Istanbul's old houses are the title of originality
Last Updated: 2023-07-27
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Istanbul's old houses are the title of originality
We cannot lose sight of the city of Istanbul when we talk about the tradition and originality in Turkey, as it is a picturesque city with its European and Asian parts occupying important centers and landmarks that are almost indivisible from Turkey. The city of Istanbul is ancient in various respects, as it includes neighborhoods, archaeological areas, and important historical landmarks along with modern buildings and huge mega projects, so that Istanbul is distinguished in that it combines tradition and civilization between antiquity and modernity. It sits on top of the steadfast cities since time immemorial, which managed to preserve its heritage at the same time that it is developing day after day to compete with the largest European and Western cities peer to peer.
When talking about Istanbul, we must talk about its old and ancient part and the areas it possesses that seem to have escaped from antiquity and still retain their ancient and historical touch. Including the area of Uskudar, one of the suburbs of old Istanbul, which was and still is, since ancient times, a link point between Anatolia in the east and Bizzanta in the western part.
But from one look at Uskudar, through which you see the old mosques and the winding streets up and down, in addition to those old wooden houses in them, you will know that you are in the presence of the most authentic popular neighborhoods in the ancient city called Istanbul.
These regions have preserved their antiquity through the passage of time and have been imprinted with the values, customs and natures of the East, and what they have been imprinted with cannot be separated from them even with the passage of time.
The origin of Uskudar dates back to a date estimated in the seventh century BC, that is, even before the establishment of Byzantium on the opposite part of the Bosphorus for a significant period of time, to be inhabited at the beginning by the ancient Greek colonists who called it at that time the name Scutarion, which can be interpreted from the Byzantine to mean tanned leather, the city itself, was a center for tanning the leather used in the manufacture of armor for warriors, so that the name was later transformed into an Exodar or an Escooter.
The area was used as a port and shipbuilding station, which led to it being an essential starting point in the wars between the Greeks and Persians at the time. And then Uskudar became one of the suburbs of the Byzantine capital and remained of great importance throughout the period of its control Byzantines This importance comes from being the gateway to the various trade routes with the continent of Asia, as well as a shield to protect the state from any invading army that may come from the continent of Asia.
Several attempts were made by the Arab and Islamic armies to enter Uskudar in the eighth century AD, which led to the area being subjected to great destruction, although these attempts were not crowned with success.
This continued until the Ottoman Sultan Orhan Ghazi succeeded in bringing it under his control, which made it the first steps for Muslims to approach the largest empires at that time after they became near Constantinople and changed its name after they settled in it to the name Eski Dar, which means the old house.
According to what was written by the Turkish traveler and historian called Evliya Shalabi, who was a contemporary traveler in the seventeenth century, Uskudar included all of the seventy Muslim neighborhoods, in which mostly people of Anatolian origin lived, and eleven neighborhoods of Armenian Christians and Romans were added to it, and we do not forget to mention the only Jewish neighborhood in it at the time.
It is also mentioned that it occupied the position of the main commercial center for trade at the time of the construction of the railway at the end of the nineteenth century, when Iranian and Armenian merchants met with their caravans in the city. Not to mention that it was also a farewell station for pilgrims traveling towards Makkah al-Mukarramah in conjunction with the delegation that the Sultan was sending with aid and gifts to deliver to the nobles of Hejaz. That station has retained its name to this day, which is called Haram, indicating the meaning of the Grand Mosque in Mecca.
The area includes a group of ancient historical monuments, the most famous of which is the Maiden’s Tower, which is a small tower in the middle of the sea located at the southern entrance to the Bosphorus Stait, about two hundred meters away from the coast of Uskudar. And old tales tell about the reason for building it. They say that an emperor loved his daughter very much, and he had a dream about her one night, saying that a snake would hurt her on her eighteenth birthday and be the cause of her death.
All he had to do was find a way to protect his daughter by keeping her away from land, as he filled in part of the Bosphorus Strait and ordered the construction of a tower for her in the middle of the sea, in the hope that any snake would be kept away from her as much as possible. However, the written fate is inevitable, as the girl wanted grapes and sent a request to her father, and when he sent her a basket full of grapes, he did not know that there was a snake hiding within it.
Editing by Mersat Real Estate Team©
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