Istanbul_ The Collected Traveler_ An Inspired Companion Guide - Barrie Kerper [172]
The Bosphorus
[Turkey’s] moves towards Europe … started a long time ago. When Abdul Mecit inaugurated his Euro-palace at Dolmabahçe in 1856 it was as if he was saying: “Look! We’re part of Europe.” A decade later Beylerbey Palace on the Asian shore yelled back: “And so are we, but we still have a touch of the Orient.”
—CHRIS HELLIER,
Splendors of Istanbul:
Houses and Palaces
Along the Bosphorus
This is the only city that straddles two continents, and the Bosphorus is what divides and unites it. Without this strait Byzantium/Constantinople/Istanbul would be unimaginable. It would not have been so enormously important over so many centuries, so eagerly sought after by so many of history’s greatest conquerors. Nor would it be nearly so rich, beautiful or romantic.
—STEPHEN KINZER,
Crescent & Star
Mansions on the Water
The Yalıs of Istanbul
CHRIS HELLIER
Yalis (the name is derived from the Greek word yialos, “seashore,”) were built as waterside summer residences by the Ottoman aristocracy between the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. They were “sandwiched conveniently between the cool shade of their gardens and the cool ocean breeze,” according to Arzu Karamani in Living in Istanbul, and “their large airy rooms enabled their residents to escape from the stifling heat of the city.” Karamani also notes that to live in a yalı is, for all intents and purposes, “to live with water, to invite the sea into your front room.… But above all it is to live on shoreline, and here on the Bosporus it is the shoreline of one continent facing the shoreline of another. It is, in short, to live on intimate terms, and on a daily basis, with the unique feature of Istanbul, the one that gives the city all its magic: the fact that it lies between East and West, at the meeting point of two worlds.”
Pierre Loti wrote what was nothing less than a death knell of this famous waterway in the early 1900s:
The European shore of the Bosphorus is already for the most part abandoned to our modern barbarity, with the worsening effect of Levantine bad taste. On the other hand, the Asian shore, which lags at least a hundred years behind the European shore, will retain for some years at least some of its peace, charm and mystery. Passing along it on a caïque (traditional Turkish skiff) is an enchantment for the eyes; flowing along the old closed gardens, almost in the shadow of their trees; very close to the old dwellings and their railings, where life seems to have hardly changed since purely Islamic times. They bulge out, these Turkish houses of olden times, standing right on the edge of the strait, almost touching its waters.… And in order to advance further out above the sea, the upper floors overflow like large balconies supported by voluted corbellings. Unfortunately, all this is made of wood, in accordance to the ancient custom. So alas, time, humid winters and perpetual exposure to water will soon have completed their destruction. And each time one of these increasingly leaning houses crumbles into the sea, some modern horror will replace it—as is the case on the opposite European shore. Thus, little by little, all that continued to be the adorable Turkey will disappear.
There is no doubt that much has been permanently lost, but even Loti might be surprised at how beautiful the Bosphorus remains today. Interestingly, I read an obituary for a man named Mike Davis in The New York Times recently, and he was recognized for his efforts to reclaim New York City’s waterways for recreational use. He had worked in Turkey on an archaeological dig, and was quoted as saying, “In Istanbul, there are small boats everywhere. Anyone can rent a boat and row on the Bosphorus. That’s the way it should be on the Hudson.”
The Köprülü Pasha Yalı referred to in this piece was built in 1698 and, as well as being a classic Ottoman waterfront mansion, was the setting for the signing of the Treaty of