Page "George Gurdjieff" Paragraph 15

In late May 1920, when political conditions in Georgia changed and the old order was crumbling, his party traveled by foot to Batumi on the Black Sea coast and then to Istanbul.

Gurdjieff rented an apartment on Koumbaradji Street in Péra, and later at 13 Abdullatif Yemeneci Sokak near the Galata Tower.

The apartment is near the kha ’ neqa ’ h ( monastery ) of the Molavieh Order of Sufis ( founded by Jalal al-Din Muhammad Rumi ), where Gurdjieff, Ouspensky and Thomas de Hartmann experienced the sema ceremony of The Whirling Dervishes.

In Istanbul, Gurdjieff also met Captain John G. Bennett, then head of British Military Intelligence in Constantinople.

Later, Bennett would become a follower of Gurdjieff and of Ouspensky.