City of Countless Names- Pera p2

We move deeper into Pera, the most aristocratic quarter of Constantinople, with a look at an institute of higher learning. 

Galata Serai

In the heart of the quarter, the great avenue called the “the Grand Rue De Pera” bends southward towards Galata. Just beneath the bend, young Turkish scholars study at the greatest medical college in the Ottoman Empire, behind the high stone walls of Galata Serai. A fire in 1849 devastated the school, but the Galata Serai’s importance and influence forced its immediate rebuilding with a stately modern edifice. Despite the school’s location in Pera, Galata Serai means “Palace of Galata”, a holdover from the old Turkish habit of referring to the whole center of the northern shore as Galata.

In the late 1470s, the Sultan Bayezid II often wandered Constantinople in disguise meeting his subjects with humility.  While wandering in Pera-Galata, he found a beautiful rose garden carefully tended by a wise man named Gul Baba. The Sultan asked him how he would improve a city with such a diverse population as Constantinople. Gul Baba humbly counseled the city needed a school to teach young men the wisdom and knowledge needed to govern the Empire. Sultan Bayezid II returned the next day and built a school next to the rose garden. Gul Baba was the school’s first headmaster. This story may only be a symbolic legend obscuring the schools founding by the Beshiktash Dervishes. Gul Baba means Father Rose, and roses are a common symbol of that Dervish order.

Whatever its exact origin, the Galata Serai converted its unlearned charges into polished examples of Ottoman youth prepared to serve in the Empire’s governance for more than 360 years. In 1834 the Sultan’s father, Mahmud II, dissolved the school as a part of his educational reform. He gave a few of the buildings to his army to be used as barracks, but the majority of Galata Serai became the Ottoman Medical School.

The school now strives to produce the next generation of Ottoman naval and military surgeons by offering courses on medicine, pathology, anatomy, natural history, chemistry, languages, drawing, history, and mathematics. Its student body is made up of 350 boys and men ranging in age from 12- 25. French professors and instructors make up a large percentage of the faculty, and most lessons are taught in French. The school’s library has two librarians: one for the books in French, and one for the rest. The school’s professors may borrow books for their own studies; everyone else is obliged to carry their books no further than the libraries’ reading room.

The school also operates a charity clinic. The clinic only has room for 60 patients but sets aside two days for anyone to consult with its staff. In a remarkable stroke of modern medicine, the clinic added a pregnancy ward, led by a female professor from Vienna with the aim of teaching Turkish midwives modern techniques. She has considerable experience and connections with the harems of imperial households. As another example of modern reform, the Ottoman jails send the bodies of their dead convicts to the anatomical class for teaching purposes without regard to their religion or creed, although many consider this sacrilegious. The professor of anatomy, Dr. Spitzer, is fascinated by local remedies and is currently studying bezoars.

City of Countless Names- Pera p1

Pera (Beyoglu, Bey Oghlu, Peran en Sykais)

Further up the hill from the dirty dockside streets of Galata, wider paved avenues and a better class of shops and houses spring up from the steep slopes. These streets are the outskirts of Pera, the aristocratic quarter of European life in Constantinople. Most of the buildings of Pera could blend into any small town in Italy without a trace of exoticism, save for the lattices covering their windows in place of glass panes. Pedestrians wear European fashions and the shops sell wares from Paris, London, and Vienna. Only the multitude of languages spoken in the streets and the signs written in five or more alphabets evidence the quarter’s unique position as a cosmopolitan crossroads to the world.

A city fire in 1831 swept Pera clean of its oldest buildings, leaving room for their replacements built in a modern European fashion. Most of Pera’s population comfortably lives in handsome wooden houses with bay windows and balconies. Stone walls close off their small private gardens, invisible to pedestrians in the street. Recently arrived travelers live in the hotels and boarding houses always busy with soldiers, tradesmen, and visiting families. The mansions of ambassadors, men of business, and Levantine financiers near the hill’s summit give their inhabitants a spectacular view of Stambul’s beautiful vista across the Golden Horn.

As the Ottoman Empire’s ability to check the expansions of the Russian and British Empires shrinks, Constantinople’s political importance grows. Every great nation of Europe built consulates and embassies in Pera representing their country’s international interests and their citizens in the Ottoman Empire. Dragomans busily travel from consulate to consulate carrying messages and lead the visitors in their care on excursions to the city’s sights.

In the west, the large cemetery, the Petite Champs de Morts, and a smaller public garden similarly called the Petite Champs mark the border between Pera and the naval facilities of Kassim Pasha. Fragments of ancient walls and modern stonework separate Pera from Galata in the south. The wall’s gates close at sunset, but the guards let anyone through for a small bribe. The streets of Pera are very steep, and few carriages dare the hill’s incline. 

Galata and Pera were known collectively by the Byzantine Greeks as “Peran en Sykais”, “the fig orchard across the way”, for the numerous orchards covering the steep hills on the other side of the Golden Horn. Derived from this Greek phrase, Pera is the quarter’s traditional name, but the Turks have their own name for the quarter, Beyoglu or “Son of a Bey”.  The identity of the titular son of a Bey is unknown but was likely a Venetian diplomat in the 1500s. Although most of Pera’s inhabitants use its traditional name, the Turks exclusive refer to the quarter as Beyoglu.

Since the early 1200s, the quarter has belonged to foreigners capitalizing on the city’s importance as a major trading port. Merchants from Italy gained a foothold in Pera during the reign of the Holy Roman Empire. They gained prestige and power until Pera officially became a Genoese colony. After fleeing the quarter following the invading Ottoman army’s victory in 1453, the Genoese quickly returned and commenced their lucrative trade with the Turks, although they lost their former self-governance. After the King of France and Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent commenced political relations between their governments, Pera gained a French population which now overshadows the quarter’s Italian community in influence if not number. Pera’s French and Italian communities exclusively follow the Roman Aluminat religion. Their patronage ensures the survival of the quarter’s monasteries and churches in the heart of the Ottoman Empire. The wealthiest Levantines, Greeks, French, Italians, Armenians, Austrians and English live in close community. Due to the proximity of Sultan Abdulmejid’s new palace in Beshiktash, a few highly placed officials of the Ottoman government also reside in Pera.

City of Countless Names- A Mosque and a Church

Today we are shaking things up just a little bit. Before we move on to the very important and exciting quarter of Pera, here is a mosque in Orta Keui and a church in Galata worth a closer look.

The Orta Keui Mosque

Just west of where the stream dividing Orta Keui flows into the Bopserous, the most notable Turks of the village gather for worship at the newly rebuilt Orta Keui Mosque. Much like the yalis up stream, the mosque sits close to the water on a patch of land jutting into the Bosporus. Close to the piers, it’s the first glimpse of Constantinople's beauty seen by many travelers from the north.

In 1853, the Sultan ordered the mosque’s construction and tasked the same architects responsible for his waterside palace in Beshiktash to design a stately and modern mosque. They created a mosque in the baroque style, with a single wide dome, and two towering minarets. Carvings and reliefs cover its beautiful white-stone walls. Beneath the dome, the main chamber’s interior is equally beautiful with brightly colored mosaics and light reflecting from the Bosporus shining through the large, high windows. The Sultan himself, made the calligraphic panels hanging inside. North of the chamber two smaller two-story buildings hold the mosques other facilities giving the mosque complex a “U” shape. These buildings also posses living accommodations for the sultan.

This is not the first mosque to grace that spot on the shore. The previously occupying mosque was destroyed in 1730 during an uprising of Albanian Jannisaries which dethroned Sultan Ahmed III.

The mosque’s current Imam is rumored to heal the gravest of injuries with a wave of his hands.

The Church of Saint Benoit

West of Galata Tower, just outside of Tophane, the oldest Roman Aluminat church in Constantinople serves as the cultural and religious center of the city’s French inhabitants. In 1427, Benedictine friars founded a monastery over the ruins of an ancient church. They dedicated their work to St. Benedict (or in French Benoit), the patron saint of cave exploration, protection from witchcraft, and Europe.

After the Ottoman conquest of Constantinople twenty-six years later, Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent desired to convert the church into a mosque, but the King of France interceded and made Saint Benoit the official chapel for the French Embassy in Constantinople. Although Turkish law bars burials in churches, Saint Benoit’s vault has special permission from the Grand Mufti to allow internments. Over the years, the most important French aristocrats in Constantinople have been entombed within the church.

Besides its venerable age, the Church of Saint Benoit carries a great deal of political significance because of its mention in the declaration used by Russia as an excuse to invade the Crimean peninsula. When the Sultan declared France the legal protector of all Aluminat subjects in the Ottoman Empire, the proclamation named France as “Protectress of the Catholic Church of St. Benedict at Galata, and of all Christian establishments in the Sultan's dominions.”  Because of its mention by name, the Church of Saint Benoit is a symbol of French influence in the Ottoman government.  The church also serves as a hostpial, a well respected boy’s school, and the center for all Roman Aluminat mission work in Asia.

Saint Benoit is a medieval complex of brick and stone buildings tightly confined the surrounding city. The church suffered destruction from fires in 1610, 1660 (not burned but plundered in the chaos), 1686, 1696, and 1731. This damage, along with the poor stewardship of its custodians over the centuries, made the church a patchwork of rebuilt Gothic masonry and modern plaster. Some of the repairs and additions incorporate rubble from the Byzantine ruin that once occupied the land. The church’s foundation is terraced (meaning one side is lower than the other), possibly because of the ancient disused Byzantine cistern somewhere below.

Because the Roman Aluminat faithful of Pera-Galata gather weekly at the Church of Saint Benoit, the French intelligence services often use the church for covert meetings and exchanges.

City of Countless Names- Orta Keui p2

Yalis

Before the late 1600s, only fishing villages and distant monasteries existed on the beautiful shores of the Bosporus.  Once the Ottomans noticed the natural beauty, every minister of state, pasha, and dignitary coveted a luxurious home at the water’s edge.  In Orta Keui and along the shore further upstream, the extended Imperial Family and other Ottoman elite built stately waterside mansions called Yalis, from the greek “yialí” meaning beach.

The style of each yali varies by the time it was built and the luxury its owner could afford, but all remain excellent examples of Ottoman architecture. Most yalis are made of wood with wings flowing out of the main hall on either side, often a seraglio wing for the women and selamlik wing for the men of the household. Large windows open up every external wall to magnificent views of the Bosporus. Elaborate molding and intricate arabesques painted on the ceiling ensure a yali’s luxurious appointment inside matches its exterior. Rooms extend outward from upper floors over the water, allowing their natural cooling by sea breezes. Small outlying buildings, such as boathouses, kitchens, and laundries take care of the household's practical concerns.

The color of paint on a yali’s exterior declares it’s owners place in Ottoman society. A yali painted in white, yellow, or other bright colors belongs to a devoted Nithamiyeen.  Members of the Turkish government were privileged by law to paint their yalis red-hued colors, such as rose or burgundy. Foreigners, such as Aluminates or Jews, must paint their yalis grey.

As the Ottoman economy rises and falls,  the ownership of these mansions change. A yali might remain the property of one great family for centuries, only to be bought by a newly enriched pasha or a foreign diplomat.

Notable Yalis along the Bopserous include:

-Esme Sultan, the Aunt of Sultan Abdulmejid lived in a beautiful Yali just northwest of Orta Keui. until her death in 1848. Her home was brightly decored with great brass doors and painted yellow.  While she lived, musicians played all hours of the day in her yali, their sound carried across the water. Boats filled with passengers from all nations and levels of society clogged up the Bosperous for the nightly concerts. Faint music can still be heard on quiet evenings from the water.

Her widowed brother-in-law the Kapitan-I Derya in charge of the Ottoman navy, Damat Gürcü Halil Rifat Pasha, still lives in the yali next door.

-Much further up the Bosporus, on the Asian shore, lives the influential diplomat and recently dismissed Grand Vizier, Mustafa Resid Pasha.  His yali overshadows most others with its size and stately neoclassical grace. The pasha bought the yali from Kani Bey, the sultans coffee supplier, and furnished his home with every possible amenity. A boathouse on the bank holds the pasha’s caiques to take him quickly into Constantinople. Inside, floral decor mixes with gold leaf and gilded ornamentation interspersed with the blue light of the Bopserous pouring through windows. The Turkish women are not allowed to swim in public, so the women of the Pasha’s seraglio swim in a large indoor swimming pool built of marble.

A holy spring flows in the garden, a remainder of the ruins from a Byzantine monastery under the yali’s foundation.

- Four miles from Orta Keui, Yilanli Yali rises up from the steeply sloping banks of Bebek.  It’s construction dates back to the late 1700s, but it’s beautiful reddish-brown wood and stone exterior and lush sloped gardens still catches the eye.

Its unusual name means “snake yali” from a humorous anecdote about Sultan Abdulmejid’s father, Sultan Mahmud II. While boating up the Bosporus, Sultan Mahmud noticed the beautiful yali and told a nearby adviser he wished to buy it, but the advisor to which he spoke desired the yali as well. Knowing his sultan’s fear of snakes, the advisor claimed the rocks of the cliff under the beautiful yali was infested with the reptiles and they frequently entered the mansion. Thus discouraged, the sultan lost interest in the property and his advisor bought the yali.