Büyü Istanbul

Magic Istanbul

Today I’ll start by saying it is simply impossible to capture 3000 years of history into a short and interesting blog.

Instead, I will share a number of historical and fun facts to ignite your personal interest in the history of Istanbul, and a number of photos🤗

You may get itchy feet after reading this one. 👣

Let’s start!

Istanbul was established 2600 years ago by Greek fisherman Bizas

Became a main trade location and rich city, which attracted enemies who tried to conquer it 29 times

Romans came in 6th century, Constantin the Great emperor settled in and built 21km long walls to protect the city

In 1453 Turk Sultan Mehmet conquered the city and changed the name from Constantinople to Istan polis = in the city

1453 is the most frequent PIN number in Turkey!

During the 16th century Otoman Empire was the strongest and ruled over Asia, Europe and Africa.

Ottomans - one family ruled for 7 centuries, today family members are well and alive living in England.

Ottoman Empire lost the First World war and Istanbul got occupied by British.

In 1918 Mustafa Kemal Ata Tur ( father of Turks) started the independence war against alliance troops and declared a new Turkey republic on 19/10/ 1923.

Ata Turk built a democratic state and became a new president.

Istanbul is the only city in the world spanning two continents, Europe and Asia connected with bridges and underground underwater metro.

Throughout the history Istanbul was the capital city of 3 empires:

Roman
Byzantine ( Eastern Roman)
Ottoman

Roman Empire was divided into two empires in 390, one catholic ( Latin) and one orthodox ( Greek). Eastern side survived known as Byzantine, while western collapsed in 425.

Istanbul is 270 km long, spreads across 7 hills, has cca 15 m population who legally live here and a large number of refugees from Afganistan and Syria.

Bosphorus channel separates two continents, long 32km.

City highlights - too many to mention, will stick with a few that fascinated me the most!

Blue Mosque - Sultan Ahmed Mosque - Masterpiece of Islam

Sultan Ahmed became sultan at the age of 14, reined for 14 years and was 14th in the family to become a sultan, died at age of 28.

Did you know what had to happen for someone to become a sultan?

For centuries the rein shifted from a father to the oldest son who had to kill all younger brothers to stop them fighting among themselves and threaten his throne.

Sultan Ahmed introduced a change. The rein shifted from older brother to a younger brother, but instead of killing younger brothers they were caged until ruling sultan’s death.

It took 42 years for one brother to become a Sultan. Since he lived in a cage all his life he wasn’t educated or had smarts to rule and this fact alone was one of the reasons Ottoman Empire collapsed.

Mosque is used for prayers but also as a place for gathering.

Predominant colour is blue with over 20,000 unique pieces of ceramic hand made tiles.

Built in 17th century with six minarets, unheard of and unacceptable by Mecca mosque administrators. Mecca mosque had six minarets and was the largest, the best, the most powerful. To make a piece with Mecca Sultan sent his people to build additional minaret and Mecca mosque became the number one again with 7 minarets. Today it has 9 minarets in total.

Turquoise colour comes from the word Turkey - a mix of blue and green colours represented in the Blue Mosque.

In todays Turkey population is split:

4% Jews
4% Cristians
92% Muslims

Aya Sophia - Church of Holly Wisdom - Masterpiece of Orthodox Christianity

Built in the 6th century and was the world largest Christian cathedral for 1000 years.

It is the birth place of Christianity being split into catholic and orthodox.

Got converted into a mosque in the 15th century when Muslim Turks conquered the city of Constantinople. It was easier to convert then to build new.

Post the Turkey independence war and Republic declaration in 1923 Aya Sophia was converted into a museum.

The myth says Turkey people were sad for years, wrote melancholic music and no one could explain the reasons.

One day three years ago the government made a decision to convert Aya Sophia museum back into a mosque and all sadness went away! As long as there is good tobacco, coffee and cats people are happy 😊.

Today, curtains cover human and animal characters on the mosque walls during pray times.

Basilica Cistern - underground water cistern

Built 1500 years ago by the Bizantine Empire.

The same engineers built Aya Sophia.

It is the largest Roman water cistern in the world, but Istanbul has 200 water cisterns in total.

Did you know why it was built?

Following a civil unrest in 532 city was destroyed. They had to find the water that was at a higher level than land and build acqua duct to bring water to suffering citizens.

They had no resources, had to use recycled materials from destroyed buildings and churches, basilica etc.

Water was mixed with vinegar or wine to kill the germs and fish was introduced to clean it naturally, like a small pond with eco system

Ottomans never used it.

It holds between 80 - 90 000 cubic meters of water.

Incredible invention and unique in its architectural design,

Hamam - Turkish Bath

A life time experience that cannot be described in words, you need to experience it to appreciate it, worth every penny.

Let’s just say, I have never ever felt as clean as I did after the Ottoman treatment that included a whole body rubbing with “kese”.

There were nearly 300 hamams in Istanbul, 60 of them are still in use and mostly commercialized. There are separate sections for men and women. We visited the oldest Hamam in town called Cağaloğlu built in 1741.

A number of world famous people visited this place: Omar Sharif, John Travolta, Cameron Diaz, Ophrah Winfrey, Steve Irwin, Harrison Ford, Tony Curtis, King Edward VIII and many others and now including Nebojsa and I!

Finally, a few fun facts:

4 commonly known words come from Roman times in Istanbul: