From a trip report I posted in 2003:
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=182140
After a while we took a drive and ended up at my friend’s barber, as he needed a haircut before heading to Athens on business. I’ve been in Turkish barber shops before, as an observer, but this time I decided to imbibe.
I sat down in the chair and was prepped. However nothing would proceed before all participants (me, the barber, and his apprentice) had a mandatory glass of strong Turkish çay. The locals also needed to inhale (and unfortunately, exhale) a few unfiltered Turkish smokes. Having consumed the tea and the cancer stick, the barber spent a couple of disturbingly long minutes contemplating my head.
During this time I learned the other barber doing my friend’s hair, who is the shop owner, also moonlights as the local “Muhtar”, which is an elected politician akin to an Alderman. His Ward consists of 6,800 constituents scattered over 2,200 apartments in 280 buildings. Responsibilities include registering citizens as they move in or out of the Ward, certifications of good standing, and dealing with local “pot hole” issues. His phone rings off the hook, and people stop in to ask a question or two.
Once the barber recognized his job was to do little more then give me a haircut, he slowly cut with scissors and an electric trimmer the lower half of my hair. Over the next twenty or so minutes he cut slowly, sometimes clipping four or five individual hairs before re-contemplating. He then stopped and repeated the tea and cigarette absolutions, before returning to deliberation on what to do next. After a pause he started combing and brushing my hair, which gave me the impression he was done cutting, ignoring the thick mass on top of my head that had not been clipped. Instead he decided to light my ears on fire.
The barber took a massive Q-Tip and dipped it into some sort of rocket fuel, then lit it, creating some sort of incendiary device. The sucker was burning a bright blue and he ran it close to my ears, singeing any hairs it came in contact with. What was the point of this, apparently to singe any hairs it came in contact with!
After he cleaned up the burned flesh, he then grabbed a straight razor and shaved the back of my neck, so that it was baby behind smooth. Finally he wrapped a towel around my neck and pushed me into the sink, whether for decapitation or a shampoo. I’m happy to report my head is still intact (although my wife would attest to the fact it’s contents are quite loose).
After a partial drying, another tea and smoke, the barber went to work with the scissors on the bush on top of my noggin. The cutting and contemplating his sculpture took another long time, but finally he was satisfied and began blow drying it. Next he extracted an electric massage device and gave me a full back, shoulders and arm massage. Not great by massage standards, but heck, I’m in a barber shop.
After the therapy, the barber threw some mousse on my hair, brushed it again and stopped. Another tea and cigarette break took place and he stated in Turkish, “Sihhatler olsun!” which roughly translates as “May it last for a while or may it be healthy” (which apparently is a carry-over from ancient times when the barber was a blood-letting physician).
My friend settled up with the Alderman/Barber for the total damages which came to a total 14,000,000 TL excluding tips of another 2,500,000TL (exactly $12 grand total for the two of us, and my buddy also got a facial shave with a circa 19th century straight razor).