City of Countless Names- Tophane p2

Tophane-i Amire

Across the fountain square a short distance from the Bosporus shore, near the foot of Pera’s hill, Turkish craftsmen labor furiously in the foundry which earns Tophane its name. Operational, since 1455, the Tophane-i Amire (meaning Imperial Gun House) produces the cannons desperately needed by the Turkish military. Once their artillery struck fear into nearby nations, but their technology failed to advance alongside European industry. Ottoman gunsmiths still make their cannons of brass which distorts with repeated firing, though it is simple to recast.

A complex of low domes and turrets cover the foundry’s roof and allow heat to escape from the blazing works below. Within its high walls, only columns and arches divide its vast open interior, but the industrial machinery needed to mass manufacture cannons, gun-carriages, small arms, and ammunition leave mere walkways between workshop to workshop across the length of the building. Fresh air breezes through broad latticed windows high over the gunsmith’s heads slightly dispersing the smell of cooling brass and gunpowder. Open pits, channels for molten metal, and water cisterns in the floor force visitors to watch their step.

The sultan recently provided Tophane-i Amire with rows of the latest British industrial equipment for the smelting, casting, boring, and stamping of weaponry curtsey of Maudsley, and Nasmyth of Manchester. Despite the craftsmen’s quick proficiency with these machines, the foundry cannot possibly match the needs of the Ottoman military, but there is hope that far older technologies may help turn the tide. Certain massive guns cast in the 1400s were used to great effect against the British Navy as recently as 1807. Now, Turkish gunsmiths and mages hope to reinvigorate the old bombards for use against the Russians in the Crimea.

The ground under Tophane-i Amire once held temples of worship for two Greek goddesses: Artemis, the virginal deity of the hunt, wild beasts, and the moon, and Aphrodite, the less virginal deity of beauty, love, and sex. Strange indeed, that a goddess armed with a bow, and another whose son, Eros, was similarly armed, were once worshiped at a place now devoted to firearms.

The Docks of Tophane

The rotten wood of Tophane’s crumbling docks, entire sections of which have fallen into the waters of the Bosporus without replacement, disillusion most first-time travelers to Constantinople. Gaps between planks and mold lined holes catch the legs of the unwary, and a broken leg might be more favorable to some than a plunge into the discolored waste-filled waters.

A constant flotilla of sixty to seventy clean and brightly painted caiques float in the filthy muck around the dock awaiting fares to Skutari, Stambul, or other sights up the Bosporus and the Golden Horn. Their caiquejees fight for fares by shouting and making violent motions to approaching travelers. When business is slow, twenty or more caiquejees may accost a customer at a time, often frightening away uninitiated travelers.

Boatwrights skillfully practice their craft in the small boatyards along the docks, manufacturing oars and caiques just as their fathers and forefathers taught them. Although their trade and techniques are ancient, and their tools primitive, their methods are perfectly adapted through the centuries for life in the Bosporus.

Skullduggery in the Smoke’s 200thPost! – A Congratulatory Explanation!

Hold your applause to the end of the post, please.

We reached another milestone today and it’s a big one. When my sister told me to start a blog because I wasn’t doing anything else three years ago, I didn’t think I could. I tested the waters slowly, every month I posted a one-thousand word article to the recently deceased Cubicle7 forums about Victoriana. After a few months I realized I wasn’t running out of words to write, and better yet some people were reading what I had to say. That lead to this blog, and yes, I know “Skullduggery” is misspelled. However, I did not know that when I named it.
So thanks to my wonderful sister’s encouragement, I am in the middle of the largest undertaking I have ever undertaken. Last year about this time, I started a short (I thought) series of posts describing Constantinople as a setting for Victoriana. I discovered a rich incredible city built on layer after layer of religion, full of ethnic tensions, in a period of incredible transition. I dug deep into period memoirs, travelogues, and city guides, assembled maps, and illustrations, and found far too many names for absolutely every location. This became “City of a Thousand Names” (which can be found here).
Now with the introduction to Constantinople finished (for now), I am nearing the completion of part two. The plan is to polish, rewrite, and expand these blog posts into another complete and illustrated PDF called “North of the Golden Horn”. This is the second section of City of Countless Names detailing Pera-Galata for Victoriana campaigns. After that is released, I’m going to go back over the City of Countless Names PDF and fix some errors and add more historical background I’ve found since its release.

After all that, it’s time for something completely different. I’ve been writing about Constantinople for about a year now. I am as interested in the city’s history and bringing it to you as ever, but I’m going to stop for a while. As a monolingual American, I found plenty of sources for the sections of Constantinople commonly traveled by Europeans, but there are tons of pertinent stories and perspectives I need to access before I can confidently wade into Stambul and start writing. Until resources from the Turkish, Greek, Armenian, and Jewish residents of 1850’s Constantinople come into view, I can’t continue this project.
 There is a lot more to say about Constantinople, and we will get there eventually, but it’s a natural time to take a break and return to the British Empire. The world of Victoriana is endlessly rich and fascinating and I plan to write 200 posts more.

Okay, applaud now.

City of Countless Names- Tophane p1

Moving south to the shore of the Bosporus, we finally reach the last quarter of Constantinople North of the Golden Horn, the industrial dockside quarter of Tophane.

 Tophane (Arsenal, Top-Khaneh Metopon)

Every traveler carried by ship to Constantinople takes their first step into the city at the chaotic quarter of Tophane. The beautiful, exotic metropolis glimpsed from offshore vanishes replaced by a filthy, industrial reality. A complex of piers in a state of disrepair meets muddy and indifferently-paved streets. Small wooden houses pushed close together around narrow alleys seem to invite the devastation of a city fire. Only a short distance from shore, the tightly clustered rookery briefly opens to the beautiful square containing Tophane Fountain bordered on the east by Nusretiye Mosque and on the north by the cannon foundry. In the background, the elegance of Pera rises up the slope.

The smallest neighborhood on the northern shore, Tophane grows east out of Galata and ends west of Findikli. This diminutive patch of turf was the Greek village of Metopon before the conquest of the Ottomans in 1453.  The Ottoman fleet began their circumnavigation of the Golden Horn’s defenses by portaging their fleet up the Tophane banks and across the Galata peninsula on wooden planks. Two years after his victory, Sultan Mehmed II here built Tophane’s cannon foundry to produce more of the guns which had proved so effective against Constantinople’s defenders. The surrounding village grew into the first industrial center along the Golden Horn, and gained its name meaning “Gun House”.

Waves of new arrivals eager to reach their lodgings, hamals stooped by their work, and donkey’s bearing heavy burdens pour through the streets. Most aquatic excursions leaving Pera-Galata for Scutari or the villages further up the Bosporus embark from Tophane’s docks, adding commuting tradesmen, foreign sightseers, and social-calling locals to the bustling crowds. Everywhere peddlers sell grapes and flat cakes to hungry passersby. Tophane holds a heterogeneous variety of peoples, most numerous are the working-class Greek and Armenians.

The Ottoman military seems omnipresent in Tophane. Along with the cannon foundry, waterside workshops produce deadly projectiles for the increasingly outdated Ottoman artillery. A shipyard at the docks produces ships for their navy. A large barracks accommodates the contingent of Turkish soldiers watching over the mouth of the Golden Horn. Now in war, the Turkish military and their European allies daily set off from the quarter’s docks as supplies and fresh troops arrive.

Commerce flourishes in Tophane. Every day workmen unload exotic new wares from foreign markets. Merchant’s offices make sure goods newly imported or due for export fill their warehouses and customs officials keep a keen eye on trade laws.  In the street, vendors sell wares the get “lost” on their way up the gangplank. Everything is for sale. Despite its banishment from the Ottoman Empire, a band of Circassian slavers still auction their fellow man in the hidden corners of Tophane. Smugglers bring their stock of human tragedy from the North African coast.

Despite the blue beauty of the Bosporus, industrial filth and waste from docked ships thicken the waters of Tophane. Mules carry loads of trash accumulated in Pera and other neighborhoods further up the hill down to Tophane’s docks to dump their disgusting burdens into the water. Horrible things often drift ashore.

City of Countless Names- Tatavla p2

We've reached our penultimate exploration of interesting locations in Pera-Galata. Next week begins our look at Tophane, the last quarter along the northern shore. For now, we root through two iconic locals of this Greek neighborhood.

The Church of St Demetrios

At the top of Tatavla’s hill, stands the center of Greek Aluminat worship in Pera-Galata, the massive Church of Saint Demetrios. Saint Demetrios may be the oldest church on the northern shore of the Golden Horn. The building began as a simple chapel dedicated to the oft exiled Saint Athanasius, and the Greek slaves working in the Golden Horn worshiped at the Church of Saint Demetrios in Kassim Pasha. When the freed Greek slaves left the shipyards in the late 1500s and settled in the hills of Tatavla, the Turks converted their abandoned church into a mosque. The Greeks placed their old church’s icon of Saint Demetrios into the chapel of Saint Athanasius, thus rededicating it to Saint Demetrios.

Saint Demetrios is quite a militaristic saint, as befits the patron saint of soldiers. The church’s icon is a large metal ba relief depicting the saint astride a rearing war horse skewing Kaloyan of Bulgaria with a spear. According to Greek Aluminat legends, St Demetrios appeared at the siege of Thessalonica over a thousand years after his death to kill the pagan king. One wonders how the Sultan feels about a church in Constantinople venerating the slaying of a heathen ruler.

In 1726, extensive renovations from the foundation upturned the humble chapel into the majestic basilica as it stands today, an enormous stone-block rectangle. A school, other church offices, and a high garden wall enclose the church. Congregants sit in 5 aisles of pews, with a domed ceiling supported by ebony pillars above the central aisle. Beautiful embellishments of wood and gold reflect the prosperity of Tatavla’s faithful.

St Demetrios has its own cemetery exclusively used by the deceased of Eastern Aluminat faith. Recently, one-hundred and sixty-three Russian prisoners of war died during a hard winter laboring on the docks of Kassim Pasha. The Greeks of Tatavla respectfully buried their brothers in faith in St Demetrios’ graveyard, casting no further doubt on their sympathies in the Crimean war.

Papaz’s Winehouse

The thirsty and hungry from all nations and religions in Pera-Galata convene in the southern end of Tatavla three times a day to dine and drink at Papaz’s Winehouse. The rickety walls are made of gaily painted boards like scenery on the theater stage. Crowds of laughing and loudly conversing Greeks sit on the short stools which serve as both tables and chairs. In the center, the proprietor, a portly deerfolk named Papaz Hieromachos, exists as a whirlwind of glasses and bottles.

Papaz serves thick muddy coffee in the Turkish style, terrible brandy, fine local wines, and strong raki, although the raki is always called “Angelica” due to raki’s illegality under Ottoman law. A small cup of raki or coffee and a large cup of wine or brandy all cost about 10 paras.

In the eating room away from the bar, diners feast at European style tables and chairs. The food is superior to that served in the hotels of Pera at a fourth of the cost. Six or seven piastres buys a filling meal and a good bottle of wine.

Papaz’s doe-eyed daughters serve his patrons, but his oldest, Afroditi is a real card sharp. Money daily changes hands through games of faro and billiards, but when Afroditi plays it all goes into her pocket.

Papaz’s opens his Winehouse at sunrise for clients looking for breakfast and he generally shuts his doors a few hours after sunset. The officers of the Zabtiye patrolling Tatavla all know Papaz. If his business occasionally stays open all night with a noisy party, Papaz simply pays a small “fine” to the officer on patrol, instead of a prison sentence or the bastinado as punishment for breaking curfew.