ISTANBUL

A capital, polymorphous place  “Our ship makes a sweep towards (the Golden Horn) . . . and it is the most sensational revelation: one after another these great domes (of the Imperial Mosques) stand there on the skyline like huge kettledrums   with something menacing and martial in their air.In that moment it is more of a capital than any other city, more than London, or than Rome or Paris. It must be the most wonderful site for a great capital there has ever been,"  wrote Edith Sacheverell in Arabesque and Honeymoon.                                               *  *  * Istanbul bestrides the Bosporus like a Byzantine colossus. We had seen the Turkish capital at dusk, from the Sea of Marmara, as our ship crept passed countless freighters and tankers queuing to enter the narrow passage leading ‘up’ to the Black Sea.   It was September, the time of Ramadan, and Istanbul’s magnificent temples and minarets sparkled with 60-metre strings of giant fairy lights. Now we were ending our voyage by returning from the far corner of the Black Sea to dock in the Golden Horn at dawn.  It was still Ramadan. The minarets still glistened. On the Euro-Asian air, thick with salt and spices, floated electronic calls to prayer.     Istanbul has grown much bigger than London, Rome or Paris, and its history outpaces all of theirs. It is the world’s only great city standing on two continents. It is where East and West meet in a cosmopolitan crush.  Its population was well over 13 million when we arrived, but it goes up daily and may be about 14million as I pen this.  Istanbul is a polymorphous place. It will meet any of your expectations: Do you expect mysterious alleys with exotic perfumes and scents of danger? You can find them here. Do you prefer imperial palaces displaying jewels beyond avarice?  The size of the gems and golden thrones on display in the Tokapi Palace make the crown jewels in the Tower of London seem meagre.         Gatway to the palace harem  Belly-dancing, hookahs and ‘exotic’ native life?  Ask and you will be taken to them. Bizarre bazaars, oriental spices, exquisite gold, ceramic and leatherwork, jewels and Manhattan fashions?  They fill Istanbul’s famous “greatest indoor bazaar on Earth” You prefer shopping malls; boulevards; glass and concrete, and five-star hotels and modern palaces? They are ‘just round the corner’, on the hiull opposite the mosque of Suleyman the Magnificent. No place in the world has so multifaceted a collection of architecture. Some samples: The Sophia Haghia  - one of the world’s architectural wonders (now an Imperial Mosque), commissioned 1,480 years ago by Roman Emperor Justinean, was designed as an earthly mirror of the heavens. The interior of its dome indeed suggests a celestial feel. The Topkapi Palace – is unlike any other, with its fountains, gardens, and a harem for a thousand concubines. And a circumcision room. The Blue Mosque - with its six minarets and 20,000 blue Iznik tiles, has an air of serenity (except during religious festivals). It, too, is one of the most famous buildings in the world. St Stephen of the Bulgars –  a  building made entirely of iron and shipped from Venice to Istanbul for the Bulgarian community which thrives here, despite the efforts of  Basil the Bulgar-slayer, an Emperor who objected to their aggression a thousand years ago. Dolmabahce Palace – A 19th century European-style palace; with an imperial gateway under guard; ceremonial hall accommodating 2,500 people beneath a magnificent dome and ‘the heaviest chandelier in the world’; a horse-shoe staircase made of crystal, and a blue salon for entertaining the sultan’s harem favourites. There are many other palaces, smaller but prettier than this, overlooking the Bosporos. Pammakaristos – one of many hidden secrets in Istanbul, rarely visited, despite its history, its façade and its breathtaking series of mosaics. St. Mary of the Mongols – by decree of Mehmet the Conqueror, this church dedicated to ‘the All-Joyous Mother of God’, has remained Greek Orthodox since the Fall of Constantinople.  It was founded by an illegitimate Byzantine princess, Maria Palaeologina,  who was married off to a Mongol khan, and lived piously with him for 15 years until he was assassinated. She built the church and lived out her life as a nun. Ahrida Synagogue – It is the oldest synagogue among a number of them scattered among the thousand-and-more mosques of Istanbul. Ahrida has been in constant use since its founding in the old Roman. capital of Constantinople. Yes, whatever your expectations may be, you should find them somewhere in this cosmopolitan city on the tips of Europe and Asia. Yet I found something beyond my expectations - despite it not being my first visit. What I did not expect was a culmination of all we had been stumbling upon along the romantically historic shores of the Black Sea.. . . signposts on a  400,000-year-old path trod by mankind.             Minarets of the domed mosques pierce Istanbul''s skyline Let’s start somewhere in the middle of merely the known history – a date in the 1st millennium before the Christian era began. The city was founded, upstream from Troy, by the Early Greeks (a little older than the Ancient Greeks)  685 before Christ was born. They called it Byzantium, and during the next five hundred years some of the oldest and some of the best ancient Greek cities arose along Asia Minor’s coast, as well as in the places we had visited in the Black Sea.               Constantinople fell to ‘Mehmet the Conqueror’ in 1453 and became Istanbul, capital of the Ottoman Empire – one which grew bigger than the Roman Empire and for centuries outshone the Hapsburg and British Empires. Then the Persians came to what is now Turkey, but were finally rebuffed by Alexander the Great’s Grecian cohorts.  Rome came, saw, conquered and later named their Byzantium prize Constantinople – new capital of the Roman Empire, complete with a spectacular hippodrome and acquaduct, palaces, basilicas and a city-wall higher than Rome’s. It fought off attacks by Arabs, Avars, Bulgars, Persians, Russians and Slavs.  Finally, after it had survived for a thousand years as the richest city in Christendom, Mehmet 11 besieged, then stormed its ramparts. You need to walk Istanbul’s old city to appreciate it. While I was doing so - yet again during our latest visit - we discovered in this polymorphous place, portions of history seldom taught in the English-speaking world - yet vital to the story of mankind. You sense it here wherever you go in the surrounds of Instanbul's Seraglio Point.  You sense it in the streets as well as in its treasure houses – which is where we found things that astonished us. A description of what we saw requires its own space – for the results are more significant than anything else we found in the rest of Istanbul or on our journey around the Black Sea.

 

Next >