Late last year, the media reported the house on Buyukada where Leon Trotsky lived following his exile from Russia was up for sale.

“All property’s theft — but this one’s a steal,” wrote The Guardian, relishing the irony.

The mansion, or villa, or ruin — whatever you want to call it - was built in 1885 and was let to Trotsky as a house of refuge by its owner at the time, a Turkish shipping magnate. By the time the house went on the market late last year, it had sat crumbling for years.

Reportedly, you can have the “Trotsky House,” as it is known locally, for “only” $4.4 million US. But it’ll cost you upwards of another million for restoration.

The Buyukada mansion could be worth much more, considering its locale and historical value.

The catch? It’s a fixer-upper.

I read when the house went up for sale last year, then forgot about it.

By chance, the subject came back the other evening while perusing Charles King’s “Midnight at the Pera Palace: The Birth of Modern Istanbul.” King gives some attention to Trotsky’s time in the city, and his stay on Buyukada. It got me thinking about Trotsky and his time in the city.

Also, I stumbled across an idea that may have well appealed to, or at least amused, the exiled revolutionary; an idea that could help solve one of Turkey’s most urgent modern-day problems. More on that later.

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When Leon Trotsky arrived in Istanbul in the winter of 1929, he was on the run.

As one of the principal leaders during and after the Russian Revolution, Trotsky was a hero. He’d built the Red Army, crushed the Tsarists, and was one of the founding members of the Politburo. But a power struggle with Vladimir Lenin, and Lenin’s successor, Josef Stalin, resulted in his banishment, the loss of his citizenship.

The man who had once called for “permanent revolution” would spend the rest of his life in permanent exile — and he would be a marked man.

After being given temporary quarters at the Russian Embassy in Istanbul, Trotsky and his entourage settled into a large villa on Buyukada, the largest of the Princes Islands, just off the coast of the city in the Sea of Marmara. There, Trotsky spent four years, off and on, and wrote some of his most famous works, including “My Life” and “History of the Russian Revolution.”

Even in this relative seclusion, Trotsky lived with the constant threat of assassination (many White Russians, whose properties were seized by the Bolsheviks, and who were forced to flee the country during and after the Red Revolution, found desperate refuge in Istanbul; they would have found him an attractive target). He kept a team of bodyguards on at the villa — and wherever he went — full-time, covering his expenses by publishing his books (with the help of foreign publishers).

Eventually, Trotsky, one of the world’s most famous exiles, moved on, this time to Mexico City. There, he found refuge with Diego Rivera and his wife, Frida Kahlo.

But the hounds of Stalin continued to track him, and he was finally assassinated there in the late summer of 1940.

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I’ve been to Buyakada and the other Princes Islands many times. In the summer, tourists are drawn to the islands’ attractive remoteness from the crowds and heat of Istanbul. The ferryboat from Bostanci only takes about 20 minutes, or you can take it from Kadikoy, but it takes much longer.

On Buyukada, there are very few roads, and no cars are allowed. Horses shuttle tourists in phaetons around the island, and many other people also come over to look at the lovely mansions and villas. The swimming, at several secluded beaches, isn’t free, but the water is generally cleaner than it is over on the city-side.

The Trotsky House, sequestered by a network of trees and cool ivy, is alas, an all-too-familiar site in Istanbul: a beautiful ruin. How many times in this ancient city do you come across buildings with genuine historical value, aesthetic beauty — with stories to tell — that have been allowed to fall into sad decay? You can’t even count them: wooden Ottoman houses that sit rotting, until they are bulldozed to allow for ever more, ever-bigger, shopping centers, or else spanking new apartment buildings for 15 million and counting Istanbullus.

The construction sector is big business here. Unfortunately, not the same can be said for the restoration business. Most likely, such projects will need outside investment.

“Whoever is willing to buy this house has to be from a family of philanthropists like the Medici of Italy,” the local mayor was quoted as saying in The Guardian. “To have lots of money, to be devoted to art …”

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To have lots of money, to be devoted to art. Ah, and if we all could win the lottery!

These days, the Turkish government’s money, and devotions, are decidedly elsewhere. You’ll cite the ongoing war in Syria, and against Islamic State, sure. But this situation persisted long before such problems ever quivered on the horizon.

“It’s the mentality of the government,” laments Yelda, one of my students. She works in the finance department of a major retailer. “They only see the short term, offering contracts to private companies to destroy old buildings, neighborhoods, so they can build all new apartment buildings, shopping centers.”

Some have called upon the Trotsky House, and other such yalis (mansions) to be converted into museums, an idea which seems to fall upon deaf ears. You can probably figure out why. For instance, there is the Zeki mansion, located along the Bosporus on the European side of the city. Built in the 19th Century for one of the sultan’s commanders, the Zeki mansion went on the market a few years ago for a reported $115 million.

When those kinds of numbers are on the table, the idea of museums tends to be cast aside.

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But wait — I’ve got a better idea: Why not let the Trotsky house be used by Syrian refugees? It could be a house of exile once again.

After all, there are some 2 million Syrians living in Turkey, with more and more arriving every day. Many of them are in Istanbul, some choosing to stay here and look for work, while others figure out how to get to Europe.

Just as it was in Trotsky’s day, when he and his fellow banished countrymen could be found in Istanbul, the city is once again home to exiles. The Syrians may have left their country voluntarily, to flee the civil war in their country. But still, they’re in the same boat (that’s a poorly chosen analogy, considering the tragic fate of so many who have perished while trying to cross the Aegean).

But still, the Turkish authorities have been scrambling to find places for all these refugees.

Why not let a few of them stay at Trotsky’s house? They wouldn’t have to actually own it, per se. They could be allowed to stay, in exchange for doing a bit of upkeep (painting, cleaning, maintaining the grounds, etc). The place needs it. Why not save money on restoration costs?

Now that I think of it, why not let them stay at other similarly neglected properties — there must be scores of them all around the city, and not just in Istanbul.

Personally, I think Trotsky would’ve approved of the idea. It’s a kind of modified socialism. And it advocates a kind of social change: maybe the idea could gather ground in other places (Flint, Michigan, for example, could use some renovations, I hear).

OK, maybe it’s not exactly the permanent revolution he had in mind, but it would offer refuge to people who desperately need it, in exchange for helping initiate desperately needed restorations — repairs that governments, not only in Turkey but around the world, seem to be unable or unwilling to pay for.

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It’s just an idea.

Of course, the practical considerations are daunting. How do we know that the opposite effect wouldn’t occur — that the refugees may in fact damage, or vandalize the place? House fires do occur, after all, accidentally or otherwise. When Trotsky was staying at the house in Buyukada, a fire destroyed the guest quarters. The fire was reportedly caused by a faulty water heater.

OK, fair enough: But with more and more refugees on the way, it’s time for some creative approaches. Otherwise we can hope and pray for the next rich Arab (OK, not to pick on the Arabs, some other rich, foreign investor) to come along and scoop the place up. That’s been a trend here in recent years; Arab money as the perceived cure-all.

Yeah, I’m sure this angel investor would do a nice job of (over) paying someone to fix the place up. Maybe they’d even be so generous as to open its doors to us peons once in a blue moon.

I’m sure Trotsky would have loved that.

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James Tressler, a former Lost Coast resident, is an author, journalist and teacher. He lives in Istanbul.