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Tulips are traditionally associated with the Netherlands but this celebration of the famous flowers is happening in Istanbul. The city's spent three years in a massive bulb-planting operation to remind the world that Turkey is the true home of the blooms. The city has a tulip flowering for almost every one of its 12 million inhabitants for a tulip-fest that's taking tourists by storm. SOUNDBITE: Katherine Knott, British tourist, saying (English): "I think it's just beautiful and gorgeous. If it's part of the heritage why not?" Tulips feature prominently in ancient Turkish art but the Netherlands became more readily associated with the flowers after an envoy of the Ottoman empire took some bulbs there nearly half a millennium ago. One Dutch man developed a taste for them instantly, frying them and eating them like onions. But the nation was truly hooked and less than a century later, wealthy merchants were paying more than the price of a smart canal-side house in Amsterdam for tulip bulbs Ottoman historians say such passion, that nearly bankrupted the Dutch economy, is perfectly understandable. SOUNDBITE: Ilber Ortayli, Ottoman historian and head of Topkapi Palace, saying (English): "Every kind of madness it is worth for it because it is very attractive, (the) tulip, you know. Even I buy sometimes hundreds of them and bring to house. It's another kind, worse than alcoholism." Istanbul's own opulent tulip gardens were wiped out in the eighteenth century during an angry mob uprising. Now it's hoping this nine-day tulip festival and small-scale commercial production could blossom into a multi-million dollar export operation. Paul Chapman, Reuters