I think it's the patronage system which I intrinsically recognise from Zim. It took Bob a while to set it up but it has served him very well in the bad times. There's sort of no way to do anything at all in life without effectively supporting it/paying it off in that country.
Ayran is just yogurt with water and salt added - it's not as bad as you describe but my wife does notice people who change their attitudes because they are sucking up to the AKP. My mother in law lost her flat recently (as a fairly responsible civil servant she got one) and is absolutely sure it was handed off to some AKP person. So sucking up works and that's the lesson everyone learns.