Istanbul is a city in Turkey... incidentally, quite an important city in Christian history. Originally a small town called Byzantium, it was named as the capital for the Eastern Roman Empire by the very first christian emperor, Constantine. Constantinople in 330AD became the centre of a massive change in the way Christianity spread as every citizen took up Christianity to follow their new emperor. The turks later changed the name to Istanbul exactly 1600 years later in 1930. Hmmm... looks like I've got to find myself a life...
Over the Caspian Sea from Kazakhstan is Iran.