Turkey has become a growing hub for Iranian businesses and cultural spaces

The live singer at Shandiz Restaurant has a full house. She engages the crowd with popular Persian songs. Families eat their rice and kebabs while a toddler sleeps in his stroller. Smoke snakes through the low-lit venue as young men and women drag on hookahs. Grandmas nurse their cocktails. And a group of women in glittery short dresses with a stylish little boy dance to the beat.

If you’re Iranian, this is where you let your hair down and drown your sorrows for a night. 

One of the patrons is Sitara Taibi, a psychologist and a beautician from Tehran. She was planning to emigrate to Germany, but that didn’t work out. The 34-year-old ended up living in Turkey and has faced many obstacles as a foreigner. 

Taibi said she comes to Shandiz with her friends to be happy and dance. 

“When I miss my family in Iran, even though it doesn’t solve everything, I feel a little better when I come here,” she said.

Turkey is a visa-free haven for Iranians across the 300-mile border, and it has been a hub for tourists, residents and refugees from Iran. In the last few years, more and more Iranian-owned cafes, restaurants and cultural spaces are opening up in Istanbul. Iranian business owners say they have more freedom of expression and access to foreign tourists in Turkey. Iranian patrons say they need spaces to gather and support one another in times of uncertainty.

The Turkish Chamber of Commerce and Industry reported that the highest number of companies founded by Turkish citizens in 2025 were with Iranian partners. It involves less red tape to go into business with a Turkish citizen than to start one as a foreigner.

Shandiz has been in business for six years, despite Turkey’s ailing economy and inflation. The Turkish economy is still better than Iran’s dismal financial prospects, which spurred the latest uprising and subsequent government crackdown.

Mohammad Zeraati, owner of Shandiz, said inflation of the Turkish lira is hurting his restaurant, but there’s high demand for what he offers his customers. Even Turks and Arabs enjoy the cuisine.

“These spaces have increased in the last few years because of the demand for Iranian culture, food and music in a family-friendly gathering, Zeraati said.

Women can’t legally sing and dance in public in Iran, but they can at Shandiz, he explained.

Shandiz cut out its entertainment program temporarily for a few weeks after the Iranian government killed thousands of protesters inside Iran in January. The restaurant management wanted to show their respect for the victims. 

But Iranians in Turkey say they need the joy that these types of venues bring more than ever. They want to connect with other Iranians in the opposition who see music and dance as a form of resistance to the regime’s hardline religious stance.

“It’s like an act of rebellion,” said an English teacher from Tehran.She didn’t want to give her name because she will return to Iran and fears persecution. The teacher plans to go to Shandiz to dance soon.

But she has been frequenting Cheshmeh, an Iranian cafe and bookstore that holds literary events for Farsi speakers. The English teacher said she looks forward to these events — they give her a sense of unity in a time of tragedy.

“I think the collectiveness of the experience helps people maybe reduce the emotional pain, because when you interact with people from other countries, they don’t really understand. And it actually becomes more painful,” she said.

Cheshmeh is a branch of the printing press in Iran that publishes books and novels. 

The manager Hossein Cheraqi said they find their customers through social media. One of Cheshmeh’s goals is to translate Farsi-language books into Turkish and English.

Cheraqi said most customers come for the camaraderie.

After the January killings in Iran, the mood has shifted at Cheshmeh. It’s a bit more somber, patrons say. But being together has made the grief more tolerable.

Among the attendees at Cheshmeh are poets and writers. One of them is a playwright who wrote a script invoking the voices of demonstrators killed last month. One night, each person in the group read a verse from the script, some cried and then they all held hands and sang the Iranian national anthem predating the Islamic Republic of Iran.

A more cheerful event takes place every weekend when a group of Persian literature lovers gather to read the “Shahnameh,” the 11th century epic poem titled “The Book of Kings.”

Noshid Mirzaei, a Shahnameh expert, leads the discussions. One Sunday evening, she explained how the fairytale Rapunzel may have its roots from one of the stories in the epic about a princess named Rudaba.

“The princess Rudaba unties her hair and drops it from the tower for her love named Zal to climb,” Mirzaei told the dozen men and women in the group.

The group takes turns reading the literary Farsi, which can be challenging, much like Elizabethan English.

During a break, Negar Yeganeh headed outside for a smoke.

Yeganeh is a 33-year-old homemaker who has lived in Istanbul for seven years. She comes to the bookstore to feed her nostalgia for Iran.

“I’m happy this place exists,” Yeganeh said.

She tossed her long silky, black hair and took a puff of her cigarette in the crispy winter night. 

“I was telling my friends that when I come here, I feel like I’m walking on Tehran’s streets,” she said. “I grab a couple of books, hear the Farsi language and talk about issues that I’m interested in.”