en Cuevana 3. For two thousand years, caravans traveled from Xian in China along the Silk Road to Istanbul, a hub of world trade at the time. Julien Berjeaut begins his journey through Turkey on the banks of the Bosphorus. Istanbul, once called Byzantium and then Constantinople, is still a bubbling center of international trade in the 21st century: In the Grand Bazaar, with its thousands of stores, this half-mythical, half-historical past is brought back to life for customers and traders alike.