athletes of the time to international competitions with great difficulty, also tried to instil culture and awareness in them.

Under İsmail Hakkı Vefa’s leadership, Vefa Bozacısı brought its brand value and historical identity more and more to the fore. Firstly, during his period, advertisements in reputable newspapers became more frequent. The advertisements would sometimes include the release date of the fresh boza, due to the waiting period in its production, and sometimes just two words written without the need for further words: ‘Vefa Bozacısı’.

Opposite the establishment, which has retained its historical location despite the disasters it has suffered, there was a leblebici shop, one of the indispensable companions of Boza. Both the street where it was located and Vefa Bozacısı itself became the subject of stories by literary writers, researchers and travellers. Çetin Altan, known for his political writings, wrote: ‘A politician’s speech is a panacea. Our neighbourhood of Vefa is famous for its boza. For an ordinary citizen, drinking boza is a pleasure’. Orhan Pamuk, Refik Halit Karay, Gökhan Akçura, Turgut Kut and many others have written about this historic place and their experiences there.

The legacy of Sadýk Aþa was passed on to the second generation by İsmail Hakkı Vefa, his sons Mustafa Vefa and Vehbi Vefa in the third generation and Sadýk Vefa and Ferdi Vefa in the fourth generation. Vefa Bozacısı combined its century-old brand identity with the taste of its products and presented them to the public by distributing them outside the historical site. Today, it continues to sweeten life in Istanbul with its slightly sour taste.